Medieval cuisine is as fascinating as it is perplexing. Between banquets overflowing with spices and simple peasant meals, we often get lost in idealized images. Yet, thanks to culinary manuscripts, accounting records, archaeological excavations, and period treatises, we can now reliably reconstruct the foods consumed in the Middle Ages, between the 13th and 15th centuries.
Here is a summary of medieval food practices, focusing on France and neighboring regions.
A cuisine based on grain
As in Antiquity, the foundation of the medieval diet remained bread and cereals. Wheat was reserved for the wealthiest and for cities, while the countryside mainly consumed rye, barley, oats or buckwheat, depending on the region.
Cereals are consumed in the form of bread (wholemeal, dark, white, or mixed grain), porridge, thick pancakes, flans, or flour to thicken sauces. White bread remains a luxury reserved for nobles and clergymen.
Legumes and vegetables from the vegetable garden
Peas, broad beans, lentils, chickpeas, and certain beans (especially climbing beans, imported from Spain) were common. They were used in soups, purées, or stews.
Medieval vegetable gardens provided simple but nourishing vegetables all year round: cabbages, turnips, leeks, old-fashioned carrots, parsnips, onions, garlic. They also consumed beet greens, beet leaves, watercress, nettles and other greens.
Meat: abundant or scarce depending on status
The nobles consumed a lot of meat, often as part of banquets or codified meals: game (deer, wild boar, hare, rabbit), noble poultry (swan, peacock, heron), and farmed meats such as beef, mutton, lamb, and especially pork.
The people made do with pork, poultry, or offal. Meat was often salted, smoked, or simmered in a cauldron. The fasting days imposed by the Church prohibited meat several days a week; on these days, fish, eggs, or dairy products were consumed.
Cured meats and preservation techniques
Cured meats are very common in both rural and urban cuisine. Smoked bacon, black pudding, sausages, andouilles, pâtés, and meats preserved in their own fat are all readily available. Salting, drying, and smoking allow the meat to be preserved for several months. These products are also used to enrich soups and stews.
Dairy products: present but variable
Milk is rarely drunk as is, but is instead transformed into curd, fresh cheese, or aged cheeses. Butter is mainly consumed in northern regions, cream in certain refined recipes, and whey used in soups.
Dairy products play an important role in the lean diets prescribed by the Church.
Natural fruits and sweets
Apples, pears, plums, cherries, blackberries, walnuts, chestnuts, and hazelnuts are common. The fruits can be eaten raw, dried, or incorporated into sweet and savory dishes.
Cane sugar was an imported luxury item, reserved for the aristocracy. Honey was more common and used for sweetening, preserving, or flavoring. Jams were often originally medicinal (electuaries) or prepared in thick syrups.
Spices: taste and prestige
Medieval nobility cuisine is renowned for its generous use of spices: pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, grains of paradise, nutmeg… They are expensive and symbolize wealth and refinement.
These spices are used in sauces, stews, and even porridges. The desired taste is often sweet and sour, achieved through the use of verjuice, vinegar, acidic fruit juices, or herbs such as parsley, sage, marjoram, or hyssop.
Cooking in a cauldron: the heart of the home
In all levels of society, the cauldron is the central utensil. Suspended in the hearth, placed on a tripod or directly on the embers, it allows almost all everyday dishes to be cooked.
They prepare the following:
— thick soups, broths, stews
— meat, vegetable and legume stews
— thick sauces made with bread and spices
— dishes simmered for several hours
The cooking takes place on a bed of embers, without direct flame, at around 95°C. It is a cuisine of patience, of slowness, but also of great efficiency: few utensils, a lot of flavour and even cooking.
The cauldron is associated with warmth, survival, and sharing.
Bread and soup: the cornerstones of a healthy diet
Some peasant recipes involved baking bread directly in the cauldron over embers, by placing the dough on a bed of straw or leaves. Bread, so prevalent in many meals, was often dipped into soups or stews. For the poorest families, a meal sometimes consisted solely of a slice of dark bread dipped in soup.
Soup, a generic term, refers to any hot liquid containing bread, vegetables, grains, or leftovers. It is the most common dish, shared daily around the pot.
Drinks: wine, beer, cider, mead
Wine is widely consumed, even diluted with water or boiled. The common people drink mostly ale, beer (unhopped), cider, or mead. Herbal infusions and sometimes fermented broths are also available.
Water is rarely drunk alone, often mixed with other ingredients to avoid contamination.
A codified, rustic, and sophisticated cuisine
Medieval cuisine was structured by the seasons, religious prohibitions, and social status, but also by a great capacity for adaptation. Noble cookbooks reveal an inventive, refined, and flavorful cuisine. But popular cuisine, simpler and more understated, demonstrates great creativity in using leftovers.
Cooking in a cauldron is one of the cornerstones of this culinary culture: simple, but generous.
You can now order your Medieval recipe kits to make yourself in the cauldron.
All the materials you need to get started are available on the website!
To learn more:
– The Viandier of Taillevent (14th century), ed. T. Scully
– The Household of Paris (1393), ed. Brereton & Ferrier
– Odile Redon et al., Cuisine au Moyen Âge, ed. Stock
– Bruno Lemesle, “Fire and domestic cooking in the Middle Ages”, in Medieval Archaeology, 2002
– Jacques Thirion, The Cauldron and the Alembic, CNRS