In the middle ages nuns would eat fish, fruit, turnips, legumes. They also would eat eggs, onions, melons and bread. In the Middle Ages, they had a meal in the middle of the day, but they called it dinner. For wealthy people, it was the first meal of the day, because they did not eat breakfast. Working people at both meals, because they needed energy for work. To break the fast breakfast usually was a slice of bread with gruel or oatmeal.
The wealthy ate better with more food and things like eggs. Christian clergy are not limited as to what they can eat. In the Middle Ages, the clergy ate the same foods as were eaten in the culture and local community in which they lived. Yes they did eat loads and loads Laboring people of the Middle Ages ate breakfast, dinner at noon, and supper in the evening.
Wealthy people did not have breakfast unless they were very young or suffering from poor health. They ate diner at about noon, and supper in the evening. Colonists weren't in New York during the middle ages!
No, the potato is a new world species and was not introduced into Europe until after the Middle Ages ended. The poor got raw vegtables and hardly anything at all to eat during the middle ages.
There are quite a few things that people during the middle ages would eat at a wedding. Meats of all kinds are included. During the middle ages, corn had not yet been introduced to europe from the new world.
Well, the nobles ate lots of food. This was answered by Jan, in Thomas Carr College. Log in. Middle Ages. Study now. See Answer. Best Answer. Study guides. Middle Ages 20 cards. What was the goal of the Crusades. How did the Byzantine empire fall.
What is monasticism. Who did the Spanish fight during the Reconquista. To celebrate the up and coming Medieval Jousting Spectacular, this blog post is all about food and drink in the Middle Ages! We love Medieval Food and it is always a big drawcard for visitors to our events. As with any historical period, what a person ate and drank depended on how rich they were. They used barley to make a variety of different dishes, from coarse, dark breads to pancakes, porridge and soups.
After a poor harvest, when grain was in short supply, people were forced to include beans, peas and even acorns in their bread. Peasants also grew carrots, onions, cabbage and garlic to flavour their breads, porridges and soups, made cheese to eat with their bread, and gathered apples, pears and mushrooms in order to make pies and tarts. They also grew herbs like parsley, chives, basil and rosemary to further flavour their food. Peasants also ate a great deal of pottage. This is a kind of stew made from oats.
People made different kinds of pottage — some added beans and peas, while others included vegetables such as turnips and parsnips. Leek pottage was especially popular, but the crops used depended on what a peasant had grown in the croft around the side of his home. Most people ate preserved foods that had been salted or pickled soon after slaughter or harvest, such as bacon, pickled herring, and preserved fruits.
The poor often kept pigs, which, unlike cows and sheep, were able to fend for themselves in the forest, and were thus cheap to keep. Peasants were forbidden from hunting a nimals such as deer, boar, hares and rabbits that lived in woodland surrounding most villages, as they were deemed to be the property of the lord and strict punishments were handed out to those who ignored the laws.
Aristocratic estates provided the wealthy with freshly killed meat and river fish, as well as fresh fruit and vegetables. Cooked dishes were heavily flavoured with valuable spices such as caraway, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger and pepper.
Other ingredients that were commonly used included almonds and dried fruits such as dates, figs or raisins. Spicy sauces were also very popular. Many varieties of cheese eaten today, like Dutch Edam, Northern French Brie and Italian Parmesan, were available and well-known in late medieval times. There were also whey cheeses, like ricotta, made from by-products of the production of harder cheeses. Cheese was used in cooking for pies and soups, the latter being common fare in German-speaking areas.
Butter, another important dairy product, was in popular use in the regions of Northern Europe that specialized in cattle production in the latter half of the Middle Ages, the Low Countries and Southern Scandinavia. While most other regions used oil or lard as cooking fats, butter was the dominant cooking medium in these areas. Its production also allowed for a lucrative butter export from the 12th century onward.
Spices were among the most luxurious products available in the Middle Ages, the most common being black pepper, cinnamon and the cheaper alternative cassia , cumin, nutmeg, ginger and cloves.
They all had to be imported from plantations in Asia and Africa, which made them extremely expensive, and gave them social cachet such that pepper for example was hoarded, traded and conspicuously donated in the manner of gold bullion.
It has been estimated that around 1, tons of pepper and 1, tons of the other common spices were imported into Western Europe each year during the late Middle Ages. The value of these goods was the equivalent of a yearly supply of grain for 1.
While pepper was the most common spice, the most exclusive, though not the most obscure in its origin, was saffron, used as much for its vivid yellow-red color as for its flavor, for according to the humours, yellow signified hot and dry, valued qualities; turmeric provided a yellow substitute, and touches of gilding at banquets supplied both the medieval love of ostentatious show and Galenic dietary lore: at the sumptuous banquet that Cardinal Riario offered the daughter of the King of Naples in June , the bread was gilded.
