Author: Anjuli Nielsen

While recipes are now considered as mainly for making tasty dishes, in medieval times they also functioned as medicines to cause and maintain the good health of those ingesting them. The cooks of great lords would need to be especially vigilant, knowing the humours of all the different ingredients that passed through their kitchens and how they would react with eachother. Sauces and condiments made up of different spices were used to correct humoural imbalances in dishes and make the overall meal more easily digested (Taillevant & Scully, 1988). Unlike modern sauces, which are generally made of the same sort of ingredients as the dish they are going on (e.g. gravy on meat), medieval sauces were often meant to contrast in an effort to balance the humours of the dish. 

Cooking methods were also used to compliment the humours of the cooked food, for example beef (a dry meat) was generally boiled, and pork (a wet meat) is generally roasted. Humoural theory is demonstrated in our cooking of the Cinnamon Brewet in which we stewed our beef and added ginger, one of the only spices considered “wet” (Taillevant & Scully, 1988). 

Image from Classical Wisdom

https://classicalwisdom.com/science/medicine/the-humours-of-hippocrates-which-one-are-you/

Our recipes for barley water and almond milk come from a section in Le Menagier dedicated to “Beverages for the Sick”, demonstrating the role of recipes in medicine. There is also a section on “pottages for the sick”, pottage being an umbrella term for stew type dishes (Greco & Rose, 2009). 

References

Greco, G. L., & Rose, C. M. (2009). The Good Wife’s Guide (Le Ménagier de Paris): A Medieval Household Book. Cornell University Press.

Taillevent, & Scully, T. (Ed). (1988). The Viandier of Taillevent: An Edition of all Extant Manuscripts. University of Ottawa Press.

Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books

As the name suggests, this book is a compilation of two medieval manuscripts that are found in the British Museum. It also contains extracts from three other texts. The two main manuscripts are named Harlien MS. 279 (written around 1430) and Harlien MS. 4016 (written around 1450). Altogether, this text contains around 500 recipes. The full name is “Two fifteenth-century cookery-books: Harleian MS. 279 (ab 1430), & Harl. MS. 4016 (ab. 1450), with extracts from Ashmole MS. 1439, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS. 55;” it was compiled by the Oxford University Press and published in 1888. 

We will only use one recipe from this text; the apple muse. The intext recipe is as follows:

Apple Muse: Take Appelys an sethe hem, an Serge*. [ Sift. ] hem þorwe a Sefe in-to a potte; þanne take Almaunde Mylke & Hony, an caste þer-to, an gratid Brede, Safroun, Saunderys, & Salt a lytil, & caste all in þe potte & lete hem sethe; & loke þat þou stere it wyl, & serue it forth. (Austin, 1888).

-Notes for this recipe: Saunderys refers to sandalwood.

Reference

Austin, T. (Ed.). (1888). Two fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books: Harleian MS. 279 (ab 1430), & Harl. MS. 4016 (ab. 1450), with extracts from Ashmole MS. 1439, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS. 55. Oxford University Press.

Le Ménagier de Paris

This book was not written as a cookbook, although it does contain many recipes. It was written as a sort of guidebook to running a household. There are several surviving complete manuscripts of this text, which was written in the late 1300’s. The book is written in the voice of an aging wealthy husband to his young bride; the author is anonymous. This massive book contains advice on such topics as how to behave, how to dress, how to choose and care for servants and horses, and how to cook. The book contains more than 380 recipes, although several are not culinary recipes. There are also recipes for things like pest control poisons and invisible ink. 

The English translation we will be using is named “The Good Wife’s Guide (Le Ménagier de Paris): A Medieval Household Book,” and was published in 2009. We are using three recipes from this book. The recipes we will be using are for poudre douce (sweet powder), a turnip dish, sweet tisane (barley water), and almond milk. The written recipes are as follows:

Poudre Douce: Hippocras. To make hippocras powder, pound together a quartern of very fine cinnamon, selected by tasting it, half a quartern of choice cassia buds, an ounce of hand-picked, fine white Mecca ginger, an ounce of grains of paradise, and a sixth of an ounce of nutmeg and galingale together. And nota that the powder and the sugar mixed together make “duke’s powder.” (Greco & Rose, 2009).

