ingredients

Fu Ruoran, a baker, cheated the scales, which was a serious crime in the Middle Ages. The baker would rather send his guests a little more bread than he actually bought, in order to protect himself.

Cereals

Cereals are the most important staple food in Europe, and most of them will be made into bread. Some estimates indicate that Europeans would eat 1 to 1.5 kilograms of bread a day at that time, but cereals are sometimes cooked into gruel and milk porridge (fru). At that time, rice was planted in northern Italy, but the price of rice was still high in the Middle Ages. When there is a famine, they will use millet, dried pods, acorns and ferns instead of grain.

among all things, the medieval people thought that wheat was the first of all, with the highest nutrition and the most expensive price. The bread eaten by nobles is made of refined flour, while the inferior people can only eat some rough, dry and black bread covered with bran. Regardless of poverty and size, they often mix bread with wine, soup and sauce. This kind of wet bread is called Sop in both English and Spanish.

At that time, bread was already a necessary food for every household, and this calendar was also painted with bread-making patterns. The practice of milk porridge is to crush cereal, boil it, add milk, eggs or broth for cooking, and also add almonds, raisins, sugar, orange-flavored water and so on. This practice is still quite popular in Europe today. [13] This kind of milk porridge was also served to patients at that time.

Baked bread is another popular cereal product. In the early days, the bottom skin of baked bread was not edible. It was not until the 4th century that the modern baked bread style appeared, and it was often mixed with meat, eggs, vegetables and even fruits. And some fried dough such as donut and Fritter are also quite common. In the late Middle Ages, biscuits also began to appear.

Bread plays an important role in the society, and there are also incidental regulations in the surrounding industries. Among them, the guild in the Middle Ages was originally composed of bakers, and there were a series of decrees in various places to stabilize the price of bread. In 1266, Britain made the Assize of Bread and Ale, which specified how much bread must be bought per penny, its weight and the relationship between wheat and bread [14]. The baker's profit is also guaranteed. At that time, in order to increase the value limit, the British bread guild lobbied and successfully included the expenses of lamp oil, fire wax, wife's household, housing and domestic dog in the cost of bread. It was not until the 19 th century that such laws were abolished in London.

If someone cheats with bread, it is even more serious at that time. If a baker cheats the scales, or uses inferior materials to make superior bread, he will be fined heavily. In order to protect themselves, whenever someone buys a dozen of 12 loaves, they would rather give a dozen of 13 loaves, which is called "Baker's dozen".

Bread is not only used for eating. Because they share a knife when eating, they often use bread as a rag to clean the knife before handing it to another person, and sometimes they even use bread as a heat insulation cloth. It is also quite common to use old bread as a dinner plate. These alternative bread uses are still seen on European tables today.

seafood

During the fast, people in the Middle Ages would replace red meat with seafood. During the fast in the Middle Ages, every household was forbidden to eat red meat, so seafood became the most common substitute. In coastal areas, seafood was a daily necessity. However, due to the high freight rate, fish was also quite expensive in inland areas such as Central Europe.

Herring and cod are the most important catches, which are commonly found in the Atlantic Ocean and the Baltic Sea. Herring once played an important role in the Nordic economy and was also an extremely important commodity in the Hanseatic League of northern Germany. Some pickled herring were even transported from the North Sea to Constantinople for sale. In addition to fresh cooking, these fish woks are also salted, air-dried and sometimes smoked. Other common fish are pike, carp, perch, lamprey and salmon. [17] At that time, fish generally referred to all marine life, including whales, dolphins and beavers, and in some places, white-fronted geese were also included.

Many soft foods are also quite common, among which oysters, mussels and scallops are common foods for residents along the river or coastal areas, while crayfish are popular foods in fasting festivals.

Meat

Pigs were easy to raise and were the most common meat at that time. Their ears, tongue, tail, mouth and uterus were all eaten. Today, Europeans are more resistant to animal internal organs, but in the Middle Ages, people ate almost every part of animals. The ears, tongue, tail, mouth and even uterus will all enter the armpit; The intestine, bladder and stomach will be used to make casings, or artificial giant eggs at Easter.

among all kinds of meat, pork is the most popular, because the feed is suitable and it doesn't need much care to raise pigs. At that time, domestic pigs would walk around outdoors. Even on the roads in towns, there were often traces of domestic pigs. They ate food scraps, and suckling pigs were very popular food.

Mutton is another common meat, especially in towns where wool weaving is flourishing. But cows can only provide milk, and raising cows only requires pasture and a lot of food. At that time, only some old or unproductive cows were slaughtered for food. In addition to these common meats of modern people, Hedgehog and porcupine were occasionally mentioned in the recipes of the late Middle Ages. The English names of these two animals both have the meaning of "pig", which reflects people's views on them at that time.

