Sunday 31 March 2019

Fudge and Food for Thought



Dear Reader,

I am back reading about the Tudor Age.  What is it about the Tudor Age that is so compelling I wonder?  Perhaps it was because it was such an exciting time, never knowing, for instance, what
Henry VIII would do next.  About food this week:  apparently ordinary Englishmen ate well during the Tudor Age.  They lived on beef, mutton, capons and pigeons. They ate wheat bread and rye bread, butter, cheese, eggs and fish.  A Frenchman who came over to England in 1598 remarked that the English ate more meat and less bread than the French, and had better table manners.  He also noted that they put lots of sugar in their drinks, which he thought was the reason why so many Englishmen and women, including the Queen, had black teeth.   A good deal of honey was eaten and as English honey had a reputation for being particularly good, it was exported in large quantities to France and other countries.

The Englishman had a reputation throughout Europe for gluttony; it was said that overeating was the English vice, just as lust was the French Vice and drunkenness the German vice.

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Fudge and Food for Thought

In the night, captive,
I think of all the fudge I ate,
all the feelings of guilt I had
in my teens, my middle age, old age,
all the sadness at my weakness
my inability to resist temptation.

Tossing uneasily in my bed
I think would I be more comely
if I had resisted,
more desirable, prettier, more amusing,
would I have had a happier life
without fudge in it?

At dawn, I think, what the hell.
Now in my seventies, does it matter
what I ate to make me fatter?
Because now I am where I want to be
plump, happy, peaceful, and guilt free.

                                                                        *

With very best wishes, Patricia


1 comment:

  1. Delicious poem Patricia. Let's hear it for fudge! I love the stuff! Mxx

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