The Merry Wives of Windsor
Falstaff the Fat Knight and Lovely Little Sweetmeats; the most beloved and comedic combination in Shakespeare’s theatre
About the Play
Apart from his history plays, The Merry Wives of Windsor is Shakespeare’s only play that was set in England during his time. It was first printed in the Quarto of 1602, but as the title page says, "it hath bene diuers times Acted by the right Honorable my Lord Chamberlaines seruants: Both before her Maiestie, and else-where", it is assumed to have been performed even earlier.
The play consists of two main plots: a comical story of Sir John Falstaff, the fat knight of gluttony and debauchery who attempts to seduce the wealthy wives of Windsor, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford; and a romantic but equally comical story about a daughter of the Pages, Anne, and her suitors.
Shakespeare’s audience immediately loved Falstaff when the character first appeared in the history play, K ing Henry IV, Part I. In the first part as well as its sequel, King Henry IV, Part II, the episodes of Prince Henry and Falstaff as his rascal companion enthralled the audience. Being a rebellious young man, the prince was truanting away with Falstaff and his rogue company in Eastcheap, a dodgy side of London. The Merry Wives of Windsor is a spin-off comedy of K ing Henry IV, in which Falstaff and his companions are placed in a more current setting of Shakespeare’s time.
Legend has it that Queen Elizabeth was so charmed by Falstaff in Henry IV that she commanded Shakespeare to continue the play portraying the fat knight in love. But in the spin-off comedy, Falstaff is rather keen on money than on love as he attempts to seduce rich wives into compromising positions.
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Eat Up Hot Venison Pasties and Drink Down All Unkindness!
The comedy begins with a furious speech by Robert Shallow, the Justice of the Peace of Gloucester. Shallow is determined to sue Sir John Falstaff, who had trespassed on his property, injured his keeper and killed his deer.
The modern reader might wonder why Shallow is adamant about punishing Falstaff for what seems like a petty indiscretion, but in Shakespeare’s time, not only stealing deer, but even aiding and abetting the thief was cause for serious punishment. Deer were such a valuable commodity that venison could not be commonly purchased at markets. It was only available by way of hunting, which meant that accessing and dining on venison was a privilege reserved for the wealthy owners of estates large enough to keep deer. Besides, hunting was an expensive sport as well. Dogs, horses, attendants and equipment maintenance were costly. Deer and venison, hence, were symbols of wealth and privilege. People of high society would use venison produced at their own estate to cement social relationships or as a token of favour. That is the case with Master Shallow in The M erry Wives of Windsor. He regales venison to Master Page, a wealthy Citizen in Windsor.
Later in the first scene, Shallow pays a visit to the Pages. Master Page welcomes Shallow and shows his gratitude for the venison. Shakespeare does not clarify the fact, but I assume the venison came from the deer killed by Falstaff, as Shallow confesses that the deer had not been killed in the proper way and that he wished he could give Page better venison.
PAGE. I am glad to see your worships well. I thank you for my venison, Master Shallow. SHALLOW. Master Page, I am glad to see you, much good do it your good heart. I wished your venison better, it was ill killed. (1.1.73-77 ）
At the Pages, Shallow finds that Falstaff has also been invited. An argument pursues between Falstaff and Shallow over the killed deer. Trying to urge them to stop fighting, Master Page offers drinks and
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venison pasties, which I assume, were cooked with the very venison regaled by Shallow. Master Page mentions: "Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome--Come, we have a hot venison pasty to dinner. Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness" (1.1.180-182).
Perusing through the venison pasty recipes of Shakespeare’s time, what interested me was that many of them were quite simple. The recipe in The Queen-like Closet, for example, requires only salt, pepper, butter, and claret wine other than venison and paste (pastry dough). The wine is poured through the pastry funnel while baking. According to the recipe, no other ingredient should be included "because it will make it look ill-favoured and black"; that is to say, simple as though the recipe may seem, there is a reason for that.
