User:Peter Isotalo/project

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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.

  • Many reprints and new editions of cookbooks that were written in the Middle Ages were used as late as the 17th century (?)

Another difficulty is the imprecise nature of the recepies that do survive. The inprecise nature of the fuels that fed the fires of any medieval kitchen, especially wood, required of chefs to learn how to regulate heat on an individual basis. Most cookbooks were therefore written with the assumption that the reader already know the basics of cookery, or indeed, that he was a professional with many years of experience. In the few instances where cooking times were given, they were usually in terms of the time it took to walk around a field or saying a certain number of Pater nosters. Before the Early Modern period any precise ratios of ingredients in recepies were also very rare.[1]

[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.
  • 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[2]
  • medieval cookery summed: predilection for certain flavors, "unusual" mixtures (food & condiments), concern for appearance[3]
  • grape liquids (wine, vinegar, verjuice, must) durable and tangy[4]
  • 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?)[5]

[edit] The medieval kitchen

  • grape liquids (wine, vinegar, verjuice, must) durable and tangy[6]

[edit] Regional cuisines

  • 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
  • onions fried in France, Italian, Spain; added "raw" to English potages
  • wine less common in England and Germany, but more use of honey[7]

[edit] Western Mediterranean

[edit] Italy

  • De honesta voluptate valetudine "closed the book on medieval Italian cooking"[8]
  • marmalade rec. and med Turkish delight (quince and sugar boiled; add cinn., cloves, nutmeg, ginger; powder with sugar and dry in sun); same with peaches/pears[9]
  • food divided into traditional/imported; great regional diff; some conservatism of new ingredients and rather spreading outwards of foodstuffs (lettuce, wheat, barley, sugar, peaches to Old World) though usage of choc, vanilla, corn, kidney beans; tomatoes only in southern cuisine (Naples and s.)[10]
  • pasta common, though very different from today (noodles from rice flour)[11]
  • pizza meant simply "pie" originally and torte was more common; primarily snack food with fillings like marzipan, chicken, eel, herbs, squash, rice, chickpeas, leafy greens, fruits, nuts, custards, cheese and hemp (!); polenta was made of French green lentils or barley; many sausages, risotto and soups; variations in usage of nuts and olives and local herbs; veal most common (at least among wealthy) and "everyone ate local cheeses" (fresh Tuscan to aged Milanese (from Tadesca, shipped in tree bark))[12]
  • many eggs as omelettes, frittatas (and tortes); spiced cakes (biscotti) and "Naples morsels", (everyone ate) grapes and dishes w/ lemon, olive, olive oil[13]
  • olive oil extremely versatile and of many types: frying, (salad) dressing, seasoning, marinading, preserving (meat/fish) even in n. Italy[14]
  • Florentine food was austere/sover/frugal (perhaps "collective Tuscan pref. for intense nat. flavors") meaning roasted owl au jus, simple pasta, fruit, cheeses; meat/butter more in north, pasta, veg, fish in south (oilive oil everywhere); less boiled food in Rome towards Renaissance ("replaced... by the reintr. of spices")[15]
  • Medici-effect on Fr. cuisine; Naples, Venice, Genoa gateways for food/cuisine imports; Catalan mirauste, flaky pastry, zuppa inglese (not English), Hungarian fish soup[16]
  • everyone ate bread, fruit, nuts, cheeses, olives; ord. people ate from pewter bowls or off the table[17]
  • thyme, Greek oregano (?), parsley, marjoram, saxifrage, mint, sorrel, bugloss, always ("ubiquitous") caper: chopped and mixed with oil/vinegar for salsa verde or without for a salad; chickpeas, peas, lentils, vetch, lupin, squash (New World?), turnip, spinach, beets, cabbage often eaten alone rather than side dishes; not too many onions in written records; Lent was probably not much change for the poor; sweets for the poor was mostly honey (not sugar) (with) pine nuts, wal-, chest-, almonds, pistachios, fresh fruit or rice pudding with some honey [18]
  • meat in variety, not quantity: lamb, goat, venison, bear, rabbit, hare; porcupine (imported from N. Africa), badger and dormouse for "the adventurous"; Italy famous for wide variety of wild birds: blackbird, thrush, starling, pigeon, quail, also ostrich and pheasant (though exclusive rich man-food)[19]

[edit] Sicily

[edit] Eastern and Central Europe

[edit] Germany

[edit] Northern Europe

[edit] The Low Countries

[edit] Scandinavia

[edit] Cookbooks

  • Baghdad Cookery Book 13th century, by "Al-Baghdadi"
  • Almohade Cookbook, 12th century, Hispano-Arabic
  • The Book of Good Food (Daz buouch von guoter spise), ca 1350, Würzberg
  • Libre de Sent Soví, ca 1324, oldest recipes in Catalan
  • Forme of Cury, 14th
  • De honesta voluptate et valetudine, 1475, fist printed cookbook by Bartolomeo Platina
  • Du fait de cuisine, ca 1420, Chiquart cook to Amadeus VIII, Duke of Savoy
  • Le Viandier de Taillevent, 14th century
  • Le Vivendier, 14th century (?)
  • Menagier de Paris, 14th
  • Kuchenmeysterey, ca 1485, first printed cookbook in Germany
  • Libre del Coch ("Cookbook"), earliest copy 1520, but likely written in late 15th (refers to Lenten regulations from before 1491), by Robert de Nola (Mestre Robert)
  • Recueild de Riom, 14th (?)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Scully pg. 24-25
  2. ^ Scully pg. 110
  3. ^ Scully pg. 111
  4. ^ Scully pg. 111
  5. ^ Scully pg. 112
  6. ^ Scully pg. 111
  7. ^ Scully pg. 218
  8. ^ Regional Cuisines pg. 92
  9. ^ Regional Cuisines pg. 95
  10. ^ Regional Cuisines pg. 96
  11. ^ Regional Cuisines pg. 97
  12. ^ Regional Cuisines pg. 98
  13. ^ Regional Cuisines pg. 99
  14. ^ Regional Cuisines pg. 100
  15. ^ Regional Cuisines pg. 101
  16. ^ Regional Cuisines pg. 102
  17. ^ Regional Cuisines pg. 103
  18. ^ Regional Cuisines pg. 105
  19. ^ Regional Cuisines pg. 105

[edit] External links

[edit] Reference candidates

[edit] Images and tables

[edit] Galleries

[edit] Cuisine

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

[edit] Smoking

[edit] Africa