What did they eat?
The Typical Diet
The diets of people in the Middle Ages varied depending upon their status in society, basically if they had money or not. Rich people could eat expensive meat, dried fruits, almonds, and spices from Asia. Common people ate dark coarse bread made from mixed wheat, rye, and oatmeal. Commoners grew most of their own food, had garden vegetables and pork & beef from livestock. During the winter the people ate meats and fish that were preserved with salt and spices. Smart cooks could disguise the horrible taste with spices, oatmeal, peas, and beans. Cows, sheep, and goats gave milk which was ether drank or made into dairy products called white meat.
Ovens/Preparation
During the medieval times just about all types of cooking was done over a burning fire. Because stoves weren’t invented yet, a good cook had to master cooking directly on an open flame. Ovens were used though, but they were very expensive to make/buy and were only used in large house/castles and bakeries. In small villages or communities it was common for the people to share ownership of a oven to ensure that bread making was kept a communal thing and not a private one. Also portable ovens were designed which made large scale cooking easy. The ovens were filled with food and then buried in coals to bake more than one thing at a time. Larger ovens were made of iron and were placed on wheels to sell pies in the streets of the towns. These ovens were very useful but they were also very expensive. For poor people ,along with the majority of the population, most of all cooking was done in simple stewpots. At the time, this was the most effective use for firewood and did not waste precious juices used to make the potages and stews, the most common dishes in medieval times. Some evidence suggests that medieval food had a fairly high content of fat, when fat could be afforded.
Cooking Food
Fruits such as apples were regularly combined with meat, fish, and eggs to form some of this times’ best dishes. The recipe for Tart de brymelnt (a fish pie) from the recipe collection “Forme of Cury” includes a mix of a variety of fruits such as figs, raisins, apples, and pears mixed with fish. During this time the food had to be tempered according to its nature. For example, fish was seen as being a cold and moist food, so it was best cooked in a way that was first heated and then dried, such as oven baking and then seasoned with spices. Beef from cows was dry and hot, so it should be boiled. This assured that the fruits should not stand out and taste great along with the meats.
Vegetables
Grains were the primary sides of most meal. Vegetables such as cabbage, beets onions, garlic, and carrots also common sides. Many of the vegetables were grown and eaten by workers and servants. Although these were less popular than died meat, rich people still brought garden grown foods from peasants. After new foods were starting to form, cookbooks were made and were intended to be sold to richer people. Recipes in these books only contained a small number of dishes that used vegetables as the main ingredient. The lack of vegetables in these books was not that they didn’t exist, but because they were so simple that they did not need to be printed and recorded. Many lower class citizens grew their fruits and vegetables in home gardens and small orchards. One of the most common vegetables used in many dishes were carrots. Many beans such as chickpeas, fava beans, and peas were very common and very important sources of protein; these were valued greatly in the lower class. Some of these beans, not including peas, were viewed with some suspicion. Dietitians who advised the upper class thought that people should avoid these because they have a tendency to cause flatulence and because they were associated with the diets of the lower class and the foods of peasants. Because of lack of knowledge, people didn’t realize the importance of eating vegetables until later in the 16th century.
Fruits
During the middle ages fruit along with meat was very popular because it could be served fresh, dried, and preserved and was very common and easy to find. Since honey and sugar were very expensive, fruits became very common in dishes that needed sweeteners of any kind. In the south, the most common fruits were lemons, very bitter oranges (sweet oranges was not introduced until several hundred years later) pomegranates, quinces, and the most popular grapes. As you go more north you would find a more common variety of apples, pears, plums, and strawberries. One of the most common exported fruit was figs. They were eaten all over Europe but were very expensive. Later in the 15th century fruits and foods such as potatoes, kidney beans, cocoa, vanilla, tomatoes, maize (corn), and chili peppers. After the Europeans made contact with the Americas, they brought new foods back, but it still took a long time to get and to be accepted as a food from the European society as a whole.