In terms of birds, people in the Middle Ages would eat almost all the birds caught by hunting, including swans, peacocks, quails, mountain bream, storks, red-crowned cranes and larks. Among them, swans and peacocks will be domesticated for the upper class to eat, and birds are not necessarily eaten for meat quality, sometimes just to see their floating appearance and use them as side dishes. Goose and duck were also raised by people at that time, but chicken was the most eaten by all poultry, and its role was like pork in livestock.

Like many ancient countries, meat is far more expensive than plants. Some studies think that meat is roughly four times more expensive than bread, while fish can be as expensive as 1.6 times. Until the massive Black Death broke out in Europe in 2114, it was estimated that about 25 million Europeans died, leaving a large number of agricultural land abandoned, and more feed could be planted for livestock. The rising salary also pushed up the purchasing power. As a result, meat, eggs and milk began to become popular among the people, and both rich and poor could enjoy it.

fruits and vegetables

how Europeans planted cabbages in the 5th century. In the middle ages, vegetables were regarded as low-quality food. Although many people made a living from them, even they were indispensable to human life, recipes rarely recorded dishes made of pure vegetables, and most of them were only used as side dishes. The exception is the soup with vegetables and meat (French: Pottage) which rose in northern France. This kind of soup is made of vegetables and meat, and its texture is quite thick, but the soup could not be regarded as the main course at that time.

Common vegetables are cabbage, beet, onion, garlic and radish. Take radish as a column, one is reddish purple and the other is inferior yellow-green variety. As for the orange radish that people often eat today, it will not appear until the 17 th century. Many people will also eat beans to absorb protein, and German sauerkraut is also quite popular. At that time, farmers could eat it three or four times a day.

Fruit is another widely used food. According to the body fluid theory of ancient Rome and ancient Greece, people in the Middle Ages thought that fruit was not suitable to be eaten raw because of its moisture, but it was equally common to eat it raw, air-dried and pickled. Because white sugar and honey are expensive, raw fruit will also be used as seasoning to decorate meat dishes. Among them, lemon, grapefruit, bitter Orange, pomegranate and grape are mostly used in southern Europe, and apples, pears, prunes and strawberries are mostly used in northern Europe. Date palm fruit and fig are popular all over Europe, but in northern Europe, the price will be higher because of freight.

However, many vegetables that are common in European cuisine did not exist in the Middle Ages. Among them, potatoes, red beans, cocoa, vanilla, tomatoes, peppers and corn were all introduced from America to Europe after the discovery of the New World in the 5th century, and after a long period of time and controversy, they gradually merged into European cuisines.

Spices

The French version of The Travels of Marco Polo once added an illustration to describe the harvesting of black pepper. European native spices include sage, mustard, parsley, coriander, mint, dill and fennel. These primary spices are always not full of flavor, and most of them are close to pigments.

In the era of great navigation, imported spices have always been luxuriant materials, such as black pepper, saffron, cinnamon, cinnamon, cumin, nutmeg, ginger and clove, which make their prices high. It is estimated that during this period, Western Europe imported as many as 1,111 tons of black pepper and 1,111 tons of different spices every year, the value of which was enough to buy daily cereals for 1.5 million people, among which black pepper and saffron were the most expensive.

At that time, black pepper was also replaced by a spice called African cardamom melegueta, which was especially common in northern France. In addition, the nucleoli in Piper longum and nutmeg seeds, sweet rosin, galangal, and cubeba were often eaten. At that time, because sugar was also regarded as one of the spices, and the price was high.

Drinks

Even monks secretly drank the taste of wine. Medieval people thought that alcohol was more nutritious than clear water, and it was also helpful for digestion. Moreover, alcohol was difficult to rot, and clean drinking water was not necessarily available in ancient Europe, which made alcohol very popular at that time. Among them, the northern Mediterranean and most places rich in grapes, such as France, regarded alcohol as a daily essential drink. In northern Europe, ale and beer are more common.

At that time, there were mead and yogurt (called Kumis) made from camel milk or mare's milk in Europe, but the drinking habits were different from place to place. Some places regard them as potions, which were prescribed by ancient doctors [22]. However, Slavs regard honey wine as a fine product, and when signing some important treaties, they will also give each other honey wine to show their friendship. In Poland and other places, honey wine is as precious as imported spices and Portuguese wine. [23]

Grape

The method of making wine in the 4th century is very similar to that in modern times. Wine was widely accepted in the Middle Ages, which was not only a high-grade beverage, but also regarded as having nutritional value. Galen, a famous doctor in ancient Greece, thought that wine was dry and hot in nature, but after it was drunk, its nature would become milder, and concluded that wine was different from wet and cold beer and water, which was more beneficial to the stomach, helped to make good blood and improve the mood.

