Searching through the Searches

Apparently I need to be more clear on the functionality of the Medieval Cookbook Search.

Every now and then I like to look through the various log files generated by my web hosts. This allows me to find out if someone like the BBC recently linked to the site, or if some recipe is surprisingly popular, or if there's something wrong with the HTML code, etc.

I've recently become aware that a number of people are entering things into the Medieval Cookbook Search that aren't going to return much in the way of useful information. I originally set the search engine up to find recipes in various medieval sources which contain a particular ingredient. It incorporates a sort of "translation" feature that copes with the wild spelling variations of Middle English. A couple of years later I added the capability of searching for multiple ingredients at the same time (which turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be).

What I didn't anticipate when building the indexes though was that some people would enter the name of a recipe. I can add this, but it'll take some time.

I also didn't expect people to enter such things as "food" and "cookery". Just what do they expect to find with those keywords in a bunch of medieval cookbooks? Even stranger, if they mistakenly thought it was a search for the entire website, what did they expect it to return given that the whole website is about "food" and "cookery"?

I can rig up some code so that if nothing is found in the cookbooks, it'll offer a generic search for the whole website (thanks be to Google), which will help with terms like "white", "mousse", and "cookie".

Which brings me to search terms like "Moo Moo". That is just plain silly, and I won't write special code for it (though I suppose I could ...).

"If it's bad then we'll order a pizza."

I experiment on my family, and while even the kids are willing to try strange looking new foods, sometimes the recipes don't turn out. Our rule is simply that everyone tries it out, and if it's no good then we call Domino's. As it turns out, we've very rarely had to resort to pizza. This is partly due to my getting better at figuring out what will or won't work ahead of time, but mostly it's because I don't usually have the whole meal depend on a single, experimental dish.

For example, I tried out a new fish recipe recently (you knew this was coming, didn't you) and the results were less than encouraging. Sometimes medieval recipes don't work out because of translation or interpretation issues and sometimes there was an error back when they were writing down the recipe in the first place. Occasionally though, the problem is that the modern palate just isn't used to certain flavor combinations. I suspect this is the case with this recipe.

The dish in question comes from "the Second part of the Good Huswiues Jewell" (England, 1597).

To dresse a carpe.
Take your carpe and scale it, and splet
it, and cut off his heade, & take out all
the bones from him cleane, then take the
fish and mince it fine, being raw, with the
yolkes of foure or fiue hard egges minced
with it, so doone put it into an earthen pot,
with two dishes of butter & a pint of whit
wine, a handfull of proynes, two yolks of
hard egges cut in foure quarters, and
season it with one nutmeg not small bea-
ten, Salt, Sinamon and Ginger, and in
the boyling of it you must stirre it that it
burne not to the pot bottome, and when it
is enough then take your minced meat, &
lay it in the dish, making the proportion of
the body, setting his head at the vpper end
and his taile at the lower end, which head
and taile must be sodden by themselues in
a vessell with water and salt.

You may vse a Pike thus in al points,
so that you do not take the proines, but for
them take Dates and small raisons, and
when you haue seasoned it as your Carpe
is, and when you do serue it put the refect
into the pikes mouth gaping, and so serue
it foorth."

Ok, it doesn't look all that complex. It's chopped fish, hard-boiled egg yolks, butter, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and dried fruit. I picked out some fish (no carp or pike were available, so I chose flounder on the grounds that it was a white, lightly flavored fish) and got to work. I didn't have prunes, but did have dates and raisins.

The resulting dish smelled good, but here's the problem: it didn't smell like dinner. In fact, it smelled like breakfast. The combination of spices made it smell almost exactly like cinnamon-spice oatmeal. To make matters worse looked like cinnamon-spice oatmeal too, complete with raisins. Worrisome.

I had the forethought to cook a full regular dinner and have the new dish on the side, so no one was worried that we'd have to wait for the pizza man. Everyone sat down, dished up the food, and started eating.

Complete silence at the table can be a good sign, but not in combination with confused facial expressions.

Everyone agreed (even the kids) that while it tasted ok, and wasn't exactly bad, it still didn't taste ... right. Honestly, it tasted exactly like lightly fish-flavored cinnamon-spice oatmeal. This is not the sort of thing you want to eat at dinner, and probably not a good bet for breakfast either.

There was a lot of talk around the table about what made it not right. It could be I used too much of the spices, or the wrong type of fish, or wrong balance of spices, but really I think this is one of those rare occasions where medieval people were eating something that modern people just aren't going to like (even if they like new and different foods). So I'll shelve this one and maybe look at it again in a few months and see if anything occurs to me.

Bah!

QED

Anyone who has talked to me long enough is probably aware that I am an ardent proponent of digitizing old and out-of-copyright documents and making them publicly available on the Internet. I can provide any number of reasons for doing this, such as the distribution of information to facilitate and promote research, but just this week the world was given a startling example of why we shouldn't keep all of our historical texts in one metaphorical basket.

