ANST - Middle Ages food icky? Try the Renaissance -yumm!

Michael F. Gunter mfgunter at fnc.fujitsu.com
Wed Apr 1 11:27:40 PST 1998


> I know potatoes and chocolate had been
> brought back from the new world, but they were not used in a manner that
> resembles modern usage.  New potatoes were thin sliced and served raw with
> malt vinegar.  Chocolate was brewed like coffee and drunk black.

Frequently the potatoes mentioned in period sources were sweet potatoes. The
New World potatoes were mainly used as interesting plants instead of for food.
Also those potatoes were varicolored, purple, pink, red. Do you happen to 
remember the source of the salad you mentioned?

Chocolate was rarely used and nothing like the milk chocolate we think of.
Coffee has already been mentioned.

> What else
> might we find in the Renaissance kitchen that would have been unknown in
> the good old days (pre-1485)?

I'll have to do a bit of looking to give a complete list. Lotsa stuff. 

> 
> Personally, as a civilized gentleman of siecle quatorze Languedoc, I am
> appalled that no one has yet suggested either peacock or swan.

Peacock is terrible meat unless prepared just right. Even period sources
have suggested to cook a goose and cover it with the peacock's skin to make
a more palatable dish. Swan isn't much better.

> 
> lo vostre por vos servir 
> Sir Lyonel Oliver Grace

Yers,

Gunthar
============================================================================
Go to http://www.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.



More information about the Ansteorra mailing list