Category Archives: Food

Medieval recipes brought to life

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Ruth

I’ve written about the use of spices and sauces in preparing medieval meat dishes. Recipes of the time were quite vague, assuming a common training base and palate for cooks. Here, modern chefs try to work out what medieval recipes … Continue reading →

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Spain’s water problem

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Ruth

Spain and Portugal share a peninsula that is mostly a high, arid plateau. Portugal’s western coast receives most of the rain. The capital cities of Muslim Andalusia were clustered on the arid plateau; Cordoba gets about 7 inches of rain … Continue reading →

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Christmas in a castle

Posted on December 21, 2013 by Ruth

As you remember from the castle series, there were no true castles in Charlemagne’s time. As soon as you’re in a stone castle with a keep, maybe a round tower, and a gatehouse, the year is at least 1100 and … Continue reading →

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Christmas with Charlemagne

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Ruth

When Pope Gregory first sent Latin missionaries to the outer northern wilds of Europe, he instructed them to make it easy for converts. If they were used to gathering on a hilltop somewhere on a certain day, find a saint’s … Continue reading →

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15th century castle kitchens

Posted on November 3, 2013 by Ruth

By the 1400s, castles were more and more residential and less and less military. When the government needed a real fortress, the king now built a compact stone fort with very thick walls and artillery stations. The castle residences could … Continue reading →

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Modern European cooking begins

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Ruth

1400: firewood is scarcer than ever, with just one iron forge using up to 100 oak trees per year. Wild game animals are hoarded by aristocrats on their shrinking forest estates (parks). But beer is flowing, with a surplus of … Continue reading →

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Side note: Jews and the Black Death

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Ruth

Why did Jews get targeted during the plague? Here’s what happened (copied from FB comments string on “The Great Mortality” post): By this time, England and northern France had expelled their Jewish populations. Jews lived in Spain, southern France (Marseille … Continue reading →

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Post-plague diet shift

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Ruth

The collapse of the medieval farm economy had a very wide impact on European society. Farming had been based on semi-slavery in which tenants owed the landowner certain days of free labor. They weren’t allowed to leave this contract without … Continue reading →

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The Great Mortality

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Ruth

Although historians count the Middle Ages as running through 1450, when Constantinople fell to the Turks, there’s a compelling argument for ending the era a century sooner, in 1350. By that year, Europe as it had been for the last … Continue reading →

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Ale and beer

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Ruth

In the early Middle Ages, ale and beer didn’t refer to separate drinks; they were more or less interchangeable. The brew indicated was made from sprouted wheat (dried and ground) brewed in water and then left to ferment. They added … Continue reading →

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