A Veritable Factory Producing Tudor Food - Henry VIII's Kitchens
The Tudor kitchens at Hampton Court Palace are famous throughout the world for being those of King Henry VIII.
In fact they continued to be used as Royal Court kitchens for a further two hundred years, feeding the tables of Tudor, Stuart and Georgian monarchs and their many courtiers...
And for the last few years, they have been home to a fascinating research project run by 'Historia' food archaeologists who regularly bring the kitchens to life experimenting with traditional recipes, ingredients and cooking methods to prepare feasts fit for a king!
The Tudor kitchens at Hampton Court Palace are a living monument to 230 years of royal cooking and entertainment.
Why see them?
[img_assist|nid=975|title=|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=250|height=358]Built to feed the Court of Henry VIII, these kitchens were designed to feed at least 600 people twice a day. You can still see the largest kitchens of Tudor England at Hampton Court today and they are often still used to prepare Tudor meals.
About the Tudor kitchens:
The Hampton Court kitchens are a living monument to 230 years of royal cooking and entertainment. Between their construction in 1530 and the royal family’s last visit to the palace in 1737, the kitchens were a central part of palace life.
For many people today Hampton Court Palace is Henry VIII and Henry’s abiding reputation remains a ‘consumer of food and women’. But Henry’s vast kitchens in the palace were not for him.
They were built to feed the six hundred or so members of the court, entitled to eat at the palace twice a day. This was a vast operation, larger than any modern hotel and one that had to cope without modern conveniences.
The kitchens had a number of Master Cook’s, each with a team of Yeomen and Sergeants working for them. The mouths of the 1,200-odd members of Henry VIII’s court required an endless stream of dinners to be produced in the enormous kitchens of Hampton Court Palace.
The live cookery will take place on the following dates for 2011
- 30 April - 2 May
- 28-30 May
- 4-5 June
- 2-3 July
- 6-7 August
- 27-29 August
- 3-4 September
- 1-2 October
- 5-6 November
- 3-4 December
- 27 December - 1 January 2012