Mideival Cooking
Cooking in the medieval times was performed on very big scale, and food was cheap and plentiful. Foreign goods had to be bought at the nearest large town. Food trade was a primary business. It was also a way of determining class. The nobles would eat meat, white bread, pastries, and drink wine. This sort of diet caused many health problems, such as skin troubles, digestive disorders, infections from decomposed proteins, scurvy, and tooth decay. A peasant would eat porridge, turnips, dark bread, and in the north they would drink beer or ale. Women were the expert cooks, and they seasoned their food heavily with pepper, cloves, garlic, cinnamon, vinegar, and wine. They paid close attention to the appearance of their meal. For instance, they might spread the feathers of a peacock that they are serving. Also, if a the eggs of a batter didn't make it yellow enough, they would add saffron (saffron is orange of yellow powder obtained from the stigmas of the saffron flower). Meat was expensive, so it was considered a luxury. This made butchers prosperous. The most common and least expensive was sheep. They would also eat birds: gulls, herons, storks, swans, cranes, cormorants, and vultures, just to name a few. Animals were cut up immedi
Rowling, Marjorie. Everyday Life in Medieval Times. New York: Dorset Press, 1968. As you can see, food was very important to the people back then. It also took a lot of time, effort, and spices to cook. We could say that the maniple had a great big job on his hands on the trip to Canterbury because he had to get enough food to supply thirty people. The cook also had it tough too, having to cook for all of those people. The Franklin probably held many events like this, but they may have not lasted as long as 120 days. And maybe the monk drank just a little too much mead. It took a lot of preparation for an event this size. Even before they could choose what to make, they had to make a rough estimate of their available resources, like how many people are willing to spend most of the day helping them cook, how many more are willing to do the chopping and things, how many ovens and burners the kitchen they will be using has, and how much money will be available to them. Back in medieval times, they had to do this preparation three or four months before hand, and had to start to get the food together six to eight weeks before the feast. Everything was to be gathered three to four days before so the meat could be hung and treated with as they wished. Only gentleman had wine, which was often diluted with water or mixed with honey, ginger, or cinnamon to sweeten it. The only hot drink that they had in those days was mulled wine, and that was served only at festivities. Monks enjoyed mead, which is an alcoholic drink made by fermenting honey with water and adding spices.
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1105
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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