[Sca-cooks] Newspaper reporter needs help with story

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

><SNIP> I am doing a feature story for my paper on medieval feasts, 
>using the Midrealm coronation feast this past weekend as the basis. 
><SNIP> But I want to clarify a few things.

I assume you are talking about the food of the highest classes - 
there will certainly be other differences between people today and 
the Medieval common person.

>  1) What would you consider the main mundane misconceptions about 
>medieval food?

-- a. They over-spiced their food to hide the taste of spoiled meat.
Spices were too expensive to waste on bad food

-- b. Medieval food tastes bad, weird, or is inedible.
It's often spiced differently than generic American food. But it's 
not that different from Middle Eastern or Indian food.

>  2) What is the most common -but wrong - way medieval feasts are depicted?

That people were rude, crude, and lewd - grabbing food and getting it 
all over themselves, belching loudly, groping the serving wenches - 
there wouldn't have been any serving wenches at a feast - and 
brawling in the dining hall.

>  3) What is the true most important difference between modern food 
>and medieval food?

--a. They had no refrigerators or freezers

This is obvious. But the ramifications may not be consciously considered.

They had to use very fresh food in season, or else foods salted, 
dried, smoked, pickled in vinegar or brine, or preserved in honey or 
sugar.

One does not have to go back into the past for this to be true. When 
i lived in Southern France in the early 1970s, most folks i knew had 
no refrigerators, so they bought their food *fresh every day*. When i 
lived in Jakarta Indonesia in the late 1970s, most Indonesians had no 
refrigerators (heck, many had no electricity), so they bought their 
food *fresh every day*. And anything left over from the night before 
was generally finished the next day before the evening meal.

-- b. No fresh foods shipped from half-a-world away (such as bananas 
any time or fresh strawberries from South America when they are out 
of season in the US).

-- c. No tomatoes, no potatoes, no chili peppers, no bell peppers, no 
pecans, no maize (corn), no pumpkins or zucchinis. Sweet potatoes and 
turkey only in the 16th century.

>  4) What is the closest thing to a steak available in the Middle 
>Ages? If we need to be specific, try 14th C France)

It depends on what you mean by a steak... I'm not trying to be dense 
here, but do you mean:
-- Grilled or broiled slab o' meat?
-- A meat dish considered "high class"?
-- An easy to cook meat dish?
-- A manly meat dish?
-- Something else?

-- 
Urtatim, formerly Anahita, al-Qurtubiyya bint 'abd al-Karim al-hakam al-Fassi
West Kingdom
Principality of the Mists
Province of the Mists