Twelfth Night with the Tudors
Save the date for a conversation with author & culinary historian Brigitte Webster
Next crown a bowl full
With gentle lamb's wool :
Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,
With store of ale too ;
And thus ye must do
To make the wassail a swinger.Robert Herrick, excerpt from “Twelfth Night: Or, King and Queen”
Welcome, friends. I’m Kristin: a Pacific Northwest artist, mom, & farmer offering support for seasonal, local, liturgical living. Together, we’ll explore the agrarian heritage of the Church calendar and ideas of sacred time & sacred place.
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In our modern context, it can be a challenge to keep all twelve days of Christmas; by January 1st, much of our world has moved on. Years ago, when our family first started exploring the contours of Christmastide, we began by bookending the Christmas season: we celebrated Christmas Day and Twelfth Night. It was such a helpful & approachable way to begin pondering Christmas as a season.
Whether you’re dipping your toes into the idea of “keeping Christmastide” or have a bevy of familiar Christmastide traditions and habits already, looking back to historical celebrations of the season can provide so much fodder for inspiration.
And so…I’m absolutely delighted to announce that author & culinary historian Brigitte Webster will be joining us this Christmastide to discuss the Tudor celebration of Twelfth Night, and she’ll be sharing a recipe with us!
A note for you from Brigitte:
“Twelfth Night was the highlight of Christmastide celebrations in Tudor England. We shall take a closer look and explore what food was popular amongst certain social groups at this special event. We will also examine the evidence on what we know about ‘wassailing’ in Tudor England and I shall share a recipe on how to create this seasonal drink.”
Brigitte is the author of Eating With the Tudors: Food and Recipes (Pen & Sword Books, 2023). She’s a qualified teacher of home economics and history, making her the perfect 'accomplished' Tudor housewife in a modern world. As a competent and experienced cook with a deep passion for Tudor history she fully immersed herself in archaeological, experimental cookery which also motivated her to grow period vegetables, herbs and fruits to achieve the most authentic results. Brigitte has appeared on Prof Suzannah Lipscomb's TV series Walking Tudor England and is a regular contributor to the magazine Tudor Places. She also appears in popular history podcasts. In 2019 she was a guest speaker at the first TudorCon exposition in Pennsylvania. When she is not researching for her next book (A TUDOR GARDEN IN YOUR BACKYARD) or cooking, she is busy looking after a small Tudor Manor where you can follow her daily progress on Twitter @tudorfoodrecipe , Instagram @tudor_experience , FB: Tudor & 17th century Experience , or on her web site.
TWELFTH NIGHT WITH THE TUDORS
A conversation on Zoom with Brigitte Webster
Saturday, January 4, 2025
10 am PST
Our paid subscriber community is invited to join us for what will surely be a fascinating discussion with Brigitte. A Zoom link will be sent out a few days prior to the gathering, and it will be recorded in case you can’t attend live!
Brigitte is a warm and witty teacher, and both her book & her cooking videos have been so inspiring to me. I’m excited to gather with Brigitte and all of you lovely folks for an illuminating Christmastide discussion in the new year!
Pax et bonum,
Kristin
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This is so exciting! I’m REALLY going to try to make this one work. In the past, (after reading How to Be a Victorian) I’ve thought about trying to email Ruth Goodman and asking her what she practically brings from her historical study into her modern homemaking— sounds like Brigitte Webster would also be a perfect person to ask! That’s what I’m always wanting to learn: what are the things about modern life that I should be even more grateful for (For example, Ruth Goodman said she would never want to go back to Victorian laundry work) and what are the things from the past that actually are the well-trod paths making life richer and (even) simpler.
Well this is right up my alley! I’m not at all familiar with the Tudor time period but I am a lover of different time periods and we in fact celebrate in a Charles Dickens fashion with a Christmas Goose and a Twelfth Night party and tiny in between on all twelve days. Can’t wait to watch!