On Tuesday, the six story building housing the Cologne City Archives collapsed. This building housed many medieval documents, charters, and such, some of which were probably destroyed and all were most likely severely damaged. There was almost no notice that anything was wrong, which means there was no time to get anything out of the building.

Throughout history texts have been lost in this general sort of way. Fires, wars, floods, or just plain age and decay take their toll. The information in newer books isn't as likely to be lost since there are usually multiple copies in various locations, but older documents are typically the only copy, so if we lose that one then the information in it is gone forever.

What makes this particularly sad is that with the current state of technology, the cost of digitizing such documents and widely distributing them (thereby potentially protecting them forever) is almost nothing. Yes, there are some cases where any kind of touch is going to destroy a document, so the digitization process needs to be ultra-high resolution blah blah blah 'cause we're only going to get one chance and we have to do it right, but for the vast majority of books and manuscripts out there this isn't the way it is.

All it takes is a volunteer with a cheap digital camera (which can even be borrowed). They can go into a library and photograph the document. Then the images can be uploaded to public sites like Wikimedia Commons. Others can then stitch the images together and convert them to a PDF file suitable for the Internet Archive's Text Archive, or transcribe them to text for Project Gutenberg. Each time this is done - no matter how small or insignificant the text - it's a gift to the world.

Of course, key in this process is the library that owns the document in question. Some libraries are more than willing to accommodate such amateur archivists. The Indianapolis Public Library for example allowed me to photograph and transcribe A Noble Boke off Cookry. Other libraries though see their rare books as a rare asset, and that the fewer people allowed access to their rare books, the higher the status of their rare books collection (you can imagine how I feel about that). Sometimes libraries have their own digitization process, usually high quality, which since it is usually expensive is therefore subject to budgets and funding cuts and the like - a case of making the best the enemy of the good (and sometimes they only make their digitized collection available to very few, or sell distribution rights to companies like Proquest who charge large subscription fees - again, you can imagine how I feel about that).

Still this is one of the areas where the little guy can make a difference. If you have access to a digital camera and a copyright-free text that isn't publicly available, photograph it (with the owner's permission) and upload it. If you're not sure what text to digitize or how to go about it, I'll be happy to offer suggestions. Heck, even if it's just some obscure Victorian pamphlet on apiaries, I'm sure someone in the future doing research on late 19th century English references to bees will thank you. [Ok, even that sounds interesting to me - I'm such a geek]

On Breakfast

I've posted before about breakfast, noting the general uncertainty of whether or not the people of medieval Europe did or didn't eat a morning meal. Now I've found another interesting passage of text on the subject.

This one comes from The Castel of Helth by Thomas Elyot (1541). I'd found this book many months back when I was reading up on food and humoral theory, but I hadn't read through the whole thing. Much to my surprise, buried within a section on what's appropriate to eat at various times of the year is the passage quoted below. It's rather long but in essence it says that people under the age of 40 can eat breakfast, and that (given the climate of England) not doing so might harm their health.

Sir Elyot doesn't say anything specific about people over the age of 40 though, which leaves me to conclude that I'm personally allowed at least six meals a day.

---

Tymes in the day concernynge meales. Cap. 27.

Besydes the tymes of the yere and ages, there
be also other tymes of eatinge and drinkinge
to be remembred, as the sundry tymes in the day,
whiche we call meales, which are in number and
distance, accordinge to the temperature of the coun
trey and person: As where the country is colde,
and the person lusty, and of a strong nature, there
may mo meales be vsed, or the lasse distaunce of
tyme betwene them. Contrarywise in contrary coun-
trais and personages, the cause is afore rehersed.
Where I haue spoken of the diete of the tymes of
the yere, not withstandinge here must be also con-
sideration of exercise and rest, which do augment
or appaire the naturall disposition of bodyes, as
shalbe more delclared hereafter in the chapiter of
exercise. But concernynge the generall csage of
countreis, and admitting the bodies to be in per-
fite state of healthe, I suppose, that in Englande,
yong men, vntil they come to the age of .xl. yeres,
may well eate thre meales in one day, as at breke-
fast, dyner, and supper, so that betwene brekefast,
and diner, be the space of foure houres at the lest,
betwene diner and supper .vi. houres, & the breke
fast lasse than the diner and the dyner moderate,
that is to say, lasse than sacietie or fulnesse of bea-
ly, and the drynke thervnto mesurable, according
to the drynesse or moystnes of the meate. For mo-
che abundance of drynke at meale, drowneth the
meate eaten, and not only letteth conuenient con-
coction in the stomake, but also causeth it to passe
faster than nature requireth, and therfore ingen-
dreth moche fleume, and consequently reumes, &
crudenes in the vaynes, debilitie and slyppernes
of the stomacke, contynuall fluxe, and many o-
ther inconueniences to the body and members.

