One Nicholas Wood, of Harrison, in the county of Kent, yeoman, did eat
with ease a whole sheep of sixteen shillings price, and that raw, at one
meal. Another time he eat thirty dozen of pigeons. At sir William
Sedley’s he eat as much as would have sufficed thirty men. At lord
Wotton’s in Kent, he devoured in one meal eighty-four rabbits; another
time eighteen yards of black pudding, London measure. He once eat sixty
pounds of cherries, and said they were but wastemeat. He eat a whole
hog, and afterwards swallowed three peck of damsons: this was after
breakfast, at which he had taken a pottle of milk and pottage, with
bread, butter, and cheese.
“He eat in my presence,” saith Taylor, the water-poet, “six penny
wheaten loaves, three sixpenny veal-pies, one pound of fresh butter, one
good dish of thornback, and a sliver of a peck household loaf, an inch
thick, all within the space of an hour; the house yielding no more he
retired unsatisfied.”
One John Dale, at Lenham, laid him a wager, he could fill his belly for
him with good wholesome victuals for two shillings. He took this wager
and said, when he had finished the two shillings worth, he would eat up
a sirloin of beef. Dale, however, brought six pots of mighty ale and
twelve new penny white loaves, which he sopped therein, the powerful
fume whereof conquered this gluttonous conqueror, and laid him asleep
before he had finished his meal, whereby the roast beef was preserved
and the wager lost.
Wood spent all his estate in provender for his enormous stomach, and,
although a landed man and a true labourer, he died very poor in 1630.