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Post by The Dungeon Master on Feb 2, 2017 18:51:35 GMT -6
SEASONALITY OF FOOD IN THE MIDDLE AGES Fast Days in the Middle Ages Meat was forbidden by Church law on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays and also during Lent, when the consumption of eggs was also forbidden. (Friday is commonly known to be a day on which fish was eaten, but Wednesday and Saturday are a bit more obscure. Find out a bit more about fast days here.) These days were known as ‘fish days’. However, some communities would get round the prohibition of meat by eating barnacle geese, which was supposed to be more fish than fowl. According to Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnacle_Goose, it seems that this practice was banned by Innocent III at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. Seasonality of Food in the Middle Ages Agricultural production tied to the seasons also had a huge impact on what food was available. For instance fruit was fresher in the autumn, and around harvest-time (August/September). Bread would also be more plentiful because of the availability of cereals after the harvest. In fact it could be argued that the autumn saw a glut of food becoming available. Animals were often slaughtered before the winter began, traditionally at Martinmass (11 November), to avoid the expense of having to provide feed for them over the winter. They might either be eaten then or salted for consumption over the winter. Vegetables would of course also be available subject to the best season for their production. The way food was prepared is also influenced by the season, with meat often being roasted communally out of doors during the summer when it was too hot to cook over an open fire in an enclosed indoor space, but boiled inside during winter, when the process of boiling would be more suitable for older meat. Fish was more plentiful during the summer months when the seas were calmer and allowed for more fishing to take place. Again much produce would be salted to allow for year round consumption. |
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Post by The Dungeon Master on Oct 26, 2017 17:03:20 GMT -6
A Boke of Gode Cookery Presents
How to Cook Medieval Breakfast
In the Middle Ages, breakfasts were not the elaborate affairs of Victorian times nor even the necessary and important meal of today; breakfast was, in fact, practically nonexistent during the earlier medieval period, and quite sparse (by contemporary standards) in the latter years. To be able to have merely a "sop in wine" (bread or toast in wine) every day for one's morning repast was considered luxurious. Here is what Terence Scully, author of The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages, and P. W. Hammond, author of Food & Feast in Medieval England, have to say about this subject:
"Most commonly only two meals were eaten in a day. Normally the first meal of the day was the major meal. This was dinner. It must originally have been prepared to fit into a late-morning pause after the initial activities of one's daily routine. Because this meal required so much preparation, particularly in affluent households, it could not usually be available much before noon, the sixth hour of the day. By that time half of the day's work - or play - could very well be done. To conclude one's active day a second meal was more easily prepared and served some six or eight hours later, at or just after dusk. Because the original basis for this meal was soup, or sops, it became known as supper. This meal too was subject to elaboration at the hands of professional cooks, but universally it remained a somewhat simpler meal than the midday dinner. According to Platina in the second half of the fifteenth century, at supper 'we must eat food which our stomach can digest easily; however, we must eat rather sparingly, and especially those of melancholy humour whose ills usually are increased by nighttime dampness and food weighing them down with discomfort.'
"Following the teachings of the Medical School of Salerno, John of Milan advised:
'Rise at 5, dine at 9,
sup at 5, retire at 9,
for a long life.'
"Why were there normally just two meals rather than three or four? Or for that matter, rather than just one? The answer to any question is undoubtedly rooted largely in practical convenience, but for the Medieval physician the justification for mealtimes involved in part a perception that one felt healthier if one ate only when one became hungry. To eat, therefore, before a previous meal had made its way completely out of the stomach was declared to be a most dangerous practice. Given that the average 'modern' digestive system seems comfortably able to handle only two substantial meals in a day, and given that the professional cook was required to lay on nothing less than substantial meals, the two-meal pattern remained the norm for most of Medieval Europe.
"As cookery became complex and skilled an undertaking, dinner became increasingly more elaborate and its serving was pushed even past the middle of the day. Supper, in turn, could be delayed until 7 or 8 o'clock, when useful daylight was past, but it seems to always have remained a meal of clearly secondary importance, at which the assortment of dishes was both more limited and simpler. Toward the end of the period with which we are dealing, hunger became more unwilling to wait until noon or 1:00 pm to be satisfied. Perhaps the delicious odours that began wafting from the kitchen at the earliest light of dawn excited people's appetite beyond reasonable restraint. And so it became acceptable to break one's overnight fast with a small bite at some time before dinner.