But to retourne to meales, I thynke breakefa-
stes necessary in this realme, as well for the cau-
ses before rehersed, as also forasmoch as coler be-
inge feruent in the stomacke, sendeth vp fumiosi-
ties vnto the brayne, and causeth head ache, and
sometyme becommeth aduste, and smouldreth in
the stomake, wherby happeneth peryllous sycke-
nes, and somtyme sodayne deathe, if the heate in-
closed in the stomake haue nat other conueniente
matter to work on: this dayly experience proueth,
and naturalle reason confirmeth. Therfore men
and women not aged, hauynge their stomackes
cleane without putrified matter, slepynge mode-
rately and soundly in the nyght, and felinge them
selfe lyght in the morninge, and swete brethed, let
them on goddis name breake their fast: Colerike
men with grosse meate, men of other complexions
with lyghter meate.

Kalendarium Hortense - March

The Kalendarium Hortense was published by John Evelyn in 1683. It contains instructions for what a gardener should do throughout the year. The excerpt below is the list of what is to be done in the "Orchard and Olitory¹ Garden" for the month of March.

Yet stercoration² is seasonable, and you may plant what Trees are left, though it be something of the latest, unless in very backward or moist places.

Now is your chieftest and best time for raising on the Hot-bed Melons, Cucumbers, Gourds, &c. which about the sixth, eighth, or tenth day will be ready for the Seeds; and eight days after prick them forth at distances, according to the Method, &c.

If you will have them later, begin again in ten or twelve days after the first; and so a third time, to make Experiments. Remember to preserve the Hot-bed as much as possible from Rain; for cool him you may easily, if too violent, but not give it a competent heat, if it be spent, without new making.

Graff all this Month, beginning with Pears, and ending with Apples, unless the Spring prove extraordinary forwards.

Now also plant Peaches and Necturines, but cut not off the top roots as you do of other Trees; for 'twill much prejudice them; Prune last years Graffs, and cut off the heads of your budded Stocks. Take off the Litter from your Kernel beds or you may fornear till April.

You may as yet cut Quick-sets and cover such Tree roots as you laid bare in Autumn.

It were profitable now also to top your Rose trees a little with your Knife near a leaf bud, and to prune off the dead and withered branches, keeping them lower than the custom is, and to a single Stem.

Slip, and Set Sage, Rosemary, Lavender, Thyne, &c.

Sow in the beginning Endive, Succory, Leeks, Radish, Beets, Chard-Beet, Scorzonera³, Parsnips, Skirrets⁴, Parsly, Sorrel, Bugloss, Borage, Chervil, Sellery, Smalladge, Alisanders, &c. Several of which continue many years without renewing, and are most of them to be blanch'd by laying them under Litter and earthing up.

Sow also Lettuce, Onions, Garlick, Orach, Purslain, Turneps, (to have early) monthly Pease, &c. these annually.

Transplant the Beet-chard which you sow'd in August, to have most ample Chards.

Sow also Carrots, Cabbages, Cresses, Fennel, Marjoram, Basil, Tobacco, &c. And transplant any sort of Medicinal Herbs.

Mid-March dress up, and string your Strawberry beds, and uncover your Asparagus, spreading and loosning the Mould about them for their more easie penetrating: Also may you now transplant Asparagus roots to make new Beds.

By this time your Bees sit; keep them close night and morning, if the weather prove ill.

Turn your Fruit in the Room where it lies, but open not yet the windows.

¹ - Olitory: of or pertaining to, or produced in, a kitchen garden.

² - Stercoration: The act of manuring with dung.

³ - Scorzonera: black salsify.

⁴ - Skirrets: Sium sisarum, a sort of water-parsnip.

A Medieval Diet?

Last week I came across a post on Lifehacker in which the blogger in question described his change to a flexitarian diet and how he'd been able to lose substantial weight with a few relatively easy modifications to his eating habits. Seeing as I've been getting decidedly Pooh-shaped lately, and remembering that many years back we'd gone semi-vegetarian and didn't die from meat withdrawal, I've come to think that this may be a good thing to try.

Then the thought occurred to me that this sort of semi-vegetarian thing was a major part of the Church-dictated medieval European diet. On three days each week - Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays - meat from land animals was off the menu. They were replaced with fish, leguminous vegetables, and the like. Of course things were much more restricted during lent (no dairy or eggs allowed either, making it a sort of pisco-vegan diet). Interesting, but I'm not quite ready for 40 days of that.

So what would a modern, healthy version of "The Medieval Diet"™ be like? Let's see ...

1. No meat (other than fish) on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays
2. Lunch is the main meal, dinner is smaller
3. Meat portions are small (~4 oz.) with the bulk of the caloric intake coming from other foods
4. Seasonal, locally grown fruits and vegetables
5. Carbohydrates from a variety of grains and tubers
6. Reduced intake of sugars

Mind you, this isn't how people actually ate in most of medieval Europe. Most food historians now think that the average worker was consuming around 3000 calories a day (not counting times of famine) and burning it all off with hard work, and the wealthy were eating a diet full of fats, sugars, and protein (and paying the price in terms of diet-related diseases just like we are today). Still, it's a diet that has a basis in medieval practices, and is surprisingly close to what a lot of modern nutritionists advocate.

