The Fine Art of "Creating" Medieval Dishes
There are two ways to create authentic medieval dishes. First, you can go online and/or pour through through cookbooks of the period and carefully reproduce the recipes in intricate detail or you can use your common sense, creativity and information on the agriculture, nutrition and customs of the period to recreate recipes that your forebears may have enjoyed. And although every dish you create should be authenticated as well as you are able to do so if you have four hours until you are supposed to leave for an event, kids and stuff to pack in the van and an eight hour drive to get to the event this information may pull your fat out of the fire... and add it to your dish.
So what did they eat?
What those of the middle ages ate was very dependant on their station in life, the agriculture of a particular area, the amount of trade that went on in the region and the assets and abilitites of the person gathering or procuring food.
From a completely geographic standpoint the countries of North Europe mainly used cattle and sheep for food. In South Europe, they also had fruits, vegetables, and herbs for food. Both areas used olive oil rather than butter in cooking.
Barbarians ate a diet rich in milk, cheese, and meat. For them, sustained agriculture was hardly available thus the only time they had access to vegetables were if they grew locally in season (which was not often) or if they were able to barter or trade for them.
Around 1000 AD people began to migrate out of the cities and into the countryside. This migration coupled with the invention and subsequent improvements to the the plow and the advent of crop rotation (During the first season, winter, farmers would plant wheat. In another field, during the spring, farmers would plant peas, beans, and other vegetables. The third field would be left fallow to recuperate. The next year, the cycle would rotate.) vegetables became more plentiful to everyone, especially the peasants and the poor, allowing them to vary their diet, improve their nutrition and provide a source of income they did not have previously.
In most areas vegetables were treated as "staple" foods. As such the cooking of them was not normally put into cookbooks of the period. Cooking them was considered common sense, just something that people were taught to do from a very young age. But just as we take certain food related skills for granted (like using a microwave or a toaster) this was something the average middle ages citizen simply knew how to do.
Knowing what culinary goodies those of the middle ages had access to is the first step in creating what could be called "neo-medaevil" dishes. Check out "The Medaevil Pantry" for a list of foods and information about their availability.
In the kitchen
What got served for dinner in the middle ages, just as in modern times, had alot to do with mistakes, foibles and other kitchen disasters.
Because of the lack of reliable refrigeration for most of the year (in some places food, especially meats, could be buried in the snow in winter), meat often went bad before it could be used. But it could not be wasted so often meat dishes were highly spiced to cover the fact that the meat had begun to go bad. Obviously cooks of the middle ages used their common sense. Food that had completely gone bad was tossed but if it could be saved, it was.
This need for frugality spilled over into all sorts of dishes. Breakfasts were often nothing more than oatmeal or "pottages" mixed with leftover stews, meats and vegetables from dinner the night before.
Most often, especially with the poorer classes, lunches were the big meal of the day. The working classes needed the sustenance to continue their work and by evening everyone, including the cook, was too tired for a big meal.
However, in the homes of the wealthy lunches were a light meal consisting of fruit, bread and cheese as the kitchen was already busy in preparations for dinner, which was the biggest meal of the day in a wealthy household.
How foods were preserved had a great deal to do with what was made with them after preservation. Meat and fish were smoked and dried or preserved in brine. Items preserved this way were served either as they were (think beef jerky or dried fruit or granola bars) preserved or in stews or baked casseroles so that the meat would rehydrate.
Sometimes fruits and vegetables were brined or pickled. This made them softer than fresh after a time and the "sour" taste from the pickling dictated what kinds of dishes they were used in and how they were spiced and/or sweetened.
It was quite common for meats to be salted (stored in salt in huge wooden vats) and this would preserve them all winter. Sometimes meats and fruits were stored together in barrels.
Preserved foods were not just a convenience in making cooking times shorter but they affected the taste and texture of the foods and how they would be seasoned just as canning, drying and freezing do today.
Access to Foods
Just as in modern times, access to foods varied greatly. The peasants bought what little they could afford to buy, grew what they knew how to grow and gathered all that they could as it grew naturally around them. In what we would call middle class households there was more money to buy foods but there was also more money to grow food and keep animals for food. For the wealthy, access to just about any food they chose was possible. They had their own gardens, bought what they could not grow, bought or bartered for meats in the market and often had land and fishing ponds where they could hunt or "farm" fish and orchards for a vareity of fruits.
Because of financial disparity, the poor had the least varied diet. However, the things that were easiest and cheapest to get may not have been of optimal nutritional value but the nutrition they did provide sustained them and the hard work that they did to make their way in life kept them from the diseases of the rich like gout, diabetes, obesity and blood pressure problems (though not understood as such at the time) and they actually lived longer if they did not succumb to other diseases and/or exposure in bad weather.
Just as today, those with the most money who ate the most indulgently enjoyed better culinary quality and nutrition in their diet but their wealth allowed them to work less physically and left them open to the same ill health effects that plague the sedentary people of our modern times.
Skills of the Medaevil Cook
Cooking is cooking is cooking and has been so since the dawn of man... just with a lot of improvements. But the same basic skills you and I use in our kitchens today mirror what our medieval counterparts used in theirs.
No matter rich or poor, they had access to some sort of hearth or cooking fire so boiling and frying were very basic skills. In homes where there was actually an oven, baking was very popular (almost everyone had an oven unless they lived a nomadic lifestyle).
Roasting large pieces of meat were often done on a spit over an open fire or cooks would dig a pit and cover the meat with hot coals, allowing it to cook slowly protected from insects and other things that might spoil the meat.
Preservation techniques such as drying and pickling were employed in cooking as well. Foods that were needed to last, as in travel rations, were made using these techniques and candies, like fruit leathers, were also made.
Creating your own dishes
OK, so you have groceries that you are pretty sure were available during period and you have basic cooking knowledge... so what's next?
This is where logic and mathmatics meet. If you have food that was available in period and you know how to cook, at least basically, you can add the first to the second and get a dish that is passibly period.
If you are still empty handed in the inspiration department, get online and hit some of the medaevil cooking sites. Read through the recipes that interest you and then use them as a guideline for how to recreate a dish. Doing this will really help you where it concerns seasoning.
If you still do not find something you like, think about the things you cook normally. Period dishes were simple fare. They were well seasoned and nutritious. Do you have favorite dishes? Think about how you can adjust them to fit the period. Macaroni and Cheese, Beenie Weenies and Baked Potatoes can all be adjusted to fit period.
Finally, remember that no matter how much you read or research there are many things about period food and cooking that you must take on faith because they were not documented. Most of what we know about the diet and culinary affairs of the time come from pictures and accounts of the eating habits of the wealthy and royalty. Just as the "average" family of three today eats fish sticks and tater tots on Friday nights because mom has no time to cook between shuttling kids back and forth to activities and trying to work, the "average" townsfolk, peasants and such ate much simpler fare than what we have records of because they had more to do to survive day to day than the wealthy and royals of the time had to do.
So let common sense and your taste buds be your guide.