Layered History

I’m afraid it is too easy to give these two explanations of each dish. The history of these dishes is as layered as a modern trifle and calls for some notes on their long history. Let’s go back to the Tudor period, when The Good Huswifes Jewell by Thomas Dawson, written in 1596, gives us the very first recipe for a trifle:

To make a Trifle.

Take a pinte of thicke Creame, and season it with Suger and Ginger, and Rosewater, so stirre it as you would then haue it, and make it luke warme in a dish on a Chafingdishe and coales, and after put it into a siluer peece or a bowle, and so serue it to the boorde.

Thomas Dawson, The Good Huswifes Jewell, 1596