Food History

The paths that food travel show where people get their fresh food from. You can draw circles on a map and find out just how cohesive a region is by where they get their food. That marketing is a major force in social cohesion for many people.

In the Middle Ages a lot of food was grown or collected by families in the country. The local markets were the next step up for sourcing things. For the rather rare and unusual (eg spices from abroad, preserved oranges) there were annual markets. (Of course this is a simplification – I’m tired this weekend, remember: simplifications are what my life is all about.)

The social cohesion in the Middle Ages was very much at local level. Except that there were many people who traveled from fair to fair, and they, too would network. Circles on a map representing travel and purchases say a lot about a society. How far a social group travels for food says more than a lot.

We talk today about ‘environmental footprints,’ but for much of human history transport has been expensive or difficult enough so that environmental footprints have been much less. Many people outside towns (and quite a few within them) would travel no more than 15 miles in any direction in the Middle Ages. The fairs were usually no more than twenty miles away, because that meant (at a pinch) the person going could travel there and back in a day. If they had geese or other livestock to sell, it was still no more than an overnight jaunt.

From the food end, this means that everyday food was theorteically fresher (allowing for lack of refrigeration, of course!), just like the produce I bought this morning. It still travels further here, but then, our transport has changed. Our equivalent of fifteen miles turns out to be a two to three hour drive, as there were farmers from Batlow and Young at the market today.

From the food end again, curiously, the luxury goods that have travelled furthest may be fresher in modern Australia.

I need to check it out to be certain, but I rather suspect that most of the spices that went from India to Europe in the Middle Ages went to major commercial centres such as Marseilles and London (just like Canberra fruit and vegetables that come via Sydney) and were bought there and then gradually filtered into regional shops and markets and from there into local distribution. My guess is that the process could take up to eighten months. The freshest spices in the West would generally have been in Marseilles, Venice or Genoa. The least fresh would have been in rural areas not directly connected to a major town or fair and not near any of those cities.

PS The picture today is again by Kate (next week I have pictures by Trudi! - I should have posted them a few weeks ago, but I was waiting for *exactly* the right topic).

food history, trade, Middle Ages, spices