Medieval Cuisine by tuffy perkins

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Research reveals Medieval diet was more than meat and gruel.

  How did our ancestors eat in the days before there were supermarkets, fast-food restaurants, refrigerators or temperature-controlled stoves and ovens? And what did the dinner table look like before the discovery of the New World brought back to Europe staple foods ranging from turkey to tomatoes and the humble potato?

   The Victorian view was that medieval food was a disgusting slop of thin gruels and roast meat. Hollywood added its own touches of festive diners throwing bones to dogs in the dining room, or wiping their greasy hands on the dog's fur.

 But recent historical and archeological research is providing a much different and richer picture, concluding that much of the food served on the medieval dinner table would be recognized and enjoyed today, and pointing out that even medieval etiquette frowned on unsanitary dogs at the dinner table.

  "I think it would be very recognizable to one today, with the same tastes," said Bridget Ann Henisch, a medieval scholar and author of several books on medieval cooking. "It was more adventurous. Even the keenest foodie would not be so adventurous today."

   The medieval diet seems also to have been far more varied than the goods that can be found in a modern supermarket.

  Among things eaten were starlings, vultures, gulls, herons, cormorants, swans, cranes, peacocks, capons, chickens, dogfish, porpoises, seals, whale, haddock, hedgehogs, cod, salmon, sardines, lamprey eels, crayfish and oysters. Turnips, parsnips, carrots, peas and fava beans were common vegetables, and use of onions and garlic was common.

  Whatever the meal, it was well spiced. The Roman conquest brought nutmeg and cloves to Northern Europe, and cinnamon was used before that.

There is ample evidence many ate well. Inventories prepared for the 6,000 guests invited to the daylong 1467 installation ceremonies of Archbishop Neville of York in England, show they were provided with 300 caskets of ale, 100 caskets of wine, 1 large bottle of wine sweetened with sugar, nutmeg and ginger, 104 oxen, 6 wild bulls, 1,000 sheep, 304 calves, 400 swans, 2,000 geese, 1,000 capons, 2,000 pigs, 104 peacocks, over 13,500 other birds, 500 stags, bucks and roes, 1,500 venison pies, 608 pikes and breams, 12 porpoises and seals, 13,000 dishes of jelly, cold baked tarts, custards and spices, sugared delicacies and wafers.

At the other end of the social spectrum, peasants survived on broths thickened with barley or other grains, and oatcakes cooked in the ashes of fires or on heated stones. It was common throughout Europe to leave a stockpot on the fire embers during the day into which greens or other foods foraged were added, and then thickened before eating.

www.godecookery.com,