We'll have to see how well it works.

Items of Note

Music - Venere Lute Quartet
"Aery Entertainments"
Mees Hall, Capital University, Columbus, Ohio
February 20, 2009

Presented by Early Music in Columbus

One of few professional lute ensembles, the Venere Lute Quartet performs
Renaissance and Baroque masterworks and is actively expanding the surviving
lute ensemble repertoire with its own arrangements. In its Columbus debut,
the quartet will perform works by Palestrina, Praetorius, Sweelinck and
others. The Venere Lute Quartet is named after the Italian Renaissance
luthier Vendelio Venere, who (like Stradivarius) was regarded among the
finest luthiers of his age.

Tickets are $25, $20 (seniors), $10 (students) and are available at the
door. To order by phone, call Early Music in Columbus (614-861-4569), the
CAPA Ticket office (614-469-0939) or Ticketmaster (614-431-3600).

http://www.venerelutequartet.com/

On Leaving One's Comfort Zone

Towards the end of last month, we took a family car trip to Florida. About a third of the way into the sixteen-hour return trip we stopped briefly at a gas station/convenience store, and while I was waiting for various family members to be ready to continue the trip I wound up staring at a rack of commercial baked goods with Spanish labels. While I'll freely admit to being an adventurous eater, I found the names and visible contents to be somewhat dubious. I mean, I don't like Twinkies or most store-bought cookies, and here was an array of factory made "food" that apparently is geared to patrons of Mexican gas stations.

So I bought some.

I picked out the most unusual and oddly named items I could find and thus begins the tale of the trying of three products: Pingüinos, Gansitos, and the ever-appetizingly-named ¡Sponch! Into the grocery bag they go, and into the car, and down the road for ten interminable hours, and once we were home I shoved the bag into the back of the pantry to save them for later without worry since they had an expiration date that was sometime in the later half of the 32nd century.

Thus when Avelyn, my apprentice, came over for dinner on Sunday (broiled steak seasoned with coriander and ginger, rice steamed with coconut milk and currants, and fresh asparagus), I was ready with something truly educational for dessert. We cleared the dinner dishes away, got out the grocery bag of dread, and started dividing things up.

Penguins are good, right?

The first thing we tried were the Pingüinos, and they were a bit of a disappointment. In appearance they're indistinguishable from hostess cupcakes - right down to the loops of icing on the top and the plastic tray. That's about where the similarity ends though, for Pingüinos have all the chocolaty flavor goodness of potting soil and a moisture content like that of dryer lint. Of the five people at the dining table, only the nine-year-old child liked them.

¿Eh?

After the Pingüinos we decided to jump right in and try the scariest looking thing here - ¡Sponch! It was obvious right off the bat that this wasn't like any snack cake I'd encountered before. It consists of a square shortbread cookie (imprinted on the bottom with the word ¡Sponch!) topped with four mounds of alleged marshmallow, with a bit of jelly at the center and the whole thing sprinkled with coconut. Apparently ¡Sponch! comes in a variety of flavors. I had purchased a package of "strawberry" (hereafter referred to as PINK) and "grape" (hereafter referred to as PURPLE).

By far, ¡Sponch! received the most reaction from our intrepid team (actually, I think we were all very trepid). Avelyn said the PURPLE flavored ¡Sponch! tasted like chewable vitamins. The eleven-year-old said it tasted like children's chewable Tylenol. The nine-year-old took the tiniest of nibbles from the PINK flavored one and then (wisely) refused to eat it. For some strange reason nobody wanted the PURPLE flavored one that he didn't touch. The general comment upon tasting was something like "Um ... urgh ... ghah!".

How can you go wrong with something called "Little Goose"

Gansitos were by far the best of the lot. They were small (somewhat stale) yellow cakes topped with a strip of jelly, topped in turn with a strip of white fluffy stuff, then coated in chocolate and sprinkled with "chocolate" sprinkles (the shape of which had disturbing connotations when connected with the phrase "Little Goose"). The eleven-year-old said he liked them (but didn't want the extras), the nine-year-old tasted it and decided he was done. I thought the jelly had an odd, acidic, almost alcoholic taste to it. LU Biscuits makes a kind of cookie (PIMS) that are vaguely similar in flavor (but a whole lot nicer).

On the whole, it was a fun thing to do for dessert, and while some things tasted strange (¡Sponch!) none of us got sick or anything.

What does this have to do with Medieval Cooking? Not a heck of a lot. But part of researching culinary history means trying foods that look strange and/or have weird ingredients. You have to be willing to go beyond what is normal for your culture, and you find yourself asking things like "Do people really like this sort of thing? If so, why?" and "What flavor were they trying to get here?"