"Breakfast, at first a concession, of an unseemly if not totally dissolute sort, became seen as less disgraceful to the extent that it was just an immaterial trifle. The license was justified - an excess, which strict Medieval morality might judge to be a variety of sin - by designing it on the one hand either to give the peasant and craftsman something to sustain their morning's labour, or, on the other, in the case of the aristocrat, merely to hold hunger awhile in abeyance until a meal that was really worthy of his or her status could be prepared. We find the morning collation justified in particular in the case of the aristocrat who was forced so often to be on the road visiting the various outlying parts of his estate, but who was unwilling to set out at daybreak on an empty stomach.
"The earliest breakfast was undoubtedly just a chunk of bread and a mug of watered wine. Then we have evidence of anchovies and fillets of other fish being consumed, these like the famous British breakfast of kippered herring being always in a preserved state ready for eating at any time. The fatter fish, such as herring (and its small relative, the anchovy), salmon and trout lent themselves to particularly well preservation by smoking, and came to be appreciated in certain circles as a tasty means to hold off hunger pangs. Besides, if nibbling a breakfast could be censured as contributing to the sin of gluttony, surely the fact that what was nibbled was fish could only help mitigate the sense of sin!"
Terence Scully, The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages, pp 119-120
"The very poor doubtless ate when they could, but the slightly better-off peasants seem generally to have eaten three times a day. These meals consisted of breakfast at a very early hour to allow for dinner at about 9:00 am, or not later than 10:00 am, and supper probably before it got dark, perhaps at 3:00 pm in the winter. Three meals a day were accepted as reasonable by most later sixteenth century writers, such as Andrew Borde, although he thought that this was only good for the labouring man; anyone else should be content with two. It has been suggested that breakfast was only eaten by children and workmen, but certainly by the fifteenth century it was quite commonly taken by everyone. Breakfast was regularly allowed for in the accounts of Dame Alice de Bryene at the beginning of the fifteenth century, although the 1478 household ordinance of Edward IV specifies that only residents down to the rank of squires should have breakfast, except by special order. Edward, Price of Wales, son of Edward IV, breakfasted after morning mass. The time was only specified as 'a convenyent hower', although to break one's fast after devotions was the generally recommended procedure. Earlier references to breakfast sometimes meant dinner, literally, in these cases, the first meal of the day."
P. W. Hammond, Food & Feast in Medieval England, p. 105
Household records of the time also punctuate the reality of a light breakfast and indicate what specific foods were served. In 1289, peasants working as carters on Ferring Manor in Sussex had a breakfast of rye bread with ale & cheese. In 1512, clerks and yeomen in the Northumberland Household received for breakfast on meat days a loaf of household bread, a bottle of beer and a piece of boiled beef. The porters and stable staff in the same household received a loaf of the same bread and a quart of beer. On fish days the clerks and yeomen received a piece of salt fish instead of the beef.
Breakfast Foods List
Ale
Anchovies - smoked or preserved.
Beef
Beer
Bread - any variety.
Cheese
Herring - smoked or preserved.
Salmon - smoked or preserved.
Salt Fish - preserved pieces of filleted ling, hake, cod, or whiting.
Sop in Wine - toast or bread in wine.
Trout - smoked or preserved.
Wine
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Post by The Dungeon Master on Feb 15, 2018 9:47:10 GMT -6
Medieval Meals and Mealtime
We now think of three meals a day as the norm. Everybody knows about breakfast-lunch-dinner, though the fast food industry has tried to sneak a "fourth meal" in, pizza-time, coming around 9 or 10 at night. And of course there's British tea-time, which can come in late afternoon and may substitute for the evening meal.
But this was not the medieval norm. In the morning, you got up and got to work. No cereal and orange juice, no coffee or tea, no bacon and eggs, no blueberry pancakes. At most one would grab a piece of bread and a mug of beer.
Now "morning" of course began at sun-up, which was, by definition, 6am. By our standards, 6am moved around a lot, coming very early in midsummer, late in midwinter. But this did not worry medieval people.
One got the day's work in, then had "dinner" at "noon." Now noon did not come in the middle of the day, as we think of it. The word comes from the Latin "none," the ninth hour. Because sun-up was, by definition, 6am, and sunset 6pm. the ninth hour was the middle of the afternoon, what we'd call 3pm at the equinox. This was dinner time, the one big meal of the day.