At that time, people thought that the quality of wine depended not only on grape varieties and brewing years, but also on the number of times grapes were squeezed. The so-called squeezing refers to putting the juice in the peel in a brewing barrel, and adding pressure to make the peel and juice lose sugar and release tannic acid in the fruit.

The wine squeezed out for the first time is top grade, which is exclusively for the upper class. The quality of the wine squeezed for the second time and the third time has been greatly reduced, and it will be left for farmers and workers to drink. The poorest people in society, or the most devout clergy, even use diluted black vinegar instead of alcohol.

excellent red wine needs years of fermentation, which requires more expensive equipment. Many medieval documents widely taught people how to avoid the deterioration of wine in season. Among them, Le Viandier, a cookbook in the 4th century, taught people to put the wine barrel upward at all times, or to mix the dried white grape seeds with distiller's grains ash and pour it into the wine barrel. In modern medicine, this method is like a natural bactericide, which slows down the alcohol fermentation process.

people in the middle ages also believed that warm wine was the most beneficial to health. These hot wines are often drunk with spices, and there are related words to describe this kind of wine in almost all parts of Europe, including Mulled Wine in English, Glühwein in German, vin chaud in French, Grzane Wino in Polish, глинтвейн(glintwein Russia (. Gg, its preparation method is similar, and some European countries still regard it as a cold drink today.

In addition, ginger, cardamom, clove or sugar can also be added into wine to make it into spice wine. In the 4th century, these spice bags were sold in spice shops.

Beer

The picture shows a corner of the brewery in the 6th century. This brewery was quite common in the Middle Ages, and various spices and even slightly poisonous plants were added to the wine to increase drunkenness. Although most European regions drink wine, there are no grapes in northern Europe, and even nobles will drink beer and ale, which is the most common in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and northern Europe today. Local people drink beer almost every day, regardless of class, but influenced by Arab and Mediterranean medicine, this kind of wine is often regarded as harmful to health.

Compared with the wine produced in the south, beer is a secondary substitute for alcohol, with a series of negative comments. In 1256, Dr. Aduban Rodiano of , Italy, described beer as follows: "No matter whether it is brewed with oats, barley or wheat, these wines are harmful to the brain and stomach, causing bad breath, tooth decay, and making the stomach stink ..." But he also pointed out that beer has diuretic effect, and it will make the skin look whiter and smoother. People at that time also believed that drinking beer would lead to a longer hangover.

Although there are many negative comments on beer, northern France and central Italy also have the habit of drinking beer. It is estimated that the Norman invasion of Britain brought local beer back to Europe, and the intermarriage between Britain and France also made beer popular in France. The French cookbook Le Menagier de Paris in the 4th century once referred to a kind of wine called godale, which is probably the English word Good ale.

In the early Middle Ages, beer was brewed in monasteries and some families, but in the middle period, some medieval communes began to develop private brewing industry instead. Each store often hired 8 to 11 people to assist in brewing. In order to cope with the competition, they would buy new equipment, invent different secret recipes, add special seasonings to make the wine taste more outstanding, and sell beer under their own brands. In the 4th century, these winemaking industries were introduced to Holland, Flanders and brabant, and then to Britain in the 5th century.

In Britain and the Netherlands today, each person can drink 275 to 311 liters of beer a year, almost every meal, among which beer with less alcohol will be drunk in the morning, and the alcohol concentration will be increased accordingly at night. [25]

Distillation

Although ancient Greece and Rome also understood this method, it was not until the 2nd century that the Arabs invented the glass water-cooled distiller that Europe began to manufacture drinks on a large scale. Medieval scholars believed that distillation could extract the essence of liquid, and all the distilled liquids were called "aqua vitae" (water of life).

Early distilled liquid can be used as medicine or seasoning. For example, distilled glucose syrup mixed with sugar and spices will be used to treat different diseases; Rose scented water can be used as perfume, seasoning or elegant hand washing water. Distilled liquor is a highly respected medicine in medieval medicine. In 1319, the Spanish alchemist Lu Hua pointed out that drinking often can prolong life, inspire people and keep youth.

Since the 3rd century, a kind of distilled liquor called Hausbrand (German: home-cooked) became popular and became the prototype of brandy in the future, but the alcohol concentration of distilled liquor was quite high. By the 5th century, local governments began to regulate its sales and production. In 1496 Nuremberg, Germany banned the sale of strong brandy on holidays and Sundays.

Milk

In the Middle Ages, there was no disinfection technology to treat milk, so most people could only.