Hmm ... maybe I need to make another trip to the international section of Jungle Jim's International Market soon. They've got some really weird stuff there!

Kalendarium Hortense - February

The Kalendarium Hortense was published by John Evelyn in 1683. It contains instructions for what a gardener should do throughout the year. The excerpt below is the list of what is to be done in the "Orchard and Olitory¹ Garden" for the month of February.

Prune Fruit-Trees, and Vines as yet; for now is your Season to bind, plash, nail, and dress, without danger of Frost: This to be understood of the most tender and delicate Wall-fruit, ² not finish'd before; do this before the Buds and Bearers grow turgid; and yet in the Nectarine and like delicate Mural Fruit, the latter your Pruning, the better, whatever has been, and still is, the contrary custom. Remove Graffs of former years Graffing. Cut, and lay Quick-sets; and trim up your Palisade Hedges, and Espaliers. Plant Vine as yet, other Shrubs, Hops, &c.

Set all sorts of Kernels and stony-Seeds. Also sow Beans, Pease, Rounsevals, ³ Corn-sallet, Marigold, Anny-seeds, Radish, Parsneps, Carrots, Onions, Garlick, &c. And plant Potatoes in your worst ground.

Now is your Season for Circumposition by Tubs or Baskets of Earth, and for laying of Branches to take root. You may plant forth your Cabbage-plants.

Rub Moss off your Trees after soaking Rain, and scrape, and cleanse them of Cankers, &c. draining away the wet (if need require) from the too much moistned Roots, and earth up those Roots of your Fruit-Trees, if any were uncovered. Cut off the Webs of Caterpillars, &c. from the tops of Twigs and Trees to burn. Gather Worms in the Evenings after Rain.

Kitchen Garden Herbs may now be planted, as Parsly, Spinage, and other hardy Pot Herbs. Towards the midde, or latter end of this Month, till the Sap rises briskly, graff in the Cleft, and so continue till the last of March; they will hold, Apples, Pears, Cherries, Plums, &c. the New Moon, and the Old Wood is best. Now also plant out your Caullyflowers to have early; and begin to make your Hot-bed for the first Melons and Cucumbers to be sow'd in the Full; but trust not altogether to them. Sow Asparagas, Lastly,

Half open your passages for the Bees, or a little before (if weather invite;) but to continue to seed weak Stock, &c.

¹ - Olitory: of or pertaining to, or produced in, a kitchen garden.

² - Wall / Mural fruit: trees trained against a wall.

³ - Rouncival: a large, very late season pea that would be considered a soup pea today rather than a green pea.

Haggis

There was a recent post on slashfood about haggis, which included a link to an interesting YouTube video. Of course this got me thinking. I've come across medieval recipes for haggis before, but I hadn't compared them to modern recipes. How different was medieval haggis?

The recipe in the program seemed pretty simple: onion, suet, sheep's offal, cracked wheat, and spices, all stuffed into a casing (traditionally a sheep's stomach, but in this case beef intestines) and boiled.

After a brief search I found a recipe in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books (England, 1430) titled Hagws of a schepe. It calls for sheep's offal, suet, spices, bread, egg yolks, and cream. All mixed, stuffed into the sheep's stomach, and boiled. That's very close - even the name is similar - all that's missing is the onion.

Here's the part that surprised me. After looking further, I didn't find any other recipes like this one. Nothing earlier from England, and nothing from any other country. This suggests that haggis is not only a very English dish, but it also hasn't changed in over 500 years.

Now the remaining question is: can I get my family to eat it? The kids maybe, but my wife hates the taste of liver. Maybe I can make a pseudo-haggis using ground lamb ...

Goose and Sauce Madame

[Sorry about the recent lack of posts. Chalk it up to a combination of a minor flu bug and a hectic schedule.]

Back in December we had some friends over for a Winter Solstice dinner, and one of the dishes I cooked was Goose with Sauce Madame. I should have taken some pictures, but (of course) things were behind schedule and the kitchen was crazy and yadda yadda yadda, so you'll just have to imagine what it all looked like (though I'll admit it wasn't this pretty). I'll be posting the recipe for Sauce Madame on the website sooner or later (maybe after a couple more tries using chicken or duck instead of goose), but I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on the dinner and how things turned out before I completely forget things.

First, the goose: I'd never made goose before, and the one I got from the grocer was actually relatively small - 10 to 12 pounds. Geese are weird, plain and simple. The skin was tougher than I thought, the meat was (way) darker in color than I expected, and while it put out lots of fat in the roasting pan (which I did expect) there was almost nothing in the way of juices. The meat tasted good enough to eat, but wasn't anything to rave about. Maybe bigger geese are better? Dunno. I've always heard that goose was something people ate more out of tradition than because they like it. That seems believable now.

