User:Peter Isotalo/temp

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[edit] Sources

Describing the eating habits during the Middle Ages is inherently problematic because of the skewed perspective of virtually all written sources.

[edit] Cooking/Food preparation

  • The construction of elaborate subtleties.
  • Travelling food/campaign rations, for instance meat pies.
  • Surprising array of services available in the larger medieval towns and cities: bakers, pastry cooks, carvers, etc.

[edit] Cooking/Food preparation

  • The construction of elaborate subtleties.
  • Travelling food/campaign rations, for instance meat pies.
  • Surprising array of services available in the larger medieval towns and cities: bakers, pastry cooks, carvers, etc.
  • pots, pans, kettles and cauldrons, huge stirring spoons, knives, graters, rasps (for cleaning), hooks, hampers, spits, tripods, oven-shovels; mortar and sieve-cloth[1]
  • Medieval dietetics had a profound impact on cooking methods. A dominant theory during the Middle Ages was the idea that nutrition in food was most effectively digested by dissolving or breaking up the ingredients and mixing them together. This meant that one of the most common chef's tools, especially in affluent households, was the mortar and sieve (cooking) cloth.[2]
  • absence of prejudice of mixing; only limitation was humoral; fruit combined with fish, meat, eggs; Tarte de brymlent (Forme of cury) figs, raisins, apples, pears, salmon/codling/haddock with pitted damson plums under the top crust; herbs often mixed freely and recipes call for unspecified greens[3]
  • roast/boiled meat, in/with sauce; pureed fruit/veg (fried, even syrup candied), raw fruit; grain (incl. rice) to flour for dough or pastry, boil into gruels; curdled milk for pudding, compressed into solids; all modern egg-dishes; sum: joints, sops, sauces, pottage, jelly, preserves, custard, porridge, cake, biscuits, pies[4]
  • medieval cookery summed: predilection for certain flavors, "unusual" mixtures (food & condiments), concern for appearance[5]
  • grape liquids (wine, vinegar, verjuice, must) durable and tangy[6]
  • also limes, citrons, lemons, (bitter) oranges; on the other hand, almonds kept at hands in all major kitchens, dominated cookbooks, usually superior to dairy milk (and agreeably dainty?)[7]

[edit] The medieval kitchen

  • kitchens of feudal/royal courts req. huge amounts of firewood; (large) barnfuls for a two-day banquet*[8]

[edit] Flavors, mixtures and colors

[edit] Illusion foods

[edit] Regional variations

  • Lard, butter (north) olive oil (south, always unspecified), when specified, from nuts; waltnut, hazel, filbert; almond oil uncommon, but almond very so; no bitter almonds during MA[9]
  • French have more varied and consistent (?) use of spices, ginger, cinnamon, g of p (specialty of LMA n. France)
  • Italians prefer aromatic herbs: rosemary, mint, hyssop, sage, parsley, basil
  • Italy, Spain, (S?) France: olive oil; Flanders, n. Germany: poppy oil; more butter in N. France, Flanders, England, Germany ("the northern and western regions")
  • onions fried in France, Italian, Spain; added "raw" to English potages
  • wine less common in England and Germany, but more use of honey
  • citrus and p.granates in Med. reg., figs, dates dried in north, but far less common in cooking[10]

[edit] Western Mediterranean

[edit] Spain

[edit] Italy

[edit] Sicily

[edit] Germany

[edit] The Low Countries

[edit] Northern Europe/Scandinavia?

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Scully pg. 99
  2. ^ Scully pg. 99-100
  3. ^ Scully pg. 113
  4. ^ Scully pg. 110
  5. ^ Scully pg. 111
  6. ^ Scully pg. 111
  7. ^ Scully pg. 112
  8. ^ Scully pg. ?
  9. ^ Scully pg. 83
  10. ^ Scully pg. 218

[edit] References

Applied

Candidates

  • Adamson, Melitta Weiss (1995) Medieval Dietetics: Food and Drink in Regimen Sanitatis Literature from 800 to 1400 ISBN 3-631-48871-8
  • Dalby, Andrew (2000) Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices ISBN 0-7141-2720-5
  • Dalby, Andrew (2003) Food in the ancient world from A to Z ISBN 0-415-23259-7
  • Dembinska, Maria (1999) Food and drink in medieval Poland : rediscovering a cuisine of the past, translated by Magdalena Thomas, revised and adapted by William Woys Weaver ISBN 0-8122-3224-0
An illustration of the cook from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Note the meat hook in his left hand, one of the most common cook's tools during the Middle Ages.
Enlarge
An illustration of the cook from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Note the meat hook in his left hand, one of the most common cook's tools during the Middle Ages.
Meat roasting on a spit. One helper has been assigned the thankless task of turning while another is pouring sauce/grease/fat (?). The cook can be seen with his hallmark ladle, about to sample the grilled meat. Bruges, 1340s
Enlarge
Meat roasting on a spit. One helper has been assigned the thankless task of turning while another is pouring sauce/grease/fat (?). The cook can be seen with his hallmark ladle, about to sample the grilled meat. Bruges, 1340s
Area 500 650 1000 1340 1450
Greece and Balkans 5 3 5 6 4.5
Italy (and Sicily?) 4 2.5 5 10 7.5
Iberia 4 3.5 7 9 7
S. Europe 13 9 17 25 19
France and Low C. 5 3 6 19 12
British Isles 0.5 0.5 2 5 3
Germany and Sc. 3.5 2 4 11.5 7.5
W. and C. Europe 9 5.5 12 35.5 22.5
Slavia 5 3 - - -
Russia - - 6 8 6
Poland-Lithuania - - 2 3 2
Hungary 0.5 0.5 1.5 2 1.5
E. Europe 5.5 3.5 9.5 13 9.5
total 27.5 18 38.5 73.5 50
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