At the table of a 16th-century gentleman, meals were not served as starter-main-dessert: several 'services' were brought together and cleared at once. The first service gathered soups and boiled meats; the second, roasts (game, poultry) with spiced sauces; the 'issue de table' offered fruits, dry preserves, and dragées; and the 'boute-hors' closed the meal with a spiced wine drunk standing. In a Reformed noble household like Mornay's, the sobriety preached by Calvin tempered abundance, but the art of sauces and Oriental spices still signaled rank.

Bought at the weight of gold from the spicer, these powders coming through Venice and Lisbon were the mark of rank at the noble table. They seasoned sauces, wines, and preserves: their very fragrance proclaimed one was in the house of a man of quality.