A proper Newe Booke of Cokerye shows a similar recipe with venison, called "To Bake VENESON", in which it also instructs to "Take nothynge but pepper and salte". It is a clear contrast to the typical recipes for pies, pasties and baked meats in Shakespeare’s time, for which various types of spices and dried fruits were generally used. Spices and dried fruits were expensive imported food, and these luxuries were used to showcase wealth and social status. Venison itself was a status symbol, so there really was no point in spoiling its colour and the taste with the strong flavours of spices and dried fruits.
I would like to believe that the venison pasties served at the Pages’ dining table were also prepared in the simple way as instructed in the recipe books of Shakespeare’s time. If properly prepared, the meat would become tender as it cooked slowly inside the crust, and the flavour of the venison would be maintained. Certainly, one bite of hot crusty pasty, with the flavour of succulent meat, could make anyone smile. As Master Page expected, Shallow must have been quite satisfied with the venison pasty, since the argument over the deer never comes up again for the rest of the play.
Valued Venison is the Key to Success in Business, and… Even in Marriage!
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There are some other recipes from Shakespeare’s time which confirm that venison was an extremely valued and luxurious food item. For example, The Good Housewife’s Jewel introduces how to make baked meats using filets of beef instead of venison. It says when beef is used, more salt and pepper should be added than when venison is used in order to, I assume, cover the taste and the flavour of beef. The Accomplisht Cook has a similar recipe called, "To bake Beef, red-Deer-fashion in Pies or Pasties", in which it mentions that "a very good judgement shall not know it from red Deer" when beef is cooked as instructed.
A more interesting recipe is found in The English Housewife, which shows the way "to recover the venison that is tainted". The recipe instructs to boil strong ale and wine vinegar with salt to make brine, and when it is cooled, put the venison in, and to leave it for twelve hours; then take the venison out of the brine, parboil it, and season it with pepper and salt and bake it in a pie case.
The Accomplishd Cook introduces another curious way to "preserve tainted Venison". It says, "Bury it in the ground in a clean cloth a whole night, and it will take away the corruption, savour, or stink." The result is quite doubtful from the modern point of view, but of course it was a time without refrigeration, and the recipe shows how important it was to prevent meat from spoiling.
By understanding that deer was a symbol of wealth and social status in Shakespeare’s time, one can realise why Shakespeare abruptly started the play with Shallow’s angry speech about his deer. At the very beginning of the play, Shallow proudly announces that he is an Esquire, a low rank of the gentry class. And then, relating to the episode of Falstaff killing his deer, the audience soon learns that Shallow has some power in local Gloucestershire because he owns an estate large enough to keep deer. And the important point is that his venison is given away as a gift to Master Page, who is a Citizen in a class below that of Shallow. Since it was generally understood that venison was used as an important tool to cement social relationships, Shakespeare’s audience must have clearly understood that Page was wealthy or successful enough for Shallow to regale his venison.
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In The Merry Wives of Windsor, there is another character who belongs to the gentry class: Sir John Falstaff. Falstaff was knighted, but now as a Crown pensioner, he is struggling to survive, even trying to dismiss his attendant who has played rogue with him on countless occasions. Falstaff is destitute; in fact, it could be the cause of his killing Shallow’s deer. Although motive was not mentioned in the play, he might have tried to poach deer to sell on the black market. Impoverished Falstaff now comes up with the idea to seduce Mistress Page and her friend, Mistress Ford, w ho are the wives of wealthy citizens of Windsor. He expects to gain their love as well as their money. It seems like a great idea for the amorous knight.
The opening episodes of Shallow’s venison being regaled to Page as well as Falstaff’s attempt to seduce the wealthy wives of Windsor indicate that wealth and financial success did not necessarily accompany social status during Shakespeare’s time. This social background is more explicitly portrayed in the story of Anne, Page’s daughter, and her suitors. Among Anne’s wooers, Slender (Shallow’s nephew) has gained the favour of her father, Master Page. Anne suspects this is because of Slender’s money. Slender, too, wishes to marry Anne for her dowry and inheritance. Mistress Page (Anne’s mother), on the other hand, wishes her daughter to marry the French doctor Caius, because he has both money and connections with the Court.
