A Meal for King Henry

Cue (NZERS), Issue 13, 15 December 1944, Page 20

A Meal for King Henry

DINNER with King Henry VIII at Enfield Palace in July, 1541: The King ate enormously, stuffing the meat into his little mouth with his knife. As he munched, the meat and vegetables popping from cheek to cheek, his eyes shone with happiness. He jabbed his knife, greasy as it was, into the saltcellar, blew his nose on his napkin, spat into the washing bowl —he was the King.

The meat was soaked with sauces of parsley, garlic, quince, pear, wine, there were great pastries, glittering with sugar, or hiding haunches of y® nis ® cooked to rags and powdered with ginger; there was veal boiled with sag and smeared with cinnamon, cloves and saffron, stiffened with eggs, buried under pastry dotted with dates. Then came dessert of perfumed truus and candied flowers— roses, primroses, and hawthorn. Men fell on* one knee to offer more things for that little mouth to bolt. Anything was thrown into it. The King grabbed from dish to dish, and w * food was on its way and he was forced to pause, he-would seize a hand raisins or almonds and fling them into his mouth. —Philip Lindsay, Here Comes the King.