[Sca-cooks] Cooking period foods resembling modern foods

[Solveig Throndardottir]

Noble Cousin!

Greetings from Solveig!

>When it was eaten breakfast appears to have been a little bread and beer (or
>wine) to keep hunger at bay until lunch.  Coffee, tea and cocoa began
>replacing beer during the 17th Century.  The "petit dejune" (if I remember
>the spelling correctly) of selected breads, pastries, butter and jams served
>with coffee, tea or cocoa and occasionally side meat may be an evolution of
>the medieval breakfast.

Where are you getting this from? What culture does it apply to? I have
scholarly works here which state that lunch was a later development for
at least one of the cultures which I am interested in. As for generic
Western medieval. Let's examine your contention. In an agrarian Society,
most adult men are going to be accustomed to getting up in the morning
and going off to the fields, pastures or woods to work during the day.
In such societies, breakfast and dinner will be taken at home and hearth,
but any sort of lunch will be a fairly modest affair. Last I heard, the
English tended to eat gruel in the morning. Gruel was basically porridge
mixed with meat drippings and scraps from the evening meal. This is rather
hearty fair if a bit humble. Incidentally, the traditional German farm
breakfast is quite substantial and includes meat and fish and cheese and
similar dishes.

In "Courtly Cutlure:  Literature and Society in the High Middle Ages",
Joachim Bumke mentions two meals that were eaten each day. One was indeed
called "petit manger" while the main meal was called "gramangir"

Franciscan Bartholomaeus in "De proprietatibus rerum" lists thirteen
points which make a meal splendid and festive. (Does anyone have a copy
of this? I would like to know the ten non-food points.)

Feasts and Banquets were ceremonial affairs involving a great deal of
protocol.
-- 

					Your Humble Servant
					Solveig Throndardottir
					Amateur Scholar

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| Barbara Nostrand, Ph.D.         | Solveig Throndardottir, CoM, CoS   |
| deMoivre Institute              | Carolingia Statis Mentis Est       |
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