Medieval cuisine
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Wikipedia
Featured:  Illustration: Portrait fantaisiste du marquis de Sade (1866) by H. Biberstein |
Medieval cuisine includes the foods, eating habits, and cooking methods of various European cultures during the Middle Ages, a period roughly dating from the 5th to the 16th century. During this period, diets and cooking changed less across Europe, than they did in the briefer early modern period that followed, when those changes helped lay the foundations for modern European cuisine.
Cereals remained the most important staples during the early Middle Ages, as rice was a late introduction to Europe and the potato was only introduced in 1536. Barley and rye among the poor, and wheat for the governing classes, were eaten as bread, porridge, gruel and pasta by virtually all members of society. Beans and vegetables were important supplements to the cereal-based diet of the lower orders. Meat was more expensive and therefore more prestigious and in the form of game was common only on the tables of the nobility. The most prevalent butcher's meats were pork and chicken and other domestic fowl, while beef, which required greater investment in land, was less common. Cod and herring were mainstays among the northern populations, and dried, smoked or salted made their way far inland, but a wide variety of other saltwater and freshwater fish were also eaten.
Slow transportation and inefficient food preservation techniques, based exclusively on techniques of drying, salting, smoking and pickling, made long-distance trade of many foods very expensive. Because of this, the food of the nobility was more prone to foreign influence than the cuisine of poorer people and dependent on exotic spices and expensive imports. As each level of society imitated the one above it, innovations from international trade and foreign wars from the 12th century onwards gradually disseminated through the upper middle class of medieval cities. Aside from economic unavailability of luxuries such as spices, decrees outlawed consumption of certain foods among certain social classes, and sumptuary laws limited the conspicuous consumption among the nouveau riche. Social norms also dictated that the food of the working class be less refined, since it was believed there was a natural resemblance between one's labor and one's food, so manual labor required coarser, cheaper food.
A type of refined cooking developed in the late Middle Ages that set the standard among the nobility all over Europe. Common seasonings in the highly spiced sweet-sour repertory typical of upper-class medieval food included verjuice, wine and vinegar in combination with spices such as black pepper, saffron and ginger. These, along with the widespread use of sugar or honey gave many dishes a sweet-sour flavor. Almonds were very popular as a thickener in soups, stews, and sauces, particularly as almond milk.
