Helewyse
de Birkestad.
MKA
Louise Smithson
Absolutely
not. Many medieval recipes call for the
use of spices such as cinnamon, ginger, pepper, cloves, nutmeg, that are not
used widely in modern cooking, especially not in meat dishes. However, there is good information from
household accounts of the day that the amount of spices used was not excessive
compared to the number of people being fed.
The spices were expensive and were often used sparingly to flavor or
scent a dish, not to overwhelm it.
There was no refrigeration in the middle ages so animals were taken to
town while alive, slaughtered there and sold within two days. The two day rule was mandated by law and a
butcher who sold rotten meat could expect to face stiff fines. Many of the upper classes maintained large
estates which gave them ready access to freshly killed meat.
There is a shred of truth in this myth. Forks were not invented until the 1500’s in
Italy, even then they really did not come into widespread use until the late 17th
century. So the guests at a feast ate
with knives, spoons and their fingers.
However, in high ranking society there were very strict rules of
etiquette governing eating. The ewerer
was a person whose task it was to carry a bowl and a pitcher of scented water,
he would approach each guest, pour water over their hands and give the guest a
towel to dry them. If a roast was being
served a carver, often a member of the nobility, would carve the meat into
small bite size pieces and serve it to the guests. The etiquette books state that food should be held with the tips
of the fingers, when dipping meat into the shared sauce dish the eater should
not dip their fingers in it, nor double dip.
Items were sometimes skewered on the eating knife and transferred to the
mouth, for soup type dishes all guests would have spoons. If you believe Hollywood, the bones were
thrown onto the floor for the dogs.
This is highly unlikely. Would you throw your leftover food on the floor
at home? No, neither would the nobility in the renaissance.
This myth arose because the feast menus available
from the highest echelons of society are a list of meat dish after meat
dish. In addition, the household
records available do not often record purchases of vegetables. In contrast however, there are good records
of extensive kitchen gardens, books describing many vegetables and how to cook
them. In one of the recipe books from
Italy in the 16th century (Epulario, or The Italian Banquet, 1598)
there is a whole section on vegetables and how to cook them.
In
the twentieth century we are very lucky, food is transported across the
world. This means that you can eat
Asparagus at Christmas, even though it is a spring vegetable, because somewhere
in the world it is spring. In Europe in
the sixteenth century no such thing was possible, all food was available
seasonally and locally. This means that
everything was available for only a limited time in the year. This means that things like milk were only
available from about March or April through to September, because they had not
yet got the trick of getting cows pregnant year round. The higher classes of society also hunted
and ate a considerable amount of game meat, including: rabbit, pheasant,
venison, boar, larks, herons etc. In
addition, foods native to the American continent had not yet appeared in
Europe, this means no potatoes, sweet corn, peppers, tomatoes, beans, squash
and a whole host of other things.
Food Type |
Twentieth century |
Sixteenth century |
Starch |
Potato, bread, rice, pasta, corn, other grains |
Bread, rice, pasta, other grains. No potatoes or
sweet corn. |
Food Type |
Twentieth century |
Sixteenth century |
Fats |
Butter, margarine, corn, canola, vegetable oils
and olive oil most common. |
Animal fats most common: lard, suet, dripping,
tallow. Olive oil widely used. Few other vegetable oils. |
Meat |
Most commonly: chicken, pork, beef, lamb,
turkey. Available year round. |
Most commonly: chicken or capons, beef, salt pork,
lamb and mutton (very common), game meat, all available seasonally. No turkey. |
Vegetable |
Wide variety, freely available year round |
Variety but NO new world vegetables, i.e:
zucchini, pumpkin, green beans, tomatoes, chili peppers, bell peppers. What was available was locally and
seasonally variable, unless dried. |
Diary |
Fresh milk and butter are available year round
with a large selection of cheese |
4/5 of milk was obtained between April and
September, butter does not keep indefinitely, some cheeses but local
varieties would be used more frequently, limiting variety. |
Seasonings |
Most of modern American cooking uses relatively
few spices. Cinnamon is used mostly
in pies and deserts. |
Use of many imported spices in cooking, including
many not often used today. A typical
household could be expected to have: cinnamon, ginger, cloves, mace, galangal
(a root similar to ginger), saffron, pepper, long pepper, cubebs, nutmeg,
coriander and mustard. No all-spice
or . |
Nuts |
Pecans, walnuts, filberts, almonds, peanuts, used
mostly in sweet foods. |
Pecans and peanuts are new world foods and were not
used. Almonds were very heavily used,
both to make milk and in many savory dishes.
Walnuts and filberts were also occasionally used. |
What
you ate depended in large part upon your status in society. Renaissance society was much more stratified
than today’s.