The Sauce Madame smelled fantastic up until I added the goose drippings as instructed. Everyone seemed to like it (especially my wife), but it had an oily aspect that just didn't sit well with me. Maybe with more broth instead of oil (which implies some other bird than goose)?

The Wastel y-Farced turned out fantastic. I'd used a square, 2 pound loaf of sourdough bread. I had to improvise a steamer using a large pot with some water in the bottom and a bowl to act as a spacer, and the bread resting on the bottom of a small tart pan. It was warm, slightly gooey, and slightly sweet. Got to remember to make it again soon.

For a vegetable I went with the inevitable Brussels sprouts. I was too rushed by this point to make a cream sauce or anything, but perhaps next time. They were fresh, easy, and the family likes them, so if nothing else they blended into the background.

Finally there's the plum pudding. I love making plum pudding each year, and this one turned out just fine. Hector, who had just returned from school in England, noted the amount of butter and brandy used over there when serving these things, but otherwise didn't comment. Maybe I should take that as a bad sign. Then again, I like my plum pudding the way it is (as does the family), which I guess is what's important. Though ... more butter and brandy ... that doesn't sound too bad, eh? Maybe a tweak or two is in order.

So on the whole, it was a bit hectic and crazy, a good amount of yum, a heap of traditional, and a lot of fun. That's what the holidays are all about.

Kokbok för Husmödrar

I am filled with geeky excitement! I just received a neat book in the mail. It was found by an acquaintance's mother (thanks to Laureen and her mom!) at a rummage sale - and of all things, it's a late 19th century Swedish cookbook. Here's what the first page says:

Gustafva Björklunds

Kokbok för Husmödrar

innehållande beskrifningar öfver

mer än 2000 anrättningar.

(Jemte 100 anvisningar för tillredning af Svamprätter.)

Med 106 gravyrer.

Obviously this isn't medieval (misses the mark by a scant 400 years or so), but still it's filled with awesome - in fact, 512 pages of Swedish awesome. The last recipe (Tätmjölk) is numbered 2081!  I plan on transcribing the book to text (or more likely HTML given the number of letters like å and ö) and eventually translating it to English.

Oh, as best I can tell the text on the title page translates to something like:
Gustafva Björklund's Cookbook for Housemothers, containing observations and more than 2000 recipes. (Plus 100 instructions for making Mushroom dishes.) With 106 engravings.

Food Through the Ages

Food Through the Ages: From Stuffed Dormice to Pineapple Hedgehogs
Anna Selby
Remember When
ISBN: 1844680274

This is a really nice book.

Ok, I probably should admit that I've got a slight bias here. About a year ago, Anna Selby emailed me with some questions. There was a flurry of emails back and forth, I did a little translating, and gave permission to use some recipes. I then got wrapped up in other projects and promptly forgot about the whole thing. Lo and behold, a few weeks back this book comes out and a friend mentions it on a mailing list, and notes that it refers to me and my website. I ordered a copy and eagerly awaited its arrival.

While it's fairly basic in content, it doesn't make any of the blunders so common in books geared to the general reader. What's more, it's an absolutely beautiful book, well laid out and loaded with pictures. The text is clear and Anna's writing style is easy to soak in. It may not be detailed enough for a fanatical food historian, but it's perfect for the beginner (or for a fanatical food historian to give to a non-fanatical family member to help explain their fanaticism).

It also includes several of my recipes and refers to me and my website many times, so it really is a very nice book.

Kalendarium Hortense - January

The Kalendarium Hortense was published by John Evelyn in 1683. It contains instructions for what a gardener should do throughout the year. The excerpt below is the list of what is to be done in the "Orchard and Olitory¹ Garden" for the month of January.

Trench the Ground, and make it ready for the Spring: prepare also Soil, and use it where you have occasion: Dig Borders, &c. uncover as yet Roots of Trees, where Ablaqueation² is requisite.

Plant Quick-sets, and Transplant Fruit-Trees, if not finish'd: Set Vines, and begin to prune the old: Prune the branches of Orchard Fruit-Trees; especially the long planted, and that towards the decrease: but for such as are newly planted, they need not be disbranched till the Sap begins to stir, that so the wound may be healed with the Sear, and Stub, which our frosts do frequently leave: In this work cut off all the shoot of August, unless the nakedness of the place incline you to spare it: You may now begin to Nail and trim your Wall-fruit³, and Espaliers⁴.

Cleane Trees of Moss, &c. the Weather moist.

Gather Cyors⁵ for Graffs before the Buds sprout; and about the latter end graff them in the Stock, Pears, Cherries, and Plums, and remove your Kernel-stocks to more commodious distances in your Nursery, cutting off the Top root. Set Beans, Pease, &c.

Sow also (if you please) for early Caully-flowers.

Sow Chervil, Lettuce, Radish, and other (more delicate) Salletings; if you will raise in the Hot-bed.

