SC - medieval courses

[Terry Nutter]

Hi, Katerine here.  Stefan asks about medieval courses.  From a modern 
standpoint, think of them as mini-meals.  Dinners typically started with
bread, hard fruits, and hard cheeses on the table, and ended with soft
fruits, soft cheeses, wafers, and spiced wine.  (I'm talking primarily
about 13th to 15th centur here.)  I have never seen either of these
described as a course; they're simply taken for granted as what's there
at those times.

Courses tended to include a range of dishes, from our point of view: meat/
fish dishes, grains, vegetables, sweets.  In general, a feast tended to
have two or possibly three courses.  The progression was less from one
food type to another (salad to soup to meat to dessert) than from simple
and hearty to delicate and complex.  How that plays out depends on where
and when you are.  But throughout Europe, the overall pattern is that
early in the meal, everything goes to everybody; and as you move later, 
dishes (or sometimes even an entire course) may be restricted to people
above a certain status.

This view of meal structure did tend to place more sweet dishes late than
early, but primarily because sweet dishes are more highly represented among
the delicate and complex parts of most European cuisine than among the
simple and hearty ones, not because they were aiming toward some modern
sense of dessert.  Even the first course was likely to have a dish or two that
was relatively sweet; and even the last tended to have a largeish number
of savory and other non-sweet dishes.

This changes in the renaissance, as the final wafers-fruit-cheese-and-wine
expands into sweet banquets.  I'm not sure precisely when this happens; my
impression is that in England, it's roughly associated with the mid 16th
century.  (I'm sure it's no earlier than early 16th century.)

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

- -- Katerine/Terry