Subtlety

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A subtlety (also sotelty or soteltie) was an elaborate form of dish common in Europe, particularly England and France, during the late Middle Ages. Its function was to demarcate main courses from one another while also entertaining diners. A subtlety could be anything from a pie with exotic spices to an elaborate model of a castle made of pastry. Subtlety dishes were reserved for the upper classes, who could afford the huge costs of exclusive ingredients, talented chefs, and the huge staffs needed to create such lavish meals. Subtleties were often used during fast days or Lent to alleviate the restrictions in diet imposed by Catholic fasting laws.

Among the popular ingredients for subtleties were various kinds of fowl, especially peafowl and swans. These birds would often be plucked and skinned and their meat seasoned, and then baked, grilled, or boiled; stuffed with fillings of all kinds; and finally redressed with their own skins. Supported by concealed wooden struts and decorated with their original plumage, the birds would be served in lifelike poses. Culinary renditions of popular fables, and even of religious allegories, were common. Fourteenth-century cookbooks describe how to prepare a cockatrice (a fantasy animal) by roasting a suckling pig and some form of fowl separately, then sewing their skins together so that the final creation would look like the fabled creature. Tableaux depicting various human activities familiar to the medieval dinner guests were popular, such as "pilgrims" made from grilled or fried capons; or pikes decorated to look like pilgrims holding roast lampreys as staffs; and miniature knights made from grilled, stuffed fowl riding roast piglets. Allegorical scenes with titles like "Castle of Love" and mythical and religious scenes and figures like "Lady of the Unicorn," "Knight of the Swan," and even "Lamb of God" (Agnus Dei) were also mentioned. Other popular arrangements were models of castles made from sugar, pastry or marzipan, a specialty of English chefs during the late Middle Ages. Over time, subtleties became ever more decorative and less suitable for eating, and eventually evolved into pure decorations produced by painters, carpenters, and metalsmiths rather than by chefs.

The constant need to dazzle and amaze the nobility forced chefs to resort to pure practical jokes, not only by making dead animals seem alive, but also by making live animals appear cooked.

Medieval sources describe how to make pies that would be filled with live blackbirds and covered with crust immediately before serving, so that when a pie was cut open, birds would fly out and astonish the guests. There was also advice on how to make cooked meat or fish appear raw by sprinkling dried hare's or kid's blood on it, or even to cover it with strips cut from intestines to look like maggots.

1 Examples of subtleties
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Examples of subtleties

Though not enjoying international prestige and fame for culinary sophistication today, English cuisine during at least the High and Late Middle Ages was considerably more refined by continental standards. A specialty of English cooks was to disguise meatballs as oranges.
A dish that can be found in many cookbooks in Western and Southern Europe was "Turk's head" or "monk's head" which was intended to resemble the face and hair (or even turban) of a Saracen, and in some recipes a monk where the the dark hair or turban would instead have the likeness of the dark cowl of Dominicans.
In a feast dedicated to Pope Clement VI, a castle model was constructed and filled with venison, wild boar, goat, hare and rabbit, with all animals having been skinned, cooked, redressed and placed in lifelike postures before serving.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Adamson Weiss, Melitta (2004) Food in Medieval Times ISBN 0-313-32147-7
Henisch, Bridget Ann (1976) Fast and Feast: Food in Medieval Society ISBN 0-271-01230-7
Scully, Terence (1995) The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages ISBN 0-85115-611-8