-Notes for this recipe: we will only make the Hippocras powder, not the Hippocras itself (a spiced wine). As this recipe notes, the powder, when mixed with sugar, makes “duke’s powder” (poudre douce). 

Turnip Dish (unnamed): Turnips are firm and difficult to cook until they have been through the cold and frost. Cut off the head and tail and other whiskery rootlets or roots. After peeling them, wash in two or three changes of good, hot water; then cook them in steaming meat stock of either pork, beef, or mutton. Item, in Beauce after cooking them, they slice them up and fry them in a pan and sprinkle them with spices. (Greco & Rose, 2009).

-Notes for this recipe: we will be sprinkling poudre douce on the turnips after frying them in butter. They would likely have used a solid animal fat such as butter or lard in France rather than something like olive oil, which would have been more widely used further south. 

Barley Water: Sweet tisane. Boil water, then for each septier of water add one generous bowl of barley—it doesn’t matter if it is all hulled—and two parisis’ worth of licorice; item, also figs. Boil until the barley bursts, then strain through two or three pieces of linen. Put plenty of rock sugar in each goblet. The barley that remains can be fed to poultry to fatten them. Nota that the youngest licorice is the best; when cut it is bright green, while the older is more faded and dead and dry. (Greco & Rose, 2009).

Almond Milk: Hazelnut beverage. Boil and peel the nuts, mix in cold water, then grind them and thin with boiled water and strain. Do this, grind and strain, twice. Then put in the cellar to cool; it is quite a bit better than a tisane. 302. Beverage of almond milk as above. (Greco & Rose, 2009)

-Notes for this recipe: we will substitute almonds for hazelnuts to create almond milk, as specified later in the recipe. 

The premise of this book is very interesting; it is not written as a guide to the elite as other contemporary cookbooks are, and it is very detailed. The amount of work that goes into a manuscript, an illuminated one at that, is monumental. Manuscripts were very expensive in terms of time, money, and effort to produce. This book draws on content from Le Viandier, implying that the author was familiar with that work and borrowed from it in their own writings. 

The sheer quantity of topics covered in this work, in my opinion, gives the reader a near-unprecedented look at life in middle-upper-class medieval France. There are so many hidden gems within this text for readers to discover.

Reference

Greco, G. L., & Rose, C. M. (2009). The Good Wife’s Guide (Le Ménagier de Paris): A Medieval Household Book. Cornell University Press.

Le Viandier 

The recipes found in this book come from a compilation of four partial manuscripts; there is no one (surviving) complete book that makes up Le Viandier. Each manuscript contains variations, and each one contains errors. This book is accredited to Guillaume Tirel, a cook for various members of the French royal family, and was presumably first written in the 1300’s. 

The version we have been using is an English translation named “The Viandier of Taillevent: An Edition of all Extant Manuscripts,” which was published in 1988. The only recipe we will draw from this text is one for ‘Brouet de Canelle’ (Cinnamon Brewet). The in-text recipe is as follows: 

Cinnamon Brewet: Cook your poultry in wine or in water, or cook any other meat, quarter it and sautee it; then grind unpeeled, dry almonds and a great deal of cinnamon, moisten them with beef broth and strain them, and boil them well with your meat, along with verjuice; and add ground ginger, cloves and grains of paradise. It should be thick and strong. (Taillevent & Scully, 1988)

-Notes for this recipe: We will use a beef roast as our meat. 

While we have chosen to use only one recipe from this text, there is a great wealth of information to be found within its pages, and it is certainly worth reading.

Reference

Taillevent, & Scully, T. (Ed). (1988). The Viandier of Taillevent: An Edition of all Extant Manuscripts. University of Ottawa Press. 