(I do believe that our use of the term "noon" for midday is the result of trying to move dinner-time earlier and earlier. Who wants to wait until 3pm?)
During the summer, of course, one might work what they'd call 9 hours and we'd call 12 hours or more before dinner time, so there might be a snack in there, but not a meal, at most another piece of bread and pull of beer. Monks, whose daily work consisted of prayer and singing the psalms and reading and copying manuscripts, were warned against the "midday demon" of hunger, because they didn't get snacks, and the midday demon would make them think about food rather than what they were supposed to be thinking about.
Our word "dinner" comes from the French "déjeuner," to break one's fast, that is to end the long period (perhaps close to 24 hours) in which one had not eaten. In American usage, the word "dinner" still means the big meal of the day (whether at 12 or 6), even if in the modern US we assume that we've broken our fast hours earlier with "breakfast." The French still have "déjeuner" at midday, preceded early in the morning by "petite déjeuner," the little breaking-of-fast, which while consisting of coffee and a roll rather than a mug of beer, is still pretty minimalist by American standards.
(In the last few decades, however, the French have been increasing the size of the "pj" to include juice, granola, yogurt, cheese, and ham, though still not anything hot beyond the coffee.)
After the big afternoon meal, medieval people would have their more relaxing part of the day. The one big meal might hold them, or they might have a little soup for "supper" ("souper" in French) before turning in.
In the modern US, there are still familial and regional differences as to whether the evening meal should be called "supper" or "dinner," with some insisting that a "dinner" is a big noon meal, not an evening meal. Mediterranean countries and France still tend to have the biggest meal of the day at midday. The French refer to the evening meal as "dîner," which of course is from the same root as "déjeuner," but means something different. In modern French, "souper" is what we'd call an evening snack, what one might have after an performance at the theatre before heading home. In the twenty-first century, it is sometimes even pizza.
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Post by The Dungeon Master on May 22, 2018 20:27:22 GMT -6
For centuries before the medieval period, and for centuries afterward, human beings in all parts of the world used a variety of methods to preserve foods for later consumption. Europeans in the Middle Ages were no exception. A society that was largely agrarian would be keenly aware of the need to store up provisions against the ominous threats of famine, drought, and warfare.
The possibility of disaster wasn't the only motive for preserving food.
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Dried, smoked, pickled, honeyed, and salted foods had their own particular flavors, and many recipes survive detailing how to prepare foods that have been stored with these methods. Preserved foods were also much easier for the sailor, soldier, merchant, or pilgrim to transport. For fruits and vegetables to be enjoyed out of season, they had to be preserved; and in some regions, a particular foodstuff could only be enjoyed in its preserved form, because it didn't grow (or wasn't raised) nearby.
Virtually any kind of food could be preserved. How it was done depended on what type of food it was and whether a particular effect was desired. Here are some of the methods of food preservation used in medieval Europe.
Drying Foods to Preserve Them
Today we understand that moisture allows for the rapid microbiological growth of bacteria, which is present in all fresh foods and which causes them to decay.
But it isn't necessary to understand the chemical process involved in order to observe that food that is wet and left in the open will quickly start to smell and attract bugs. So it should come as no surprise that one of the oldest methods of preserving foods known to man is that of drying it.
Drying was used to preserve all sorts of foods.
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Grains like rye and wheat were dried in the sun or air before being stored in a dry place. Fruits were sun-dried in warmer climes and oven-dried in cooler regions. In Scandinavia, where temperatures were known to plunge below freezing in the winter, cod (known as "stockfish") were left out to dry in the cold air, usually after they were gutted and their heads were removed.
Meat could also be preserved through drying, usually after cutting it into thin strips and lightly salting it. In warmer regions, it was a simple matter to dry meat under the hot summer sun, but in cooler climates, air drying could be done at most times of the year, either outdoors or in shelters that kept away the elements and flies.
Preserving Foods With Salt
Salting was the most common way to preserve virtually any type of meat or fish, as it drew out the moisture and killed the bacteria. Vegetables might be preserved with dry salt, as well, though pickling was more common. Salt was also used in conjunction with other methods of preservation, such as drying and smoking.
One method of salting meat involved pressing dry salt into pieces of meat, then layering the pieces in a container (like a keg) with dry salt completely surrounding each piece.
If meat was preserved this way in cold weather, which slowed down the decomposition while the salt had time to take effect, it could last for years. Vegetables were also preserved by layering them in salt and placing them in a sealable container such as an earthenware crock.
