Tudor Appetizers: Entrées de Table from The Accomplisht Cook
Editor’s Note: As autumn turns to feast season, the next several posts on Give It Forth explore a different kind of Thanksgiving table — one inspired not by Pilgrims and pumpkins, but by the kitchens of Tudor and Stuart England. These 16th- and 17th-century dishes, drawn from sources like Robert May’s The Accomplisht Cook (1660), showcase the foods and flavors that would have graced a festive English winter board. Presented here in modern form, each recipe offers a way to bring history to an American Thanksgiving — blending Old World elegance with New World abundance.
Historical Note: The Tudors and Stuarts did not celebrate Thanksgiving as we do in America today. This series simply imagines how dishes from their winter feasts — roasts, “made dishes,” and spiced pies — might have found their way, in spirit and flavor, to the modern table. It’s a chance to explore the shared themes of gratitude, abundance, and seasonal celebration across centuries.
If the roast turkey is the great centerpiece of a holiday table, then the entrées de table are its graceful opening act. In the mid-seventeenth century, English cooks like Robert May borrowed the French idea of “made dishes” — elegant, composed plates of meats, vegetables, and fruits — and set them out as an entrance to the table: the first sight that greeted guests as they sat down to dine.
They are, in many ways, the ancestors of our modern appetizers: small, complex, carefully arranged dishes meant to delight the eye as much as the appetite.
“Another made Dish in the French Fashion”
Another made Dish in the French Fashion, called an Entre de Table, Entrance to the Table.
Take the bottoms of boil’d Artichocks, the yolks of hard Eggs, yong Chicken-peepers, or Pidgeon-peepers, finely trust, Sweetbreads of Veal, Lamb-stones, blanched, and put them in a Pipkin, with Cockstones, and combs, and knots of Eggs; then put to them some strong broth, white-wine, large Mace, Nutmeg, Pepper, Butter, Salt, and Marrow, and stew them softly together.
Then have Goosberries or Grapes perboil’d, or Barberries, and put to them some beaten Butter; and Potato’s, Skirrets or Sparagus boil’d, and put in beaten butter, and some boil’d Pistaches.
These being finely stewed, dish your fowls on fine carved sippets, and pour on your Sweet-Breads, Artichocks, and Sparagus on them, Grapes, and slic’t Lemon, and run all over with beaten butter, &c.
Somtimes for variety, you may put some boil’d Cabbidge, Lettice, Colliflowers, Balls of minced meat, or Sausages without skins, fryed Almonds, Calves Udder.
This is less a single recipe than a palette of ingredients: delicate pieces of poultry, artichokes, asparagus, grapes, potatoes, skirrets, pistachios, cabbage, and cauliflower — all gently stewed in white wine and butter, then arranged over carved sippets (toasted bread) and finished with lemon and more butter. It is sophisticated, seasonal, and abundantly flexible, just as a modern appetizer spread might be.
In early modern menu language, an entré(e) or entre de table was a “made dish” that entered the table with the first course. Rather than a single roast, it was a composed plate or platter: small pieces of meat, vegetables, and fruits layered together in a rich broth or sauce. These dishes sat between the great roasts and pies, offering variety and visual interest. They are close cousins to what we would now call appetizers or small plates.
Sweetbreads: The delicate thymus or pancreas of calf or lamb, prized for its tender texture. In modern kitchens, you can substitute small pieces of chicken thigh or breast for a similar feel.
Lamb-stones, cockstones & combs: Period terms for various small offal pieces and cockerel combs used as delicacies. For most modern cooks, diced chicken or turkey can stand in.
Knots of Eggs: Tiny curds or clusters made by stirring beaten egg into hot liquid, or small egg yolks poached together.
Pipkin: A small earthenware pot used for gentle stewing over coals.
Sippets: Thin slices or shapes of bread, toasted or fried, used to soak up sauces and form the base of a dish.