Anne is in love with a young gentleman called Fenton. But her father is against the idea of her marriage to Fenton, because his social status is too high and he is too sophisticated in his manner for the Pages. Moreover, Fenton is believed to be broke from his prodigal lifestyle with the Prince. Fenton himself admits that he approached Anne for her money at first. In short, money is prioritised over social status for the parents as well as the suitors.
A Series of Counterfeits Propels the Momentum
The Accomlisht Cook introduces some more interesting recipes on venison, or more accurately, the recipes to "counterfeit" venison. The first
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recipe, titled "Other meer Sauces to counterfeit Beef, or Mutton to give it a Venison colour", instructs to parboil the meat in beer and vinegar and steep it overnight, put in some turnsole [a kind of herb used as a purple or deep red colorant] to colour it, and then bake it. It says, once again, "A good judgement shall not discern it from red or fallow deer." Another way is to colour the meat in the blood of sheep, lamb or pig.
The title of the recipes may sound a little dodgy for the modern reader because of the word "counterfeit". But Robert May, the author of the book, was a famed chef at that time, so there must have been a demand for faux venison among the middle class for whom his recipes were intended. They must have wished to emulate the nobles' tables with fake venison dishes, as the real one was not available at markets. Or, some of them might have even served fake venison at business dinners in an effort to imply that the venison was regaled from their connections with the gentry or nobility.
"Counterfeit" or "fake" is, in fact, the essential theme which runs throughout the play. Provided that Shakespeare’s audience was able to associate deer or venison with the word "counterfeit", one could assume that Shakespeare had another purpose to rather abruptly mention deer and venison at the beginning of the play.
Having received Falstaff’s love letters with the exact same words, both Mistress Page and Mistress Ford decide to punish him. Mistress Ford "counterfeits" her interest in having an affair with him and invites Falstaff to her house when Master Ford, her husband, is away. Master Ford, however, suspecting that his wife is deceiving him, approaches Falstaff with a false identity to gain information about the secret meeting with his wife. And when Falstaff visits the Fords with amorous expectations, the husband suddenly comes home. Mistress Ford and Mistress Page quickly hide Falstaff in the dirty linen basket and give him a narrow escape. The basket is immediately carried away by the servants who are instructed by their mistresses to empty it in the muddy ditch.
Although he nearly drowns in the muddy water, Falstaff does not learn his lesson and happily agrees to meet Mistress Ford when she invites him once again. This time, too, her jealous husband suddenly appears. But
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Mistress Ford quickly disguises Falstaff as her maid’s aunt, a fat old woman whom Master Ford abhors. Not noticing Falstaff in disguise, the husband beats the old woman away with his stick.
Finally, the wives confide in their husbands with the truth about the fake affairs and their intent to punish Falstaff as the plot enters the final stage. They are planning to ask Falstaff to come to Windsor Forest disguised as Herne, the hunter who was once a keeper of Windsor Forest. Herne is believed to wear huge horns on his head, still haunting the forest around midnight. When Falstaff comes to the forest as Herne, the plan is for Anne and the children in Windsor to disguise themselves as goblins and fairies and to attack him.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, furthermore, Master and Mistress Page secretly plan to marry their daughter with their own favourite suitor. Master Page tells Slender to steal away Anne, who will be dressed in the white costume of the fairy queen. Mistress Page, however, has secretly changed the daughter’s costume to green, and tells her to slip away with Doctor Caius.
Keeping his appointment with Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, Falstaff turns up at the forest as Herne. With buck horns on his head, he feels more like a stag than a hunter, identifying himself with one of the Ovidian gods who, in lust, transformed into a beast to steal away human maids. Suddenly, his lascivious fantasy is interrupted when the children disguised as fairies surround him and start pinching him. In the midst of the confusion, Slender takes away the fairy in white, and Caius slips away with a child dressed in Anne's green costume. Anne, however, having pretended to obey their parents, sneaks away with Fenton to marry him.
