Now I know what to wear to court

The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England
by Ian Mortimer

What a keen idea!  History told from the perspective of a time traveller from modern times, plunked back into Elizabethan England.  Like a time traveling Hitchhiker's--
    Here's what the Encyclopedia Galactica has this to say about alcohol. It says that alcohol is a colorless volatile liquid formed by the fermentation of sugars and also notes its intoxicating effect on certain carbon-based life forms.
    The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy also mentions alcohol. It says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.  (Also the effect of drinking one, where to get one, and how to make one yourself.)
    The Time Traveller's Guide says that if you drink a gallon of March beer you will not dare to stir from you stool but sit pinking with narrow eyes, as half-sleeping, until the fume of your adversary be digested.

I think he did a pretty good job of keeping up the perspective of a helpful friend traveller, although there were a couple of times when I got dragged down in detail and wanted to skip to the good stuff. But only a couple of times, and there was lots of good stuff. I learned the best place to eat--get invited to Sir Francis at Wollington and dine on two courses of meat, poultry, fish and more meat:
    First course
    Capons stewed in white broth
    A swan in sauce chaudron
    A pig roast
    A double rib of roast beef, with pepper-and-vinegar sauce

    Second course
    Peacock in wine and salt
    Two coneys in a mustard and sugar sauce
    Bustard in a galantine sauce
    A pasty of red deer

Don't look for vegetables, they're "noyful to man." The rich, and even the tradesman class, didn't waste chewing time on vegetables.  But eventually as trade with the newly settled countries to the west took off, carrots and potatoes crept into even the richest peoples' cuisine. Even salad was seen--on fast days.

I learned you can get clean by rubbing your body with clean linen and that when Queen Elizabeth took a bath every month whether she needed it or not, she wasn't being a slob--just a bathing fanatic. Baths were for sick people.

It was surprising to learn about the persecution of Catholics and other heretics, but that provides insight into why our founding fathers insisted on the separation of church and state. They remembered a time when the one and only true religion was backed not only by moral rectitude, but legal clout.  Modern-day protestants should look back to their origins when they try to push church functions into the realm of politics. How'd you like to pay a shilling fine for missing church on Sunday?  How'd you like it if the Southern Baptist Convention came into power and decided Methodists needed to join the other heretics in the torture chambers?