Much Ado About Cooking

Hark, villains, I will grind your bones to dust,

And with your blood and it I’ll make a paste,

And of the paste a coffin I will rear,

And make two pasties of your shameful heads…'

Titus Andronicus, 5.2.190

From brutal feasts to gnawing hunger, food saturates Shakespeare’s plays, shaping comedy, conflict, character and desire. But what did people actually eat in Shakespeare’s England, and how does the language of food play into performance today?

Inspired by Much Ado About Cooking, the Globe Theatre cookbook by food historian Sam Bilton, renowned actor Simon Russell Beale joins Shakespeare scholar and food historian Sheila T. Cavanagh (Director, World Shakespeare Project), Will Tosh (Director of Education, Shakespeare’s Globe) and Sam Bilton to explore both the literal and symbolic roles of food in Shakespeare’s world. They delve into Elizabethan dining, kitchen culture, and the rich metaphors of hunger, excess and consumption that actors draw on to animate character and story.