Food, Medieval

http://eloquent-just-mighty.blogspot.ca/2015/08/normal-0-0-2-false-false-false-en-us-ja_19.htmlhttp://eloquent-just-mighty.blogspot.ca/2015/08/normal-0-0-2-false-false-false-en-us-ja_19.html

"In the middle, The Medieval Kitchen, is more picturesque with its copious colour illustrations, but as the author is a culinary specialist rather than a historian, the social and cultural exploration is simple and oftentimes shallow, although she does do much to dispel a number of popular fallacies about medieval cuisine—including the popular myth, sadly perpetuated in Bread and Ale for the Brethren, that the upper classes never ate fruit or vegetables; Hannele Klemettila cites copious evidence that these were consumed in reasonable quantities both raw and cooked, and just didn’t show up on household registers because they were usually obtained cheaply and immediately. The final section of the book contains dozens of recipes for assorted delights that I’m going to put off preparing until I move to my new house—partly for lack of an oven in the current one, and partly just because I want to keep my body fat low for as long as I can.

Possibly helpful to that end is The Hermit’s Cookbook on the right, by a professor of medieval studies, which uses the history of Near Eastern and European monastic diet styles to explore the development of Christianity from its inception. Interspersed with historical accounts are numerous recipes for things monks and hermits actually ate, including one for boiled tree bark, with an excursion into the customs of certain Native American and African cultures who habitually used this ingredient in breads and porridges. Yum."

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