Definition of "cates"

I had rather live / With cheese and garlic in a windmill, far, / Than feed on cates and have him talk to me / In any summer house in Christendom.

a. 1597, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1, act 3, scene 1, lines 155–158

Hath any rival glutton got the start, / And beat him in his own luxurious art; / Bought cates for which Apicius could not pay, / Or drest old dainties in a newer way?

1764, Charles Churchill, The Times

I tempted his blood and his flesh, / Hid in roses my mesh, / Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth— / Still he kept to his filth!

1855, Robert Browning, “Instans Tyrannus”, in Men and Women, lines 19–22