As we have seen above, opening the comedy with the episode of venison, the meat associated with counterfeit, Shakespeare develops the main plot of fake affairs, which he spices up with subsidiary episodes of even more fakes, counterfeits and disguises. Then he cleverly interweaves the plot with another plot of Anne and her suitors, and concludes both plots with, once again, a series of counterfeits and disguises in the final scene.
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Culminating the Comedy with…Sweetmeats Falling from the Sky!
While Shakespeare opened the play with strong symbolism using deer and venison to weave the story’s background, he also used food as an effective device to accelerate the comedy towards the end of the play.
In the final scene, Falstaff comes to Windsor Forest at midnight to meet with the Windsor wives. Seeing both Mistress Ford and Mistress Page turn up together, Falstaff’s excitement is peaked, and he cries to the sky with lustful expectation: "Let the sky rain potatoes, let it thunder to the tune of 'Greensleeves', hail kissing-comfits, and snow eringoes" (5.5.18-20). Let me elaborate on the sweets mentioned here.
"Potatoes" refer specifically to sweet potatoes, not the more common white or yellow ones. Sweet potatoes were introduced to England during the reign of Henry VIII (early 1500s), while potatoes came along during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (late 1500s). Although some historians have pointed out that both types of potato were valued as delicacies, sweet potatoes were more likely to be found on the tables of the wealthy around the time Shakespeare wrote the play. Not suitable to grow in English soil, sweet potatoes were imported from Spain and enjoyed especially as sweetmeats.
The Queen-like Closet, for example, has a gorgeous sweet potato tart recipe using costly imported ingredients such as spices, dried dates, and candied lemon and orange peels. The cookery book also introduces a couple of other sweetmeat recipes with sweet potatoes. The first recipe is titled, "To make Bisket of Potato-Roots or Parsneps". Sugar and gum dragon (gum tragacanth) steeped in rose water overnight are added to a sweet potato paste, to "make them up in what shape you please". Another one is a recipe for candied sweet potatoes. In this recipe, sweet potatoes are boiled, sliced and slit to braid or twist before they are candied with sugar syrup.
In the phrase, "let the sky rain potatoes", I believe Shakespeare meant to create the imagery of pretty-shaped tiny sweetmeats of sweet potatoes falling from the sky. Falstaff also mentions "snow eryngoes'' in his
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speech. The candied sweet potato in The Queen-like Closet is actually from the recipe titled "To Candy Eryngo Roots'', and sweet potato is shown as an alternative ingredient to eryngo (sea holly or eryngium). In Shakespeare’s time, candied eryngoes were more popular than candied sweet potatoes. As Falstaff mentions, eryngo roots candied with sugar look like branches covered with white snow.
Falstaff continues to exclaim to the sky, "hail kissing comfits". Comfits were a kind of sweetmeats of nuts, spices or fruits coated with sugar. In Shakespeare’s time, sugar was believed to aid digestion, and comfits were eaten after the meal. Kissing comfits were made of scented sugar paste, and as the name indicates, they were eaten to freshen the breath after dinner, like mint tablets in our time.
The recipe for kissing comfits, "To make Muskedines called Rising Comfits or Vissing Comfits", is introduced in Robert May’s The Accomplisht Cook. According to May’s recipe, they are made of sugar paste, which is basically gum dragon steeped in rose water and kneaded with sugar perfumed with civet, musk, ambergris, and powdered orris root. The sugar paste is shaped into lozenges, then dried in a warm oven or stove.
Cough drops are sometimes called lozenges even now, and the name is said to have originated from their shape. To confirm this, May’s lozenge-shaped comfits contained orris powder, which is considered to ease coughing or a sore throat. Orris powder is also believed to aid digestion and refresh the breath, and May’s kissing comfits certainly were suitable to partake after dinner.
The Queen-like Closet has a similar recipe titled as "To make perfumed Lozenges", in which coriander seeds--another spice to aid digestion and refresh the breath--are indicated as an additional ingredient. It also suggests that a coriander seed could be put in the centre of a small ball like a sugar plum. It should also be noted that orris powder, musk and ambergris have been used as aphrodisiacs since ancient times. Innocent as it may sound, "kissing comfit" is actually quite a bold name with sexual connotations.
