[Sca-cooks] medieval words for breakfast, lunch and dinner

[Ariane H]

rcmann4 at earthlink.net wrote:

>On 10 Dec 2003, at 18:30, Dan Phelps wrote:
>  
>
>>For what it is worth IIRC there is a tale entitled "Eel Pies" on pages 39
>>through 42 in "Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles"  (The Hundred Tales), a 14th
>>French source,  which makes reference to "breakfast" "lunch" and "dinner"....The knight asks the squire what his favorite dish is and
>>then proceeds to have him fed it morning, noon, and night. ...
>>As I do not read French and, in any case, do not have access to the original I
>>cannot pass on the accuracy of the translation.
>>    
>>
>
>There is a copy of the original French here:
>http://gallica.bnf.fr/scripts/ConsultationTout.exe?E=0&O=N027709
>
>The story in question begins on page 56.  I don't see any mention of names 
>of meals, just that they served him nothing but "pastez de anguilles".
>  
>

Nor does it even mention, unfortunately, how many meals per day.  Here's 
a literal translation, beginning from the bottom of page 58 (the knight 
has just ordered the first eel pie):
"car, comme le dit mignon fut assis a table pour menger en sa chambre..."
"And so, when the said companion sat down to eat at the table in his 
room, the very day of this commandment, his people generously brought 
him beautiful big eel pies which were given to them in the kitchen, 
which made him quite happy.  He ate his fill of them.  The next day the 
same thing, and for five or six days following this pie game kept on 
going, which annoyed him thoroughly; he asked his people whether they 
could serve nothing but eels....He was advised, one of these days, to go 
dine with the masters of the house, who had eel pies served to him just 
as before."  At this point he laments that he's been living on eel pies 
for a month already and has lost all his strength...but, if we're 
looking for clues to frequency of daily meals in this text, there 
unfortunately don't seem to be any.

On the other hand, while we're looking for clues in medieval novellas, 
Boccaccio's _Decameron_ describes a pretty consistent daily routine: the 
young people at the villa wake up after sunrise, spend the morning 
outdoors, and have dinner near midday; nap, tell stories, and have 
supper around sunset.  There are also occasional mentions (in Day 3, for 
example) of light refreshments, such as wine and sweets, before the 
first meal.  I don't have a copy of the Italian text but could try 
looking it up if anyone's curious about the names of the meals.


Vittoria
(always reading literature for the food references ;)