Dairy
Milk was a very important source of animal protein for the people who couldn’t afford quality meats. Most of the milk came from cows but goats and sheep still provides milk for many families. Many families raised goats and sheep on home farms and ranches. They would sell un-wanted milk on the streets of towns to make a profit off of their goats. Plain fresh milk was not drank by the average adult, unless they were poor or sick. This milk was usually reserved for the young and the elderly. Poor adults wouldn’t drink buttermilk, whey, or milk unless it was watered down. Milk wasn’t as popular as other dairy products because there wasn’t any technology to keep it from spoiling. Only on occasions would dairy milk be used in upper-class kitchen, usually made into stews and soups. The other main type of milk was almond milk which used more commonly.Cheese was a far more important food to the poor than milk.It has been suggested that during many periods of time, cheese was a chef’s main supplier of animal protein for the lower class. Many types of cheese that we eat today such as Dutch Edam, Northern French Brie and Italian Parmesan were hugely popular such in medieval times. Whey cheeses such as ricotta were popular because they could be made from the by-products of harder cheese. Cheese was mainly used in pies and soups. Butter was a huge dairy product and was very popular in regions of Northern Europe and parts of the Middle East that specialized in cattle production. Many people used oil or lard as fast cooking fats, but butter soon replaced those.
Meats
Meats were the primary ingredient in almost all meals with most meat coming from home farms and ranches. Beef is not as common as it is today because of its large demand. Large scale cattle ranching is very labor-intensive and expensive due to costs for pasture maintenance, feed, and butchering supplies. Most meat came from single family farms or ranches. Oxen and cows were more sought after more as working animals than as a source of meat. Many families would slaughter their cows and oxens when they were no longer useful to perform work. Normally they would not eat their working animals because they did not see these animals as an appetizing source of food.Pigs were far more commonly used as sources of meats because they required less attention and were cheaper to feed. Domestic pigs often ran freely through the streets of town and could be fed just about anything including kitchen waste. Baby piglets were slaughtered between 2 to 6 weeks old and were sought after as a delicacy because their meat was very tender. Mutton, lamb, and veal were fairly common meat sources in areas of Europe with a sizable rural industry. Unlike most of modern North America, just about every part of the animal was eaten in Medieval times. Intestines, bladders and stomaches could be used as casing for drying meats, such as sausage. It was sometimes necessary for people in medieval times to consume some meats that would be considered inappropriate for human consumption, such as hedgehogs and porcupines. These were occasionally mentioned in recipe books and collections from medieval periods. During the medieval period, many families ate a wide range of birds such as swans, peafowl, quail, partridge, and storks. Birds like cranes, larks, and linnets could be trapped in nets making them easy to catch. Some birds would be domesticated for the upper class and would be caught and held captive for a number of days. Most of the upper class who could afford swans would raise them for their appearance as entertaiment dishes rather than for their meat. Similar to today, geese and ducks were domesticated and used as an egg source, but not as profitable as a chicken. In the markets, meat is far more expensive than plant foods (food grown on farms- corn, beans, etc…). Meat could be about 4 times as expensive than bread. This means that on fast- days diets would minger and shrink drastically. Fast- days are days of the week in which nobody would eat any meat all day. Fish was later introduced on fast-day as a plentiful replacement for meat. Only after the Black Death, where more than one-half of the European population was killed, did meat start to appear on the tables of many poor families. This is because of the drastic reduction of the population which led to labor shortages. This led to higher wages which was followed my more money to spend. It also left huge farmland untended making them available to convert to pastures and grazing fields. This led to more cows and more cows meant more food.
