Food and Drink
From Medieval Wiki
By Tess Mahoney and Nora McDevitt-Hickey
Contents |
Food During The Medieval Times
In the Medieval times, there were lots of different types of unique foods that we now eat a lot of today. Back during the Medieval times, the most popular food to cook with was barley. It was used to make breads, beer, pancakes, pizza, and porridge. It wasn't great food to eat but you could make a lot of interesting foods out of it. For example, they made cheese to eat with bread and to melt on pizza. There were a lot of fruits and veggies during that time. A lot of them were grown on farms. Many fruits were gathered such as: apples, pears, grapes, melons, pumpkins, and much, much more. All of their fruits and vegetables had to be cook or baked, so that is why they made different types of pies out of the fruits such as apple pie. All the vegetables and fruits had to be cooked and baked because Medieval people thought that if you ate fruits and vegetables that weren't cooked or baked, you could get very sick. “'Beware of green sallettes and rawe fruytes for they wyll make your soverayne seke.” “(Beware of green salads and raw fruits, for they will make your master sick.)” There was another very popular meat during the medieval times was oxen. A village could eat up to 10 oxen a day. They were full of protein, fiber, and a lot of yummy goodness!!
Drinks
There were many issues with water back then. One is that the water was contaminated. So that is why everyone drank ale, beer, & wine. Mostly the poor people drank ale from England and Germany. Some wines were from France, Italy, and Spain. Most of the beer was made from barley. One type of beer that medieval people drank was white honey beer. Some different types of wines were Breanne, in Burgundy; the St. Emilion and Epernay in Champagne were much appreciated. These drinks were often found and drunk at ceremonies, festivals, and holidays. During festivals there was a wide range of food and drinks, but the food depended on peoples' place in society. There was a kettle that was always in the fireplace because it was used for every meal, because they needed a lot of water for their meals.
What The Rich And The Poor Ate
Having enough food was a huge concern. The amount of food a person received depended on how rich they were. Poor people had a really hard life.Their food was mostly made from barley, which is a type of grain. They had to grow or bake most of their food. They grew carrots, onions, cabbage, and garlic that were put in a lot of soups. They grew rosemary and basil to sweeten their food and gathered pears, apples and mushrooms so they could bake apple pies and even bake apples. Compared to the rich, the peasants were much healthier because of how little fat they ate. The rich ate a lot of junk because they didn't know what to eat. The peasants ate a lot of meat because they hunted, fished and farmed. The meat that the poor ate was usually preserved, not fresh. The rich on the other hand, didn't have that hard of a life. The rich didn't have to worry about if they got enough food. Sometime they had a huge feast. Many times, it was during holidays, festivals, weddings, and coronations.(Festivals And Holidays) One way for the rich to show off their wealth was during a special occasion, such as a banquet. During the banquet, there were different kinds of foods, such as peacock, seals, dolphins, and whales. There were also many courses. The normal number of courses served was three to four, but sometimes, one banquet would have 60 courses of food. The rich ate bread made out of wheat, which tasted much better than barley. They also had more choices of food to eat with the bread. Lots of the rich people ate roast beef, pork, stews, lamb chops, and deer. Also, they got expensive spices from India. They used spices/herbs to season and preserve their food. Some very expensive spices/ herbs are cardamom, pepper, ginger, and nutmeg. To leave their food fresh, they had to leave it alive before they ate it. Two ways to cook and then preserve food were in pies/coffins, and smoking it. Salt was very expensive, so some of the rich people could afford it, but the poor could not. When the rich would eat they would eat in nice castles and sit in nice chairs, but the poor would have to eat on big stones and they would sometimes have to kneel on their knees. At feasts, the rich ate at messes.
Sweets/Desserts
During Medieval times, people cooked and baked a lot. They baked lots of desserts. The most common dessert was custard tarts. It was their most common French Medieval dessert. During banquets, they had varieties of baked and boiled custard tarts. The basic ingredients were eggs, milk and sugar. There were all kinds of custard tarts such as: Lemon, Berry, Pear, and Mango. The custard tarts were made in outside ovens where they would bake a lot of their breads and other sweets too.
In Medieval ages, there were art sculptures made of sugar. (Art) To get them to have color, the medieval people used food dye. To get the color black, they used boiled blood, to get the color yellow, they used saffron, a kind of spice, and finally, they used sandalwood for red.
Here Are Some Interesting External Links!
This is a website of medieval dessert recipes!! CHECK IT OUT! http://www.famousfrenchdesserts.com/medieval-dessert-recipes.html
Here is a website for easy and simple recipes!! Please Check It Out!! http://www.grouprecipes.com/s/easy-medieval/recipe/1/relevancy
Vocabulary Words
Barley: A type of wheat and a type of grass.
Crusades: The first capturing of the early world and overpowering of a land.
Ale: A kind of beer, but much heavier, darker, and bitter.
White Honey: It is a rich, liquidy alcoholic drink.
Porridge: A soft food made by boiling oatmeal or another meal in water or milk.
Banquet: A huge feast where people gather to celebrate and eat different kinds of food
Messes: Dishes that are shared during banquets
Trenchers: "Plates" made out of bread that people ate food off of
Coronation: The crowning of a king/queen
coffin: pie crust
Subtleties: sugar sculptures
Pekel: Middle Dutch for a salty liquid to preserve food
Pottage: a soup that is very thick and has vegatables and meat in it
Our Bibliography
WEBSITES:
http://www.medieval-castles.org/index.php/food_during_the_medieval_times
http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/medieval/food/
http://www.castles-of-britain.com/castlesf.htm
BOOKS:
Howarth, Sarah. The Middle Ages. New York: Penguin Group, 1993
Redon, Odile. The medieval kitchen : recipes from France and Italy / Odile Redon, Françoise Sabban, Silvano Serventi. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, c1998.
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