Among the spices that have now fallen into obscurity are grains of paradise, a relative of cardamom which almost entirely replaced pepper in late medieval north French cooking, long pepper, mace, spikenard, galangal and cubeb. Sugar, unlike today, was considered to be a type of spice due to its high cost and humoral qualities. Even when a dish was dominated by a single flavorer it was usually combined with another to produce a compound taste, for example parsley and cloves or pepper and ginger.
Common herbs such as sage, mustard, and parsley were grown and used in cooking all over Europe, as were caraway, mint, dill and fennel. Many of these plants grew throughout all of Europe or were cultivated in gardens, and were a cheaper alternative to exotic spices.
Mustard was particularly popular with meat products and was described by Hildegard of Bingen — as poor man's food. While locally grown herbs were less prestigious than spices, they were still used in upper-class food, but were then usually less prominent or included merely as coloring.
Anise was used to flavor fish and chicken dishes, and its seeds were served as sugar-coated comfits. Surviving medieval recipes frequently call for flavoring with a number of sour, tart liquids.
Wine, verjuice the juice of unripe grapes or fruits vinegar and the juices of various fruits, especially one those with tart flavors were almost universal and a hallmark of late medieval cooking. In combination with sweeteners and spices, it produced a distinctive "pungeant, fruity" flavor. Equally common, and used to complement the tanginess of these ingredients, were sweet almonds. They were used in a variety of ways: whole, shelled or unshelled, slivered, ground and, most importantly, processed into almond milk.
This last type of non-dairy milk product is probably the single most common ingredient in late medieval cooking and blended the aroma of spices and sour liquids with a mild taste and creamy texture. Salt was a ubiquitous and indispensable in medieval cooking. Salting and drying was the most common form of food preservation and meant that especially fish and meat were often heavily salted. Many medieval recipes specifically warn against oversalting and there were recommendations for soaking certain products in water to get rid of excess salt.
Salt was present during more elaborate or expensive meals. The richer the host, and the more prestigious the guest, the more elaborate would be the container in which it was served and the quality and price of the salt. Wealthy guests were provided with salt cellars made of pewter, precious metals or other fine materials, often intricately decorated. The rank of a diner also decided how finely ground and white the salt was.
Salt for cooking, preservation or for use by common people was coarser; sea salt, or "bay salt", in particular, had more impurities, and was described in colors ranging from black to green. Expensive salt, on the other hand, looked like the standard commercial salt common today. The term "dessert" comes from the Old French desservir, "to clear a table", literally "to un-serve", and originated during the Middle Ages.
Sugar, from its first appearance in Europe, was viewed as much as a drug as a sweetener; its long-lived medieval reputation as an exotic luxury encouraged its appearance in elite contexts accompanying meats and other dishes that to modern taste are more naturally savoury. Marzipan in many forms was well-known in Italy and southern France by the s and is assumed to be of Arab origin.
Anglo-Norman cookbooks are full of recipes for sweet and savory custards, potages, sauces and tarts with strawberries, cherries, apples and plums. English chefs also had a penchant for using flower petals such as roses, violets, and elder flowers.
An early form of quiche can be found in Forme of Cury, a 14th century recipe collection, as a Torte de Bry with a cheese and egg yolk filling. In northern France, a wide assortment of waffles and wafers was eaten with cheese and hypocras or a sweet malmsey as issue de table "departure from the table". Like their Muslim counterparts in Spain, the Arab conquerors of Sicily introduced a wide variety of new sweets and desserts that eventually found their way to the rest of Europe.
From the south, the Arabs also brought the art of ice cream making that produced sorbet and several examples of sweet cakes and pastries; cassata alla Siciliana from Arabic qas'ah, the term for the terra cotta bowl with which it was shaped , made from marzipan, sponge cake and sweetened ricotta and cannoli alla Siciliana, originally cappelli di turchi "Turkish hats" , fried, chilled pastry tubes with a sweet cheese filling. Even if food was plentiful in the summer, it was rarely so in the winter.
Food had to be preserved to carry people through to the next season of plenty. Also preserved food became even more important in times of siege. Food preservation methods were the same as had been used since antiquity and did not change much until the invention of canning in the 19th century. The most common and simplest method was to expose foodstuffs to heat or wind to remove moisture, thereby prolonging the durability if not the flavour of almost any type of food from cereals to meats; the drying of food worked by drastically reducing the activity of various water-dependent microorganisms that cause decay.
In warm climates this was mostly achieved by leaving food out in the sun, and in the cooler northern climates by exposure to strong winds especially common for the preparation of stockfish , or in warm ovens, cellars, attics, and even in living quarters.
Subjecting food to a number of chemical processes such as smoking, salting, brining, conserving or fermenting also made it keep longer. Most of these methods had the advantage of shorter preparation times and of introducing new flavors. Smoking or salting meat of livestock butchered in the fall was a common household strategy to avoid having to feed more animals than necessary during the lean winter months.
Vegetables, eggs or fish were also often pickled in tightly packed jars, containing brine and acidic liquids lemon juice, verjuice or vinegar. Another method was to create a seal around the food by cooking it in sugar or honey or fat, in which it was then stored. Bacterial modification was also encouraged, however, by a number of methods; grains, fruit and grapes were turned into alcoholic drinks thus killing any bacteria, and milk was fermented and cured into a multitude of cheeses or buttermilk.
