We go to great lengths to ensure that our food and drink is as authentic to the period as possible - while naturally recognising the need for modern hygiene standards.
Food prepared in the kitchen is created from original 17th-century recipes, while other foods are as accurate as we can get in this day and age, when so many traditions have disappeared.
We particularly seek to show youngsters the way that food USED to look, with cheeses in the round, meat on the bone, and butter made in the kitchen or the dairy. Children brought up on processed foods may never have seen a mouldy rind on a cheese, and are fascinated - if disbelieving! In the centre of the table here can be seen a cheese from the Low Countries, with its red wax coating - unusual but not a rarity in our period.