At the 17th-century English table, dishes were not served in succession as in France: all the dishes of a single 'course' arrived together on the tablecloth, and the guests helped themselves. A dinner taken in the middle of the day consisted of a first course (soups, meats, pies) and a second course (more delicate roasts, tarts, dairy), followed by 'banqueting stuffs'—preserved sweets. In the home of a man of fragile health and sober tastes like Locke, excesses were cut back: little fatty meat, light porridges, and those new drinks—tea, barley water—which were as much remedy as pleasure.

Locke was trained in medicine at Christ Church and treated himself all his life according to his own prescriptions. His cuisine bears the mark of the physician-philosopher: nutmeg and mace are measured like a remedy, barley, milk and mild porridges are favored, and tea—an exotic new beverage—is adopted as much for its supposed virtues as for the fashion among the learned circles of London and Amsterdam.