At the English table in Newton's time, meals were not served as starter-main-dessert in sequence. Instead, dishes were placed together in two 'courses'. The first course opened with pottage (the thick base-soup) accompanied by bread and meats; the second brought roasts, pies, and 'banketting stuff' — preserves, keeping fruits, and sweet-spiced entremets. The evening closed with a hot posset drunk with a spoon. Tea was taken separately, in the study, as a new and learned beverage.

Nutmeg (and its outer covering, mace) reigned over English cooking of the period: grated onto pottage, meats, and especially possets, it perfumed both savory and sweet dishes. Imported at great expense from the East Indies by trading companies, it was the affordable luxury that marked a dish as 'well made' in a Cambridge or London household.