Fish and Seafood
Fish was considered less prestigious than meats from other animals and was mainly eaten as a substitute to meat on fast-days. Seafood was still one of the main food sources for coastal villages and towns. The term “fish” wasn’t only given to cod, trout etc., but to anything that lived in the water. Some of these included whale, seals and other marine mammals. Animals that spent a considerable amount of time in the water, like a beaver and platypus, would be considered fish. On fast-days, fish in many varieties would be considered appropriate to eat instead of meat. The trading of cod and herring were very important for towns that border the Atlantic Ocean and the Baltic Sea. Herring was the backbone of fishing villages and provided almost all of the money for the people. The herring that was caught in the Baltic Sea could be found miles away in Central Europe. Most of the fish caught was eaten fresh and only cooked with no spices added. Some of the fish was salted, fried or smoked, although this was very tasty, it was very expensive. Cod would be split down the middle, fixed to a pole over a fire and dried out. This form of cooking fish was very common, but had its disadvantages. This process could be very time consuming and couldn’t be prepared in a hurry. The cod had to be beaten with a mallet and then soaked in water before it was eatable. Mollusks were very desirable by river populations along with freshwater crayfish. Compared to meat, fish was very expensive for the people in inland cities and towns. In Central Europe, fish wasn’t an option for the lower class because of its cost to catch and transport. For people in cities with freshwater rivers and lakes, pike, carp, bream, perch and trout found their way to the plates of families at a very low cost.
A Kitchen and tools
A medieval kitchen oven was very simple. An oven is mainly a concealed space that could be heated with a wood burning fire to cook with. A typical bakery oven was made of stone, but cooks for the King and Queen were usually provided with a much rarer and expensive metal oven. For families that couldn’t afford a stone oven, heated stones and rocks were the primary source of heat for cooking. The medieval chefs would take advantage of hot ashes from a fire. They would place small amounts of dough on the ashes and they could conduct small scale cooking. When a large animal was killed, it would normally face the spit. Many people have seen or heard about one before, but just in case, a spit is a long metal rod that could be rotated manually with a handle. The animal of choice was then placed on the rod and cooked over an open fire. Using the handle, the animal would be rotated. This ensured that the animal would be cooked evenly. Other fire cooking accessories included an adjustable hook that is attached to a metal pole. Large cauldron and pots could be hooked on and placed over a fire. This is a common way that soup and stews would be made. But what if you want to change the amount of heat to cook with? You may be asking that question and here is your answer. The hook was attached to a rope so by moving the rope up or down you can adjust the heat, but not the fire. Closer to the fire would increase the heat and farther from the fire would mean less heat. Near the kitchen there would normally be a larder. A larder was a room where food and at sometimes, wine and other alcoholic drinks would be stored. Most of the meat cooked would hang in the larder. This prevented it from being eaten by bugs or wild animals. A good cook would hang his meat up in a larder no matter which way it was preserved. The meat collection inside a larder was a hug one. This mainly consisted of domesticated farm animals such as lambs, pork, beef, wild birds, rabbits, ducks, pigeons and boars.
How did they preserve it?
Without the low-temperature technology of freezers and refrigerators that are used today, the cooks of medieval periods were forced to preserve food that could result in an extreme change in taste. The most common and fastest way to preserve food was through and abundant amount of salt. Salt was used on just about everything from wide varieties of meat to various fruits and vegetables. Although salt didn’t have a positive affect on taste, it was and is a great thing to preserve with. The salt would help extract water from the tissues of meat and fish. With little to no water, bacteria growth would slow greatly and the food would last longer. As a result of using salt, the preserved food would taste extremely salty and it would loose all texture. Because this became so common many people considered this to be the standard of all meals during the medieval period. Some historians disagree with this theory. Many people believe that fresh meat was found on the tables more often than salted or preserved meat. Another idea that was brought up was that salted and dried meats and vegetables were made into soups and stews. This allowed water to be let back into the dried meat and provided the soup with flavor. Many historians believe that this is why soups and stews were the most common foods on the table. The “restoration” of putting water back into the dried meat is very similar to what we have today. Instant pasta follows the same principals and the medieval periods managed to last through all the centuries as an effective way to preserve food. Aside from salt, medieval chefs would place fruits and vegetables in honey filled jars. High concentrations of sugar in honey would allow for very small to no amounts of bacteria growth. This allowed for fruits and vegetables to be stored in larders for long periods of time. Another idea for the preservation of food was to pickle it. This method was only used by cooks for the king and queen or very rich chefs. In a common medieval village, the chef wouldn’t pickle food unless it was a special occasion.