In over-wet, or hard weather cleanse, mend, sharpen, and prepare Garden Tools.

Turn up your Bee-hives, and sprinkle them with a little warm and sweet Wort; do it dexterously.

¹ - Olitory: of or pertaining to, or produced in, a kitchen garden.

² - Ablaqueation: The act or process of laying bare the roots of trees to expose them to the air and water.

³ - Wall fruit: trees trained against a wall.

⁴ - Espaliers: trees or shrubs that are trained to grow in a flat plane against a wall, often in a symmetrical pattern. Also, a trellis or other framework on which an espalier is grown.

⁵ - Cyors: Probably cions - Detached shoots or twigs containing buds from a woody plant, used in grafting.

Link from NPR!

So I'm looking at the statistics for the website and I very quickly notice that I'm getting a lot more hits than usual - about double the traffic. There's one URL at NPR.org that shows up a lot in the logs. I check it and sure enough, there's a small link to my Frumenty recipe partway down the page.

(the culprit)

This is the coolest link since I got one from the BBC website!

Solstice Dinner

For the past couple of years I've cooked a big dinner on December 21st to celebrate the winter solstice. Partly it's a traditional way to observe the changing seasons of the year, and another special thing to enjoy over the holidays. The biggest reason though is so I can cook a fancy holiday dinner the way I want without making any additional fuss and mess on Christmas eve or Christmas day.

The menu hasn't settled down yet, but this year I decided it should be a counterpoint to Thanksgiving. I've selected mostly medieval English dishes and the focus is on old-world foods. Here's what I've got so far:

Roast Goose with Sauce Madame - The goose is stuffed with fruit and herbs. After roasting, the stuffing is removed and used to make a fruit sauce. This is my first time making this recipe (and for that matter, my first time cooking goose), so we'll see how it goes.

Wastels y-Farced - Since the goose isn't going to have a bread-based stuffing, I thought I'd make this old favorite. It's essentially a steamed, savory bread pudding.

Plum Pudding - While plum puddings aren't at all medieval, I've become quite addicted to this particular English tradition. The holidays just wouldn't be complete without it.

The only thing I still can't decide on is a vegetable. I've thought about Brussels sprouts, but somehow they just don't click. I'll have to make up my mind soon.

If I have time, I'm going to make some gyngerbrede too. Not for dinner or dessert, but as a treat for during the day and with mulled cider later that evening.

Food Related Painting of the Week

Supper at Emmaus
Marco Marziale, 1506

Supper at Emmaus
(from the Web Gallery of Art)

This painting illustrates one of the problems I have to face: early medieval artwork was usually much more concerned with religion than it was with food. I can find heaps of paintings and illuminations depicting religious figures, but very few that have any kind of accurate depiction of medieval food (I almost chose a painting of Herod's banquet where John the Baptists' head was being served on a platter, but it just wasn't food-related enough).

At any rate, there actually is a bit of interesting food-related stuff going on in this picture. Most prominent of course are the oddly shaped loaves of bread. I haven't seen kidney-shaped loaves before. Each loaf has a strange little dimple on the side as well - perhaps it's a baker's mark.

In front of each diner is a rectangular trencher, apparently made of metal. Bread trenchers were increasingly popular for feasts in the later 14th and early 15th centuries, but may have fallen out of fashion by the time this was painted. I'm not sure exactly what;s on these trenchers. It looks kind of like the calamari I get at the local sushi place, but I kind of doubt that. The ones on Jesus' trencher look like uniform slices of something. Meat? Sippets?

Aside from the trencher and a spiffy knife for each diner, the remaining items on the table are all rather plain. Jesus's bowl, the pitcher, and the glasses are certainly of nice quality (metal and glass), but are not ornate. The glasses don't even have the stereotypical prunts (bumps added to the outside to make the glass less slippery). The possible exception is the salt cellar in front of Jesus, which looks like it's made of gold or brass and appears to have some decoration around the side.

That's it for the food though - just bread, wine, and some mysterious things on trenchers.

The sawhorse table is rather interesting of course, as are the stools at either end. I still need to get around to making a couple of tables like this, and maybe stools too. Others may be fascinated by the clothes, hats, rosaries, belt pouches, napkins, boot closures, and the fact that the fold lines are so visible on the table cloth, but not me. I didn't notice those things at all.

Thoughts on Misconceptions

I don't normally let a short story get to me, but one I finished reading yesterday is still bugging me. I won't mention the title or author's name as they're actually irrelevant to my point here. It's not that the story was particularly bad in terms of writing style or plot. I probably would have enjoyed the thing if it hadn't been for one small problem: the author had no idea what he was talking about.

Line many stories, the tale centered upon a person from a primitive culture being taken to a more developed one. This is all well and fine, except that instead of learning what primitive human cultures are/were really like, the tale's author simply repeated every myth about "naked savages" he'd ever read or seen in movies regardless of whether they made sense. Ugh! I did laugh when he actually used the phrase "naked savage" when the main character saw himself in a mirror, but it wasn't a good laugh so much as a shocked laugh of disbelief.

