King Henry VIII's royal kitchens reopen for traditional roasts

(11 May 2018) LEADIN:
The fire still burns and the smell of roasting meats fills the air in the kitchens of King Henry VIII's royal palace at Hampton Court.
The newly refurbished historic kitchens are open once again to the public with live cookery demonstrations and new interactive electronic exhibitions.
STORYLINE:
This roaring fire burns whatever the weather.
It is one of the six original fireplaces that cooked the meat for King Henry VIII's great banquets.
Back in Tudor times over a ton of wood would be burned every single day to fuel the flames, or 1.75 million logs a year.
Great lumps of British beef still turn on the giant spits, just as the meat would have been roasted hundreds of years ago.
These days when we talk about roasting meat we are instead most likely baking it in an oven.
The traditional roasting process involves an intense heat source and a continual rotation to lock in all of the fats and juices which would otherwise escape.
Jeremiah O'Connor is playing the part of the kitchen hand today. In Tudor times it would have been a junior position and the hardest part of the work is withstanding the extreme heat of the fire.
He explains: "Well I am at the moment roasting a knuckle, or a flank of beef, in the way that it was roasted 500 years ago in this kitchen and this is the only surviving roasting kitchen, roasting fireplace, in the world, this is the only Tudor roasting fire that still roasts meat to this day."
The meat roasted today will be fed to Hampton Court's hungry security staff, presently they cannot serve it to visitors in the restaurant.
It's a hot day in May and even with just one of the original six fires burning the heat is intense.
Spare a thought then for O'Connor who is manning his post with nothing but a mug of small beer to cool him down.
He says: "The main skill is bearing the heat. On a day like today - it's quite hot today - and there's not a lot of air in the kitchen and it can get very hot, and you do tend to cook yourself as you sit here."
The kitchens have officially reopened for the busy summer season - which will include live demonstrations, lectures, and even a specially commissioned play.
Today the kitchens are packed with the public who are seeing how one of Henry VIII's favourite sweet treats marchpane (marzipan) was made.
Without matches, fires were lit with sparks - there isn't a lot of heat in the sparks as these members of the kitchen are demonstrating but it was enough to kindle a fire.
Zach Zvinis from Hampton Court Palace's historic kitchen staff is painting this marchpane in the colours of the Tudor rose, using cochineal.
The reason marchpane was associated with the Royal household is because its main ingredient was sugar - one of the most expensive commodities in the Tudor kitchen, making it the stuff of Kings.
"We live in an age where the whole world is addicted to sugar so we can buy it for next to nothing and we have to be told when it's not in our food, we have to be told when it's low sugar or sugar-free. But in those days it was very spectacular, if you had sugar in your food then it was: 'Wow!' It was a big wow factor," says Zvinis.
At its height of power, these kitchens once produced 1,000 meals a day,
The banquet hall was key to Tudor displays of wealth and power - and it needed a kitchen to match this ambition.
Richard Fitch is the live interpretations manager and he explains why it's so important to recreate the kitchens as closely to the original Tudor kitchens.
The kitchens now feature a series of new electronic installations which project Tudor recipes being cooked onto chopping boards.
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[@stavrospapadopoulos8925]

the best the most pretty kitchen who i saw in my life. especially the roasted room and the roasted fireplace

[@sablewright8053]

Love this. A trip back in time. ❤