SC - Re: order of service of a meal

[RuddR at aol.com]

Phillipa writes:

>  I have been reading _Fast and Feast_ and _The Medieval Kitchen_.  I am 
> trying 
>  to get a sense of how the medieval / renaissance feast is served.
>  
>  In _The Medieval Kitchen_ the authors list some suggestions for serving a 
>  feast.  Am I correct in thinking that each course is a "little meal" sort 
of 
> 
>  unto itself.  (I've been to several feasts and it seemed like that was the 
>  case)  I am having a hard time getting the 20th C model out of my head.
>  And:
>  Does a meal ALWAYS start with wine?

A good source for the ordering of medieval dinners can be found in Two 
Fifteenth-century Cookery-Books, ed. Thomas Austin. There is a section at the 
end of Harleian MS 279, listing the menus for several historic dinners and 
feasts. It can be found online at:
http://www.hti.umich.edu/bin/me-idx?type=HTML&rgn=DIV1&byte=3391465 
starting on page 57 and running to page 64.

Each course can indeed be seen as a separate meal ("little" hardly seems to 
be the word for some of the courses listed), and could be akin to sitting 
down to luncheon, dinner and supper without getting up in between.

Rudd Rayfield