If you thought deep-fried sweets like funnel cakes, elephant ears/beaver tails and doughnuts were modern inventions for the county fair, think again. Fried pastries have been around since ancient Egypt and China. The Romans ate something called scriblita, a fried pastry dough. Fried doughs were common throughout Asia, the Middle East and Europe in various…
Category: Medieval
Italian Blackberry Sauce, c. 1464
There is no shortage of 15th century Italian recipes thanks to Maestro Martino de Rossi, a well known and influential “celebrity” chef who worked in some of the greatest kitchens of late Medieval/Renaissance Italy. In 1464/65 he wrote Libro de Arte Coquinaria (The Art of Cooking), which is widely considered to be the first modern…
Apple Muse: an Ancient Apple Pottage
Apple Muse was an extremely popular medieval dessert, likely enjoyed in some form at every level of society due to the availability of the three core ingredients. There are many versions of this recipe found in a variety of manuscripts but often under different names: Appylmoes, apulmos, appillinose, etc. All versions I’ve found call for apples,…
Erbeßsuppen, a Medieval Pea Soup
Today’s recipe is yet another popular medieval pottage: Pea Soup. If you want to know more about pottages, read my previous post on the subject. This recipe comes from a German cookbook called Ein New Kochbuch by Max Rumpolt, head cook for Daniel Brendel of Homburg, Elector of Mainz. This cookbook was, according to all…
Two Peasanty Pottages
If there is one dish that exemplifies Medieval cooking it would probably be pottage, which is basically a soup or stew. Pottage was a staple of the medieval diet, from the lowliest peasant to the royal family. There was an enormous range of pottages, from the most basic vegetable soup to fancy meat or fruit pottages…
Almond Milk the Medieval Way: Pt. 2
This is part two of a three-part series of medieval almond milk recipes. Part One includes some background information about the important role that almond milk played in medieval cooking. If you haven’t done so already, I highly suggest reading Almond Milk the Medieval Way. Today’s almond milk recipe comes from a medieval cookbook called…
Almond Milk the Medieval Way
“Take peeled almonds, crush very well in a mortar, steep in water boiled and cooled to lukewarm, strain through cheesecloth and boil your almond milk on a few coals for an instant or two.”
– Le Viandier de Taillevent
Salat, an Aromatic Medieval Salad
It may or may not surprise you to learn that people in the Middle Ages ate salad. And they ate it often. Unlike today, salads weren’t for calorie-conscious women on diets. Salads were very common meal starters and were loaded full of herbs and aromatic vegetables found in every household garden. Salads were not only genuinely enjoyed…
Egredouncye, a Medieval Sweet and Sour Dish
Sometime around the year 1420, a Master chef (or chefs- nobody seems to know exactly who) compiled a bunch of recipes in a manuscript now known as the Harleian MS 279. This manuscript, combined with a few others, was later published as Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books by Thomas Austin in 1888. Today’s recipe is from Volume One! Egredouncye, or Egredouce (pronounced…
