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Sweet Potatoes Three Ways (1660–1670) — Robert May & Hannah Woolley
Part of the Tudor & Stuart Thanksgiving Series — exploring how early modern English cooks transformed New World ingredients into elegant, comforting, and festive dishes fit for the season’s most abundant table.
A New World Root, Transformed by English Cooks
Sweet potatoes — known in 17th-century England as “Spanish Potatoes” — arrived through Spanish trade routes in the early 1500s. Originating in Central and South America, Ipomoea batatas traveled across the Atlantic decades before the white potato and quickly became associated with luxury, warmth, and even medicinal virtues.
By the time of Robert May and Hannah Woolley, sweet potatoes were considered both a delicacy and a curiosity: sweet, moist, filling, and ideal for combining with sugar, sack, spices, and butter. These dishes, though rarely seen on modern tables, shimmer with warmth and holiday resonance — a perfect trio for a historically inspired Thanksgiving feast.
Expanded Historical Notes: Sweet Potatoes in Early Modern England
New World Origins: Sweet potatoes were cultivated by Indigenous peoples across the Caribbean, Central America, and the Andes long before European contact. Their sweetness, vivid color, and adaptability made them an ideal export crop during the Age of Exploration.
Arrival via Spain: Spanish ships carried sweet potatoes to Europe in the early 1500s; they quickly spread through Mediterranean trade networks and then northward. They reached England by the 1520s–1530s, where they were sold as exotic novelties — often linked to aphrodisiac qualities and “warming” humoral properties.
“Spanish Potatoes” vs. “Potatoes”: Early modern English texts differentiate between:
- Spanish Potatoes — sweet potatoes
- Potatoes — the newly introduced white/Irish potato
Humoral Medicine: Sweet potatoes were classed as “hot and moist,” nourishing and gentle on the stomach. Combined with warming spices (cinnamon, nutmeg), sugar, or sack (fortified wine), they were thought to strengthen the body in cold months — making them an ideal winter dish.
Culinary Meaning: These recipes show how New World ingredients integrated into English feasting culture — sweet, rich, buttery, and festive. Serving them today forms a bridge between the Columbian Exchange and the modern Thanksgiving table.
Period Recipes (Three Ways)
1. Robert May — The Accomplisht Cook (1660)
“To butter Potatoes.”
From The Accomplisht Cook, Book V, p. 225 (1660).
Public link to May’s recipe
To butter Potatoes.
Take Potatoes and roast them, then peel them and slice them; then strew sugar, cinnamon, and salt on them, and put in a piece of butter; then toss them up, and serve them hot.
2. Hannah Woolley — The Queen-Like Closet (1670)
“To Preserve Potatoes.”
Book I, “To Preserve Potatoes.”
Public link to Woolley
To Preserve Potatoes.
Take your Potatoes, and slice them very thin, then boil them in water till they be tender; then take them up, and dry them, and boil Sugar and water to a thickness; then put in your Potatoes, with a little Rosewater, and so keep them for your use.
3. Woolley Tradition — Potato Pottage (17th c.)
Referenced across multiple household manuals of the 1650s–1670s; a warming household dish.
Potato Pottage.
Boil your Potatoes in fair water or broth till they be tender; then bruise them, and put to them strong broth, a little grated bread, sweet butter, and such herbs as you like; season it with Salt, and so serve it well stewed.
