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Posts from the ‘Medieval Food’ Category

Apr 21

medieval-cooking

Medieval Recipes

Newly-discovered 12th century recipes to be recreated at Durham University event.   

Newly-discovered food recipes from a 12th century Durham Priory manuscript are to be recreated at a Durham University event later in the month. The manuscript in question, MS51, was completed in Latin in the late 12th century, as dated by the palaeographer, Dr Greti Dinkova-Bruun. Professor Faith Wallis who have studied the manuscript tells that “it was owned by Durham Cathedral Priory, but whether it was written there is uncertain. It may well have been a gift to the Priory (my personal view is that this was the more likely scenario), like the medical books donated in the latter part of the 12th century by two doctors, Herebertus and Gervase. The manuscript is a composite volume of four booklets, assembled in the Middle Ages. The recipes are in booklet 3. Who bound the recipes together with two expositions of the Mass and a gloss on the Psalter has not yet been established. Lots of research still to do!” It consists of 102 leaves plus 5 blank leaves. It came to Sidney Sussex’s archive collection through Samuel Ward, who was himself born in County Durham.  Ward became a Fellow of Sidney Sussex in 1599 and Master of the College in 1610. The manuscript is now held at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University.

The manuscript contains medieval recipes for medical ointments and cures and was compiled and written at Durham Cathedral’s priory around 1140. The work was recently re-examined and found to contain some food recipes, which experts claim to be amongst the oldest in the western medieval culinary tradition, preceding the previously known examples from circa 1290. However, such recipes may also be found in the oeuvre of Hildegard of Bingen (1098 –1179). Whether the recipes in the Durham collection are echoed in those of Hildegard of Bingen remains to be seen.

Dr Giles Gasper from Durham University’s Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (IMEMS), says in a press-release: “Some of the medical potions in this book seem to have stood the test of time, some emphatically haven’t! But we’re looking forward to finding out whether these newly-discovered recipes have done so. The recipes were noticed recently by Professor Faith Wallis, an expert in medical history and science and an international member of IMEMS. She immediately realised the significance of these recipes, since they so markedly predated the previously earliest-known ones by a century and a half. I encouraged her to translate them and send them to our colleague, food historian Caroline Yeldham who could best work out how to interpret the instructions with a view to recreating them. The recipes are for sauces to accompany mutton, chicken, duck, pork and beef. There’s even a seasonal version of the chicken recipe, charmingly called “hen in winter”. We believe this recipe is simply a seasonal variation, using ingredients available in the colder months and specifying “hen” rather than “chicken”, meaning it was an older bird as it would be by that time of year. The sauces typically feature parsley, sage, pepper, garlic, mustard and coriander, which I suspect may give them a Middle Eastern, Lebanese, feel when we recreate them. According to the text, one of the recipes comes from the Poitou region of what is now modern Central Western France. This proves international travellers from and to Durham brought recipes with them.”

The recipes are to be used as part of a cookery workshop for English and archaeology Master of Arts (MA) students from Durham. They will be attempting to recreate the sauces and dishes for the first time in hundreds of years. This workshop will take place on April 25th at Blackfriars Restaurant in Newcastle, led by Caroline Yeldham and Andy Hook, Blackfriars’ owner.

The same recipes will then be recreated for lunch the following Saturday, April 27th, to accompany a lunchtime lecture in the banqueting hall of the restaurant by Professor Chris Woolgar entitled “Food In Medieval England.” Prof Woolgar has been invited by IMEMS to speak as part of an on-going series of historical lectures on food at Blackfriars.

Andy Hook from Blackfriars said: “We’re delighted to be continuing our relationship with Durham University and IMEMS with this latest lecture. It’s an intriguing thought that we’ll be tasting food that hasn’t been experienced for hundreds of years and predate so markedly the earlier recipes we knew about.”

Medieval Cooking – 25.04. 2013

 

Jan 11

pomegranate-1

Pomegranates

Pomegranates were a medieval luxury

“If you want to make a raymonia (Arabic: Rumānīya), take hens and cook them with salted meat. And take unblanched almons, and wash them in lukewarm water, and grind them very strongly and dilute with hens’ broth and strain. Afterwards, take pomegranate verjuice and pomegranate wine and add it. Then boil it and add enough sugar.” (From Melitta Weiss Adamson: Regional Cuisines of Medieval Europe: A Book of Essays, Routledge 2002  p. 69))

Another variation advises to use “fine white almonds” and grind them well in a mortar. And when they are well-powdered, blend them with 1 part juice of sour pomegranates. Finally add to the mortar powdered sugar, cinnamon and ginger to taste and serve it to roast c

hicken. (Libro del Coch). A third variation mentions the use of pomegranate seeds sprinkled on top as decoration. Other collections of

recipes mentions pomegranate-juice mixed into the mash made of baked eggplants together with sesame-seeds or other nuts plus caraway. If you want a precise recipe, the Medieval Spanish Chef furnishes one.

