Much Ado About Cooking: Delicious Shakespearean Feasts for Every Occasion 

For the Reader Who Wants to Dine Like It's 1599

Food is everywhere in Shakespeare — feasts, banquets, poisoned goblets, gingerbread, saffron buns — and it turns out a lot of it is genuinely delicious. Much Ado About Cooking brings the Bard's culinary world to your kitchen, with recipes drawn from The Globe's own archives alongside new dishes inspired by the plays and the Elizabethan era.

Think spiced beef, Georgian sweetmeats, trifles, tarts, and patties — all photographed beautifully and set alongside woodcut illustrations, quotes from the plays, and the kind of literary facts that make you feel very clever at dinner parties. Written by food historian Sam Bilton, this cookbook earns its place on both the kitchen shelf and the bookshelf.

Details

• Recipes from The Globe archives and new Shakespearean-inspired dishes
• Includes gingerbread, spiced beef, saffron buns, Georgian sweetmeats, trifles and more
• Food photography alongside woodcut illustrations and quotes from the plays
• By Sam Bilton, food historian, author, and broadcaster
• Hardback, published 2026

Perfect For

• The Shakespeare lover who also happens to be an excellent cook
• A gift for the reader who wants their dinner party to have a literary theme
• Anyone who has ever wondered what they actually ate in the Elizabethan era