The lowest level of society, the peasant, was in
large part dependent on his own land to provide his food. This meant that meals would be simple,
expensive spices would be absent. The
peasant’s main source of calories would be bread, mostly a coarse brown bread
called Maslin. This bread had a high
amount of fiber and could be made from wheat, rye, oats or barley. Meals would have most likely consisted of
bean or vegetable stews with little meat depending on the time of year and the
wealth of the peasant. We know little
about what the peasant ate as at the time no-one was interested in the
peasant.
In the sixteenth century there was an increase in
the middle or merchant classes. These
persons had wealth and could afford a greater variety of foodstuffs. For the most part they took their eating
habits from the nobility. Although they
did not have either the money nor the land to eat quite as well. Bread would still have been the major part
of any meal.
The highest level of society, the nobility ate the
best of all. They had hunting rights,
owned large tracts of land that was farmed for them and from which tithes (in
goods, services or money) were paid.
Breakfast for all was a simple affair, a slice of day old bread, some
beer, maybe a slice of cheese or roasted meat.
The largest meal of the day was lunch, on special feast days lengthy and
exquisite feasts were served. The following
is a menu from a feast served to King Richard, with the Duke of Lancaster at
the Bishop of Durham’s residence at London in 1387. Taken from Two fifteenth-century cookbooks
Veneson wit Furmenty (Venison with cracked
wheat). A potage called viaundbrus (a
soup called meat broth). Hedes of Bores
(boars head). Grete Fless (great flesh,
usually roasted or boiled beef).
Swannes rosted (roasted swans).
Pigges rosted (roasted suckling pig).
Crustard lumbard in paste (lombard pie, contained dried fruit and
custard). And a sotelte (a subtlety was
a food item made to look like something else, this could be sugar paste made to
look like fruit or cups and plates, a castle made of pastry, a peacock served
in its feathers spouting flame).
A
potage called Gele (a jellied soup made from calves feet). A potage of Blandesore (a white soup). Pigges rosted (roasted suckling pig). Cranes rosted (roast crane). Fesauntes roasted (roast phesant). Herons rosted (roast heron). Chickens endored (gilded chickens). Breme (a fish). Tarts (tarts, could have been either sweet or savory). Broke braune (shredded meat). Conyngges rosted (roasted hare). And a sotellte (another subtlety).
The thirde course
Potage, bruete of almonds (soup, made with
almonds). Stwde lumbarde (lombard
stew). Venyson rosted (roasted venison). Chekenes rosted (roasted chickens). Rabettes rosted (roasted rabbits). Patric rosted (roasted partridge). Quailes rosted (roasted quail). Larks rosted (roast larks). Payne puff (a bread puff, like a fritter). A diss of gely (a jellied dish, probably
savory). Longe frutours (milk
fritters). And a sotelte (another
subtlety).
A huge amount of food, but only the top table, which
would have sat the King, the Duke of Lancaster and the Bishop and a few other
nobles, would have received all dishes. The more costly and rare a dish the less of it would have been
prepared. The top table often tasted a
dish and then sent it to a favorite on a lower table (those below the salt).
Websites:
www.pbm.com/~lindahl/food.html a web resource for medieval cooking
leading to many sites worldwide
www.godecookery.com a
web site with many recipes made understandable for the modern cook, a very
comprehensive site
Reference books:
Food and Feast in Medieval England. P.W. Hammond 1995. Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd. Stroud.
English Bread and Yeast Cookery, Elizabeth David
1980. The Viking Press. NY. Various
reprintings
The Joy of eating: a cook’s tour of history. By Katie Stewart 1977. Stemmer House
Publishers.
Great cooks and their recipes: from Taillevent to
Escoffier. Anne Willan 1977, 2000. McGraw-Hill. NY.
Frances.
Daily life in medieval times : a vivid, detailed account of birth, marriage and
death; food, clothing and housing; love and labor in the middle ages / by
Frances & Joseph Gies. New York : Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers,
1999.
Recipe books:
The Medieval Kitchen: recipes from France and
Italy. Odile Redon 1998. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.
Pleyn Delit: medieval cookery for modern cooks. Constance B Hieatt, Brend Hosington and
Sharon Butler 1996. University of
Toronto Press. Toronto, Buffalo.
Early French cookery : sources, history, original
recipes and modern adaptations / D. Eleanor Scully, Terence Scully ; with
illuminations by J. David Scully. 1995. University of Michigan Press, Ann
Arbor.
The Original Mediterranean Cuisine medieval recipes
for today . Barbara Santich. 1995
Chicago Review Press,
Chicago.