Pomegranate Tree 300x297 Pomegranates

Pomegranates – in season right now – were ancient delicacies. No one knows for certain were they originated, but Afghanistan, Persia, Armenia have been popular guesses. Wherever it was cultivated first, it soon became imbued with a heavy religious and symbolic significance representing fertility. Thus the scouts of Moses came back from Canaan carrying grapes, pomegranates and figs as signs of the plenty of the Promised Lands. Carbonised pomegranates were found in a tomb in Bronze Age Jericho.

Like the ancient Greeks, the Romans prized pomegranates and imported them from Cathage, describing them as malum punicum, the Cathaginian Apple. The medieval name, pomegranate, derives from pomum granatum, “seeded apple” and was identified as the apple, Adam choked on in the garden of Eden, hence the larynx was named as Adam’s Apple.

Pliny wrote about 9 varieties and Columella gave directions on how to preserve them by twisting the sprigs, by which they were hanging and then let them be on the tree. Later it was probably reintroduced to medieval Europe via the Arabs and through Sicily and Andalucia. Grown all along the Mediterranean it turned into a highly prized medieval delicacy used for wines, vinegars, candy and syrups; amongst other things it was used as an ingredient in delicate sauces served to chickens or doves. The trees were in themselves considered beautiful and thus grown in the more exotic enclosed gardens in Southern Europe as well as further North.

pomegranate margrete dress 300x277 Pomegranates

Silk Brocades
Pomegranates were a favourite pattern in silk brocades from the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance. A famous early example is the golden brocaded dress of Margaret I, Queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden (1553 – 1412). The so-called Uppsala Gown was probably preserved in Roskilde after her death because it was believed that the gown was able to help distressed mothers giving birth. Later in the 17th century was brought to Uppsala as part of the Swedish spoils of war, where it has been kept since. In the late 20th century it was copied several times and these may be seen in the museums of the cathedrals of Roskilde (Denmark) and Uppsala (Sweden).

margaret gown034 220x300 Pomegranates

The dress was designed to exhibit conspicuous consumption, puddling on the floor and with a train. The cloth – gold on red silk was probably made in Lucca in Italy in the beginning of the 15th century. The design, however might be rather older. Traditionally it was said to have been the wedding dress of Queen Margaret, worn at her betrothal to the Norwegian King at the age of ten but a radio-carbon dating places the fabric between 1403 – 1439.

Technically speaking the weave is a diasper or lampas. The ground weave is a five-shaft warp satin with a thread count of 80/cm. The pattern-forming layer of the weave is shot through with gilded silver-lamella spun around a silk thread. The pattern repeat is 30 x 50 cm wide and consist of laurel garlands with a group of five pomegranates at their tangential points with a centre-motif resembling what in the literature anachronistically is called a “pineapple” – but which actually looks much more like a split pomegranate.

The dress is exhibited in Uppsala Cathedral North of Stockholm

uppsala dress035 225x300 Pomegranates

 READ MORE:

The Golden Gown of Queen Margareta in Uppsala Cathedral/Drottning Margaretas gyllene kjortel i Uppsala domkyrka
Agnes Geijer, Anne Marie Franze’n, Margareta Nockert
Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Stockholm 1994
ISBN 91-7402-249-0

 

Nov 12

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Martinmas

The traditional celebration of St. Martin’s day has medieval roots  

The celebration of Martinmas – or Martinsmesse or St. Martin’s day – in England can be documented back into the 14th century and was at that time accompanied by conspicuous feasting supplemented by musical entertainment.

In England the food consisted of blood puddings, roasts and lots of beer.

Quite the opposite is the case in continental Europe, where the same elements of the feast may be found. Here, however, the goose was definitely on the table very early on as is witnessed by some very charming “Martin-Ballads” composed by an otherwise unknown monk, who lived at the court of the Archbishop of Salzburg 1365 -1396.

Read the story behind the feast and get the medieval recipe for a roasted goose in

Medieval Histories 2012 11:2

Apr 12

Harvesting Wine - From: Grandes Heures de Rohan, Anjou - copyright BnF

Medieval Wine

The new thematic exhibition at “Tour Jean Sans Peurs“ in Paris tells the story of “Wine in the Middle Ages”

Paris is not exactly swamped with intact medieval buildings. One of the lesser known, however, is the “Tour Jean Sans Peur”; Jean Sans Peur was also known as the Jean I, Duc de Bourgogne (1371 – 1419). The tower is all that is left of the “Hôtel de Bourgogne”.

Since 1999 the tower has been open to the public. Apart from a number of interesting rooms – a grand staircase and the audience room of the Duke of Burgundy – the tower hosts a series of exhibition. The latest, which opened on the 11th of April, showcases the history of wine in the middle age.

The exhibition is divided into five themes: The role of wine in Christianity, the production of wine in the countryside, the keeping and selling of wine, the use of wine in cooking and medicine – and finally the mores surrounding wine-drinking.

The exhibition is built around a large number of illustrations and recreated tableaux.

Accompanying the exhibition are a series of lectures

Read more about wine production in the Middle Ages

Le Vin au Moyen Age
April 11 – November 11  2012

Tour Jean Sens Peur
20 rue Étienne Marcel, 75002 Paris

Some beautiful medieval illustrations showing wine making, selling and drinking