Both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches exercised control on eating habits - most npotably through regulations about fasting.
Consumption of meat was forbidden for a full third of the year for most Christians. All animal products, including eggs and dairy products but not fish , were prohibited during Lent and on other fast days.
Additionally, it was customary for Christians to fast prior to taking the Eucharist. In most of Europe, Wednesdays, Fridays, sometimes Saturdays and various other days on the calendar, including Advent, were fast days. During particularly severe fast days, the number of daily meals was also reduced to one.
Even if most people respected these restrictions and usually made penance when they violated them, there were also numerous ways of circumventing the problem, a conflict of ideals and practice summarized by writer Bridget Ann Henisch:. Although animal products were to be avoided during times of penance, people found ways to vary their diets.
The definition of "fish" was extended to marine and semi-aquatic animals such as whales, barnacle geese, puffins and beavers. The choice of ingredients may have been limited, but that did not mean that meals were smaller. Neither were there any restrictions against moderate drinking or eating sweets. Banquets held on fish days could be splendid, and they were popular occasions for serving illusion food that imitated meat, cheese and eggs; fish could be molded to look like venison, ham or bacon.
Almond milk replaced animal milk as an expensive non-dairy alternative;. Faux eggs made from fish roe and almond milk were cooked in blown-out eggshells, flavoored and colored with exclusive spices.
While the poor were required to conform to the Church's rules, nobles and churchmen were not. Nobles could buy exceptions - many so caled "butter towers" around Europe were funded by selling excemptions from the requirement not eat dairy products.
Monstic orders simply ignored therules for themselves, often justifying themselves by improbable interpretations of the Bible. Since the sick were exempt from fasting, there often evolved the notion that fasting restrictions did not apply in hospitals and this was extended to anywhere outside the refectory.
Monk and Friars would simply eat their fast day meals outside the refectory. Food was an important marker of social status. According to Christian teaching of the time, society consisted of the three estates of the realm: nobility, clergy, and commoners - the working class. The relationship between the classes was strictly hierarchical, with the nobility and clergy claiming worldly and spiritual overlordship over commoners. In the late Middle Ages, the increasing wealth of middle class merchants and traders meant that commoners began emulating the aristocracy, and threatened to break down some of the symbolic barriers between the nobility and the lower classes.
The response came in two forms: didactic literature warning of the dangers of adapting a diet inappropriate for one's class, and sumptuary laws that limited the lavishness of commoners' banquets. Moralists frowned on breaking the overnight fast "breakfast" too early, and members of the Church, the nobility and cultivated gentry avoided it. For practical reasons, breakfast was still eaten by working men, and was tolerated for young children, women, the elderly and the sick.
Because the church preached against gluttony and other weaknesses of the flesh, men tended to be ashamed of needing to eat additional meals. The latter were especially associated with gambling, crude language, drunkenness, and lewd behavior.
Minor meals and snacks were common although also discouraged by the church, and working men commonly received an allowance from their employers in order to buy nuncheons, small morsels to be eaten during breaks.
Medical science of the Middle Ages had a considerable influence on what was considered healthy and nutritious among the upper classes. One's lifestyle including diet, exercise, appropriate social behaviour, and approved medical remedies was the way to good health, and all types of food were assigned certain properties that affected a person's health.
All foodstuffs were also classified on scales ranging from hot to cold and moist to dry, according to the four bodily humors theory proposed by Galen that dominated Western medical science from late Antiquity until the 17th century.
Medieval scholars considered human digestion to be a process similar to cooking. The processing of food in the stomach was seen as a continuation of the preparation initiated by the cook. In order for the food to be properly "cooked" and for the nutrients to be properly absorbed, it was important that the stomach be filled in an appropriate manner. Easily digestible foods would be consumed first, followed by gradually heavier dishes.
If this regimen was not respected it was believed that heavy foods would sink to the bottom of the stomach, thus blocking the digestion duct, so that food would digest very slowly and cause putrefaction of the body and draw bad humors into the stomach.
It was also of vital importance that food of differing properties not be mixed. A meal would ideally begin with easily digestible fruit, such as apples. It would then be followed by vegetables such as lettuce, cabbage, purslane, herbs, moist fruits, light meats, like chicken or goat kid, with potages and broths. After that came the "heavy" meats, such as pork and beef, as well as vegetables and nuts, including pears and chestnuts, both considered difficult to digest. It was popular, and recommended by medical expertise, to finish the meal with aged cheese and various digestives.
The most ideal food was that which most closely matched the humor of human beings, i. Food should preferably also be finely chopped, ground, pounded and strained to achieve a true mixture of all the ingredients. White wine was believed to be cooler than red and the same distinction was applied to red and white vinegar.
Milk was moderately warm and moist, but the milk of different animals was believed to differ.
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