[Sca-cooks] Source information for the make-up of removes?

[Alex Clark]

At 08:44 PM 2/21/2004 +1000, Marion wrote:
>What I actually need help here with is trying to explain to a friend (a
>member of a Viking/dark ages group that does very little food research) why
>the idea of separate "soup/appertiser"; "main" and "dessert" courses is a
>modern invention.
>
>I'm trying to explain that a standard medieval remove would consist of a
>variety of dishes meant to bolster the eaters "humours"
>
>Am I totally off the beam on this?  Can anyone flip me a well worded
>explantion (including source) that I can pass one?

You are sort of right to the extent that meals weren't organized in the 
same ways as in modern America. There is some documentation for menus, but 
I don't know if there is any for the dark ages and the viking era.

Some of the sources for feast menus used or recommended in period are:

Hieatt, Constance and Sharon Butler. _Curye on Inglysch_. New York, 1985.

_Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books_. 
http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/c/cme/cme-idx?type=HTML&rgn=TEI.2&byte=3356093

Le Menagier de Paris. http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/menagier/

These are from the 14th and 15th centuries. Some of the general rules or 
tendencies of these menus are:
  - A wide variety of foods can be served in one course, or in one platter 
(/assiette/).
  - Some types of foods, such as tarts, fritters, fried slices, cream of 
almonds, fruits, and nuts, tend to appear mainly in later courses.
  - The English often listed a pottage (e. g. porridge or thick stew) at 
the beginning of each course, and approximately dessert-like foods at the 
end of the course.

The word dessert was in use, at least in French (/desserte/), but it didn't 
quite mean what we mean by it -- according to le Menagier, foods served for 
dessert included frumenty and venison.

Henry of Maldon/Alex Clark