So where's the medieval angle here? Well oddly enough, most of the myths the author perpetuated are often applied to medieval European culture as well. There seems to be some need in humanity to assume that life in any given time of the past must have been shorter, simpler, and nastier than it is now. I'll address some of the specific myths in the story from the viewpoint of a historian and medievalist, but the answers pretty much apply to all human cultures.

Cleanliness

Some cultures do indeed bathe more than others, but if a human is going to live long enough to breed then it must maintain some level of hygiene. Medieval Europeans bathed, and it was more than once a year. No, they probably didn't smell like roses or lemons, but neither do some of the people I deal with on a daily basis. They did understand the importance of washing their hands, cleaning their teeth, and the like. Dirt and sweat are one thing, filth and vermin are another.

Diet

Not everyone lived their entire life on the edge of starvation. Yes, there were periods of famine in the middle ages, but there were also time were people had enough to eat. While they didn't have modern agriculture or preservation techniques, they were generally capable of getting enough food from their lands and storing enough of it to get through the winter.

Intelligence

While the sum of human knowledge has increased, the level of human intelligence has not changed for many thousands of years. In other words, medieval people were just as smart as modern people, but they didn't have as much information as we do. There were geniuses and idiots in ancient Rome, and they were much like their modern counterparts.

Sophistication

Live was not simpler in medieval Europe. The merchants there/then had already invented things like insurance and stock futures. They had bank accounts, brokers, overseas manufacturing, fraud, cartels, and everything else we expect from modern business. People - even in the working or farming classes - didn't spend all their time at work. They had fashion trends, theater, religious debates, wedding celebrations, and even fast food. It seems that humans will always make things as complicated as possible given their environment in order to keep from being bored. (Don't believe me? Check out Polynesian cultures)

So yes, I'm sure there were some people in medieval Europe who were stupid and filthy, who worked all of their waking hours, and lived their entire lives on the edge of starvation. However I'm also sure that I could find such people living in modern cities as well. Their lives are not (and were not) typical.

Food Related Painting of the Week

Fishmongers
Vincenzo Campi, 1580s

Fishmongers
(from the Web Gallery of Art)

Another late-medieval (depending on your viewpoint) painting by Vincenzo Campi. This one depicts a (assumed) fish merchant.

The group of people on the left (family?) immediately catch the eye. The man and woman are both holding bowls of what I assume are cooked beans (see Annibale Carracci's The Beaneater). Nice, simple bowls. Partly obscured view of the spoon the woman's holding. It's hard to tell what's on the table in front of them. I think the blocky, rock-shaped things are pieces of bread. It looks to me like there are dead mice on the plate, but I'm pretty sure that's not it. At the woman's feet is a pitcher with a bowl on top. My guess is that the bowl is being used a drinking vessel, and is filled with some of the wine (or whatever) that's in the pitcher.

On the other side, a young woman is dumping a large bucket of fresh (live?) fish onto the table for sorting. I'm not sure what the stick-like things just in front of her are. Next to her is a big, beautiful copper kettle with a knife.

The variety of seafood in the picture is very impressive. The big guy in the center is a sturgeon. There are at least a half-dozen other species of fish, along with scallops, oysters, clams, and crab. There's also a turtle under the table. Conspicuously absent are skates and rays - they usually show up in these sorts of paintings (see Pieter Aertsen's Market Scene). The one that really gets me though is the starfish at the bottom center. I don't think I've ever seen a recipe for starfish in a medieval cookbook, and from what I remember of biology class there isn't anything in a starfish that is edible. Are they just there as bycatch? Were they used for soup stock? Did Campi just include them because they look cool?

Another thing to check on as soon as I get a time machine.

Projects

Sometimes I feel awfully scatterbrained - I'm well aware that organization is not my strong suit (Oh, and if you've emailed me and I didn't get back to you, it's probably because I was distracted by something, so feel free to email again and nag until you get a response - I promise I won't get annoyed). At any rate, I thought I'd make a list of the current projects I'm working on in the hopes it motivates me to finish a few of them off.

The Projects (in no particular order):

• writing a novel (gothic horror, about 60% done)
• transcription of Kalendarium Hortense (ongoing)
• Halidai's Instant Feast
• image processing for "A Noble Boke off Cookry"
• medieval prayer book (in Middle-English)
• book/paper of medieval scientific knowledge
• transcription of Middle-English cookbook
• construction of various props for RPGs
• about 100 books to be read
• menus for 3 different events
• outfitting a medieval field kitchen

Ugh! That's a lot for someone who still has a day job, and there's a bunch more that I haven't included. I need a staff to follow me around and complete things, kind of like Martha Stewart had - before she went to jail.

No more new projects until I get these done - and this time I meant it!