SC - Menus and Veggies (was: German cookbook...)

[david friedman]

Gwen Catrin von Berlin wrote:

>I am working on translating and webbing (in English) "Ein New Kochbuch" 1581,
>by Marxen Rumpolt.  The corrected Salad section has been added to the web,
>but I am taking a small break in the baked goods chapter, to get a
>transcription and translation of the selection of "sample feasts" he has in
>the first 40+ pages of the book.
>
>I will be the Koch for the Barony of Caerthe 's Arts & Sciences Competition
>feast in early November, and would like to keep it period, documentable, and
>DELICIOUS!
>(Ya'll come now, Ya hear !!!)
>so I wanted a better base of how he claims a feast was constructed.  I am
>rather appalled how LITTLE veggie matter is listed in the actual menus.

This seems to be typical. As I remember, the English menus (royal 
feasts, installation of a bishop, etc.) quoted by Austin in _Two 
Fifteenth Century Cookery Books_ have no or almost no vegetables 
listed. I have just been looking through Le Menagier's menus, and he 
typically has a couple of vegetables listed out of about 20 or 30 
dishes for a meat-day dinner, and maybe three or four for a similar 
fish-day dinner. It might be that vegetables were thought of as 
lower-class, what you bought when you couldn't afford better, and 
therefore weren't much eaten at feasts or elaborate dinners. Or it 
could be that they were eaten but not mentioned any more than the 
bread was. I remember that Chiquart, after going through in detail 
the meats, spices, eggs, dried fruit, etc., needed for his 
prospective feast, says rather dismissively:

"And so that the workers are not idle, and so that they do not lack 
for anything, there should be delivered funds in great abundance to 
the said kitchen masters to get salt, pot-vegetables and other 
necessary things which might be needed, which do not occur to me at 
present."

Elizabeth/Betty Cook