Food History

I’m bored, so you need something Medieval. After all, I was a Medievalist long before I turned to food history.

One of my favourite food descriptions for the Middle Ages is in the documents that survive from Richard III’s coronation banquet. In the coronation papers, there’s information about several meals as well as records for the coronation itself. Most of these are fast meals ie meals for a fasting day (no meat). One meal, for instance, has fish and seafood ranging from salt fish, pike in soup, plaice with a sauce, to roast porpoise. There are also crabs and congers and lampreys. It reminds me that Medieval food for all the major religions was dominated by the calendar. On a fast day Christians avoid meat. On a Jewish fast day, you can’t eat at all. Just as well there aren’t nearly as many Jewish fast days as Christian!

The other thing that the fast menu shows is that Richard and his new court followed religious restrictions fairly strictly, but obviously without any great denial. Given how many times I come across the stereotype of the Middle Ages being a period of great privation, this is important (at least to me). Richard’s fast day food is luxurious, but does not breach any of the church rules concerning what can or can’t be eaten.

The coronation meal itself has three courses for Richard (and presumably his company), two courses for nobles dining elsewhere, and one course for everyone else. Everyone ate according to where they belonged in society.

The first course has a variety of fowl, including pheasant, cygnet, crane and capons. There is some meat (beef and mutton, for instance) and a little fish. There is a custard (which may well have been savoury, although the great split between sweet and savoury courses that we observe today was not generally a part of 15th century dining. There was a thick soup, fritters, and a subtlety. (More on the subtleties later.) Richard may not have eaten all the foods offered him, but would have selected portions from them. Gluttony, after all, was a deadly sin.

At first sight, vegetables are apparently lacking. But this is a big banquet, aimed at showing how sumptuous the royal court could be and aimed at indicating to everyone how very prosperous Richard was going to make England. And meat was the sign of prosperity. So the meat would have had flavouring and sauces, and its abundance was a positive sign to everyone that Richard was a good and generous bloke. In other words, the banquet was designed around the meat - vegetables were incidental.

The second course also has a bunch of roasts, but it also has meat done in a number of other ways. There is a jelly done up with a “device�? (maybe a boar?), there is a peacock with the feathers making it look lifelike, stuffed venison pieces, and baked fish. What I find interesting is that, by and large, there is less pastry than I would have expected. One of the standards when people talk of medieval food is the abundance of pastry. In recipe books there are lots of pastry dishes. Again, Richard’s banquet demonstrates the luxury food, and maybe pastry wasn’t quite as abundant as a luxury.

Like the sauces, bread was taken as given. We have proof that bread, sauces, wafers, sweet nibbles were served that day, even though they are not on the menu. Think of menus at fine restaurants today. They often don’t list bread and butter, or breadsticks, or every condiment on the table.

As each course progresses, there are more sweet things, but even in the final course, there is a lot of meat (all with different flavourings, but a lot of meat). And with each course is a subtlety. In fact, even the other nobles get a subtlety for each course. Only the commons miss out.

Let me diverge for an instant and talk about subtleties. Like the amount of meat, they were proof that this was a special place and a special time. Subtleties were display pieces, sometimes for eating, sometimes not. Robert May, a 17th century cook, occasionally made his into big practical jokes (eg frogs jumping out onto ladies’ laps). The Sutton and Hammond papers give no indication of what they were on this occasion.

The feast for the other nobles was simpler. One course fewer, but also several dishes fewer in each course. More pastry, and more of the standard show dishes, like gilded meats. Rabbits and pike and veal and capons and geese and beef and mutton, or swans or porpoises or partridges. Still pretty impressive, but much easier to cook. Also, a lot cheaper.

The commons got some luxury food, but compared with the others, it was a poor table. Again, lots of meat - but how to celebrate without meat? In 19th century Russia, Jews felt that they had to get meat on the table for Friday night no matter how bad the week had been or how poor they were as their way of celebrating the Sabbath. Think of this emphasis on meat and banquets in terms of that. Lots of meat was proof that starvation was a very long way away, that you could afford to kill stock.

The commons ate frumenty with venison, by the way, beef, mutton, capons, “leche canell�? which sounds like a gently spiced milk or custard, and custard.

Next time I get bored, I might give you a post on the provisioning for the feast.

Note: my chief source was AF Sutton and PW Hammond’s edition “The coronation of Richard III: the Extant Documents 1984.

food history, Middle Ages, Richard III, feast, banquet, frumenty, venison, leche canell, fast days, feast days, Robert May