SC - Re: order of service of a meal
RuddR at aol.com
RuddR at aol.com
Wed Sep 13 17:31:40 PDT 2000
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
More information about the Sca-cooks
mailing list