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Unfortunately, it is a challenge to recreate the exact flavour and the beneficial effects of kissing comfits today since musk, civet and ambergris can no longer be easily found on the market. When small amounts of these animal-based scents are added to other fragrances, they improve and enhance the perfume. Today, some of them have been replaced by synthetic substitutes not suitable as food additives.
Orris powder, on the other hand, is still available on the market. The scent is often likened to that of violets, and it is also expected to work as an agent to prolong the scent of other fragrances. Rose water, also a main ingredient for kissing comfits, is one of the most essential cooking ingredients in Shakespeare’s time because of its sweet fragrance. It was used in almost all foods. Damask rose, orris powder, civet and ambergris were also said to have been used to perfume delicate and expensive clothes worn by nobles. The scent of kissing comfits would certainly have attracted noble gentlemen and ladies to each other back then.
In Shakespeare’s time, root vegetables such as eryngoes and sweet potatoes were also believed to be aphrodisiacs. Watching amorous Falstaff exclaiming to the sky, Shakespeare’s audience would have been sympathetic to their favourite character as they knew what awaited him next. But at the same time, I am sure they could not help but burst into laughter, as they also understood what sweet potatoes, eryngoes and kissing comfits connoted.
Furthermore, the fat knight and the pretty sweetmeats must have been the most mismatched and humorous combination for Shakespeare’s audience to visualise. The comedy would have climaxed with the audience breaking into laughter when Falstaff with buck horns on his head exclaimed the names of pretty but aphrodisiac foods to the sky. And from that moment, the spirited stage and the excited audience would have created a synergy to propel the comedy’s theatrical energy to the very end of the play.
ON THE SIDE
Shallow’s Kickshaws in K ing Henry Ⅳ:
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with the Pride of a Country Gentleman
In the M erry Wives of Windsor, Justice Shallow regales venison to Master Page, a wealthy citizen of Windsor, to cement their relationship. In P art Two of K ing Henry Ⅳ too, Shallow entertains John Falstaff with a hearty feast, expecting Sir John to act as liaison to Prince Hal and his court. What Shallow does not know, unfortunately, is that Hal keeps company with Falstaff and his rogue companions for political gain. Hal had a calculating plan to behave in the manner of an immature and irresponsible prince, who would then turn over a new leaf once he became king so that the people would embrace him with greater joy. As expected, Hal mercilessly rejects Falstaff when he comes to the throne at the end of P art Two. Regrettably, all of Shallow’s efforts thus result in vain, but it would be interesting to have a look at the food he served to please Falstaff.
Shallow orders his cook to prepare "some pigeons...a couple of short-legged hens, and a joint of mutton and any pretty little tiny kickshaws" (5.1.24-26). "Kickshaw'' is an anglicized word which originated from the French quelque chose, which merely means something. Cookery books of Shakespeare’s England introduced quite a few recipes for dainties called quelque chose or kickshaws. The English Housewife defines the dish as a mixture of many things, and introduces the recipe to make a sort of omelet with dried fruits, spices, and finely chopped meat and leaf vegetables.
The Accomplisht Cook introduces three different recipes, one of which is titled "EGGS or Quelque shose". The recipe instructs to place chopped leaf vegetables, hard boiled eggs and currants on thinly fried omelets, roll them up and finish with butter icing. Modern readers might wonder whether the dish is savory or sweet because of the unusual combination of an omelet with icing. In fact, the sweetness of dried fruits and icing is surprisingly well-balanced with eggs and vegetables, and makes for a tasty dish even the modern palate can appreciate. On the other hand, two other recipes introduced in The Accomplisht Cook are something more familiar to us today. "Quelque shose otherways" shows the way to mix eggs, breadcrumbs, cream and sugar, and to fry this mixture to make little pancakes, while "Other Fricase or Quelque shose" is a sort of apple
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fritter with sliced apples, eggs, cream, spices and sugar. Unlike the English Housewife, The Accomplisht Cook seems to clearly distinguish quelque shoes from omelets, as the book has a section dedicated only to omelets in "To Make Omelets diverse Ways", where twenty-one omelet recipes are introduced.