Another way to preserve food with salt was to soak it in a salt brine. While not as effective a long-term method of preservation as packing in dry salt, it served very well to keep food edible through a season or two. Salt brines were also part of the pickling process.
Whatever method of salt preservation was used, the first thing a cook did when he got ready to prepare the salted food for consumption was soaking it in fresh water to remove as much of the salt as possible. Some cooks were more conscientious than others when it came to this step, which could take several trips to the well for fresh water.
And it was next to impossible to remove all the salt, no matter how much soaking was done. Many recipes took this saltiness into account, and some were designed specifically to counteract or complement the salt flavor. Still, most of us would find preserved medieval food much saltier than anything we're used to today.
Smoking Meat and Fish
Smoking was another fairly common way to preserve meat, especially fish and pork. Meat would be cut into relatively thin, lean strips, immersed briefly in a salt solution and hung over a fire to absorb the smoke flavoring as it dried — slowly. Occasionally meat might be smoked without a salt solution, especially if the type of wood burned had a distinctive flavoring of its own. However, salt was still very helpful because it discouraged flies, inhibited the growth of bacteria, and hastened the removal of moisture.
Pickling Foods
Immersing fresh vegetables and other foods in a liquid solution of salt brine was a fairly common practice in medieval Europe. In fact, although the term "pickle" didn't come into use in English until the late Middle Ages, the practice of pickling goes back to ancient times. Not only would this method preserve fresh food for months so that it could be eaten out of season, but it could infuse it with strong, piquant flavors.
The simplest pickling was done with water, salt and an herb or two, but a variety of spices and herbs as well as the use of vinegar, verjuice or (after the 12th century) lemon led to a range of pickling flavors. Pickling might require boiling the foods in the salt mixture, but it could also be done by simply leaving the food items in an open pot, tub or vat of salt brine with the desired flavorings for hours and sometimes days. Once the food had been thoroughly infused by the pickling solution, it was placed in a jar, crock, or other airtight container, sometimes with a fresh brine but often in the juice in which it had marinated.
Confits
Although the term confit has come to refer to virtually any food that has been immersed in a substance for preservation (and, today, can sometimes refer to a type of fruit preserve), in the Middle Ages confits were potted meat. Confits were most usually, but not solely, made from fowl or pork (fatty fowl like goose were particularly suitable).
To make a confit, the meat was salted and cooked for a very long time in its own fat, then allowed to cool in its own fat. It was then sealed up -- in its own fat, of course -- and stored in a cool place, where it could last for months.
Confits should not be confused with comfits, which were sugar-coated nuts and seeds eaten at the end of a banquet to freshen the breath and aid the digestion.
Sweet Preserves
Fruits were often dried, but a far more tasty method of preserving them past their season was to seal them up in honey. Occasionally, they might be boiled in a sugar mixture, but sugar was an expensive import, so only the cooks of the wealthiest families were likely to use it. Honey had been used as a preservative for thousands of years, and it wasn't limited to preserving fruit; meats were also stored in honey on occasion.
Fermentation
Most methods of preserving food involved stopping or slowing down the process of decay. Fermentation accelerated it.
The most common product of fermentation was alcohol -- wine was fermented from grapes, mead from honey, beer from grain. Wine and mead could keep for months, but beer had to be drunk fairly quickly. Cider was fermented from apples, and the Anglo-Saxons made a drink called "perry" from fermented pears.
Cheese is also a product of fermentation. Cow's milk could be used, but the milk from sheep and goats was a more common source for cheese in the Middle Ages.
Freezing and Cooling
The weather of the greater part of Europe throughout much of the Middle Ages was rather temperate; in fact, there is often some discussion of the "medieval warm period" overlapping the end of the Early Middle Ages and the beginning of High Medieval Europe (the exact dates depend on who you consult).
So freezing was not an obvious method of preserving foods.
However, most areas of Europe did see snowy winters, and freezing was at times a viable option, especially in northern regions. In castles and large homes with cellars, an underground room could be used to keep foods packed in winter ice through the cooler spring months and into the summer. In the long, frigid Scandinavian winters, an underground room wasn't necessary.
Supplying an ice-room with ice was a labor-intensive and sometimes travel-intensive business, so it was not particularly common; but it wasn't completely unknown, either. More common was the use of underground rooms to keep foods cool, the all-important last step of most of the above preservation methods.
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