Category Archives: Food

A medieval boiled side dish: frumenty

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Ruth

Thomas Hardy’s novel The Mayor of Casterbridge opens with a man buying frumenty (or furmenty) for his family. They’re at a small fair in the deep rural countryside, but even there, frumenty is already an old-fashioned food. By the end … Continue reading →

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Meat pies

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Ruth

From the working man to the knight, everyone ate meat pies. On the street, vendors sold hot meat pies made of the cheapest possible ingredients. The pastry was coarse, thick and tough; the meat it enclosed was guaranteed only to … Continue reading →

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Porridge and brewet

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Ruth

The two staple foods of peasants and townsfolk were porridge and brewet. Brewet was a meat dish, by definition, but both kinds of food could have just about anything in them. (Sort of like the modern word “casserole”) Porridge began … Continue reading →

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Medieval cooking methods

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Ruth

How you cook food depends on what kind of fuel and utensils are available. Medieval Europe generally had metal pots and wood fires, so most cooking methods had to do with boiling something. Our classic image of medieval cooking is … Continue reading →

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Medieval gardening methods

Posted on April 13, 2013 by Ruth

There was plenty of ignorance in medieval times, but in case you were wondering, farmers and gardeners *did* know the value of manure. In fact, it’s good to view the period as a time in which nearly every kind of … Continue reading →

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Muslim food comes to Europe

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Ruth

The Middle Ages can be said to begin as Mohammed’s successors began to conquer weary, disease-struck regions of the Eastern Roman Empire, and to end as the Muslim-convert Turks finally brought down the walls of Eastern Rome itself: Constantinople. Contact … Continue reading →

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Kitchen gardens

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Ruth

Most medieval houses made it a priority to use even a small bit of exposed earth to make a garden. Deep in cities, people who lived in rooms and flats didn’t even have this much; but country people certainly did, … Continue reading →

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Medieval bees

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Ruth

Beekeeping was well-established by the Middle Ages in the Mediterranean region, of course. Farming bees presented more challenges in colder climates, where Charlemagne had mandated that every royal estate must keep bees. In the Mediterranean countries, every region had its … Continue reading →

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Charlemagne’s vegetables

Posted on April 6, 2013 by Ruth

He wanted his stewards to send him all wolf hides caught and tanned on his estates, feed his hunting dog puppies at their own expense, and use barrels instead of leather bottles. He wanted them to be sure that the … Continue reading →

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Charlemagne the Farmer: Pt. 1

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Ruth

The earliest detailed document we have about food in Dark Ages Europe is the set of regulations that Emperor Charlemagne imposed on his archipelago of manor farms. A king’s court was too large to stay in one place for long, … Continue reading →

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