In The Queen-like Closet, there is a recipe called "To Make Kickshaws, to bake or fry in what shape you please". The recipe is quite distinct in its use of puff pastry to enclose a mixture of preserved apples, berries, curd, marrow, sweetbreads, veal kidneys or lamb’s stones. What results in something similar to a savory pie is wholly dipped in beaten egg yolks to be fried or baked. A New Book of Cookerie (1615) has a similar recipe, "To make some Kickshawes in Paste, to Frye or Bake, in what forme you please", in which the pippins (apples) are cut up and enclosed in a thin pastry and fried or baked.
After the feast in Act 5, Scene 3, Shallow shows Falstaff the orchard where he grows pippins. He then serves his pippins and caraways in the arbour to accompany wine and merry conversation after the meal. But I am sure Shallow’s pippins were also used for the kickshaws to embellish his feasting table. S hallow might have been a country gentleman, but his pride as esquire and ambition as Justice of the Peace are both reflected in the type of delicacies he served to entertain Falstaff.
Recipes
The recipes introduced below are based on those from Shakespeare’s time. I have personally tested each one with readily available ingredients using today's modern cooking facilities.
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Kissing Comfits and Sweetmeats in Falstaff’s Fantasy
Kissing Comfits to Garnish Sweet Potato Pie
Kissing Comfits to Seduce Merry Wives for about 20 pieces of small lozenges
Ingredients 1 tsp gum tragacanth powder * about 5 tsp rose water
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90 to 100 g icing sugar coriander seeds *If gum tragacanth is difficult to find, substitute sugar paste or sugar gum. Follow the product instructions for the amount of water.
Directions Steep the gum tragacanth powder in rose water until it becomes gummy. Add icing sugar little by little and knead to form a stiff paste. Add ground coriander seeds. Roll out the paste and cut out small lozenges using a knife or cookie cutter to cut out the preferred shape. Alternately, put a coriander seed in the centre to make a sugar plum. Colour the comfits as desired using food colorants such as berries for pink, saffron for yellow, spinach for green. Leave the comfits to dry completely. Be sure to wrap the paste in cling film and store in a plastic bag at all times to prevent it from drying out.
Fried and Baked Kickshaws
Kickshaws Using the Apples from Shallow’s Orchard for 6 small to medium kickshaws
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Ingredients For puff pastry: 300g flour 1 egg 120g butter, cut into small pieces 1/3 tsp salt 1 to 3 Tbsp cold water
For the filling: 2 medium-sized apples sugar rose water (or lemon juice) ground cinnamon ground ginger
2 egg yolks icing sugar
Directions To make puff pastry dough, sift together the flour and salt in a bowl and mix in the egg. Use 60g of the butter to cut into the flour. Add cold water a little at a time and work the flour to make a stiff dough. Roll out the pastry dough on a floured surface. Put some of the slices of butter on half of the pastry dough and fold it over. Roll out the pastry dough again, put some more slices of butter on it and fold it once again. Repeat this several times to work all the butter into the dough. Wrap the dough with cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes. To make the apple mixture as filling,* cut the apples into small pieces. Add a sprinkling of ground cinnamon and ginger, some sugar and a little rose water. Mix well and cook slowly over medium heat until the apples are tender. Leave it to cool. Divide the pastry dough into six parts. Take one part and roll it out to the desired size. Put the cooked apple mixture on one side, fold the pastry dough over the mixture and close it by firmly pressing the pastry dough together to seal the edges. Use a dab of water to help the dough stick together. Dip the whole kickshaw in the beaten egg yolks and fry it in a pan with butter** until the crust is crisp and golden. Strew icing sugar before
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serving. Repeat with the remaining five parts of pastry dough and apple mixture.
* For variation, add cottage cheese, small berries, currants or raisins. Berries should first be cooked with sugar like the apples.
**A lternatively, omit the egg yolk and bake the kickshaws in a preheated oven (180 ℃) for 15 to 20 minutes until the crust is crisp and golden.
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