Spices served many functions in the Middle Ages; they were not simply there to make food taste good. Along with taste, spices were used in remedies and recipes to balance one’s humours and to demonstrate one’s wealth (the ability to buy great quantities of such luxurious goods). They were not used to disguise the scent of rotting meat; someone who could afford spices could afford to eat unspoiled meat. Spices were imported from far-off and exotic lands, having to travel great distances to reach North-Western Europe. 

Despite their luxurious nature, by the later Middle Ages, the middle and upper classes had become accustomed to eating spiced foods. By the 15th century, the availability of spices increased, and while volatile, prices decreased (Belich, 2022). These factors meant that there was greater accessibility of spices to a greater number of people.

Some of the spices commonly consumed in the Late Middle Ages would have been very familiar to us; others are less recognizable. Here’s a list and some brief descriptions of some of the spices we will be using in our project; hopefully, a few of these spices will be new to you!

Cloves

Cloves were used as a flavouring as well as a food preservative in Medieval times. This spice is strong and pungent; it is still commonly used in cooking today (“Clove,” 2023). In terms of humoural theory, cloves are defined as hot and dry (Amar & Lev, 2016).

Image from Michlitch Spokane Spice

https://www.spokanespice.com/itemdetail.php?id=540&secid=60

Galingale 

This spice is from the ginger family but has a sweet/spicy taste that cannot be substituted with ginger. This spice is now commonly referred to as galangal and is still used today in Southeast Asian cuisine. In terms of humoral theory, galingale is hot and dry (Amar & Lev, 2016)

Image from Simply Recipes

https://www.simplyrecipes.com/what-is-galangal-5209585

Grains of Paradise

Grains of Paradise was a common flavouring agent used in Medieval cooking; this spice is also from the ginger family but tastes like a citrusy black pepper. This spice is also called melegueta pepper; this spice has mostly fallen out of popularity and is hard to come by (Freedman, 2008). In terms of humoural theory, grains of paradise are hot and moist (“Grains of Paradise,” 2023).

Image from Ekaterra

https://ekaterra.com/products/alligator-pepper

Saffron

This spice was mainly used in the Middle Ages to give colour to food rather than to add any sort of taste. It comes from the stigma of a certain flower; it is still used but is hand-cultivated and very expensive (“Saffron,” 2023).  

Image from Sativus.com

https://www.sativus.com/en/saffron/

Sandalwood

Sandalwood was used in the Middle Ages as a food colouring rather than a flavouring; the taste of this wood is bitter. Sandalwood is no longer commonly used in cooking, as it tastes bitter, and some variations are poisonous. Humourally, sandalwood is dry (Jharwal, 2023). Medieval food recreators occasionally leave sandalwood out of recipes because of the modern abundance of food colourings that do not taste bitter, but we have chosen to leave it in because the bitterness added will be authentic to the original recipe. 

Image from Ebay

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/165980361645

References

Amar, Z., & Lev, E. (2016). Arabian Drugs in Medieval Mediterranean Medicine. Edinburgh University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748697823 

Belich, J. (2022). 4 Expansive Trades. In The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe (pp. 106-122). Princeton: Princeton University Press. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.1515/9780691222875-009

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2023, October 19). Clove. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/plant/clove 

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2023, October 9). Saffron. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/saffron 

Das, G., Patra, J. K., Gonçalves, S., Romano, A., Gutiérrez-Grijalva, E. P., Heredia, J. B., Talukdar, A. D., Shome, S., & Shin, H.-S. (2020). Galangal, the multipotent super spices: A comprehensive review. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 101, 50–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tifs.2020.04.032 

Freedman, P. H. (2008). The Medieval Taste for Spices. Historically Speaking, 9(7), 2–5. https://doi.org/10.1353/hsp.2008.0024 

Jharwal, A. (2023, September). Red sandalwood (Pterocarpus santalinus): Benefits & uses for skin. Medium. https://medium.com/@arunjharwal/red-sandalwood-pterocarpus-santalinus-benefits-uses-for-skin-9adec44092f9 Wikimedia Foundation. (2023, October). Grains of Paradise. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grains_of_paradise#cite_note-7

Wikimedia Foundation. (2023, October). Grains of Paradise. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grains_of_paradise#cite_note-7