Where Gillian loses herself in the Middle Ages
Tonight I started teaching about food in London in the Middle Ages. It’s the first time in a while. Last time I taught Medieval food it was during my food history course, and I ranged a lot further than London.
Next week I finish teaching. Only two sessions on it. Not even two sessions, because a large chunk tonight was about how legal systems and landholding systems and people interacted.
I do love teaching food history, though. One of my students brought in Medieval gingerbread. Next week we’re getting something with apple in.
We talked about the usual things. I gave my “if your ancestors believed in eating rotten meat then maybe you’re descended from a zombie” rant* and discussed the basic seasonings used in English cooking in the later Middle Ages. We talked about what levels of society cookbooks represented and why some amazing new food history is going to reach print in the next few years (my standard methodology introduction). We looked at pretty pictures in manuscripts and discussed the size of chooks in the Middle Ages. My favourite bit, though, was where I manged to communicate to my class (an exceptionally intelligent bunch of people) that cooking with pre-modern equipment doesn’t mean bare or flavourless cooking.
Next week we’ll look at some of the ingredients and cooking methods and then we’ll move on to trade routes and what people bought where in London. I have a translation of a tariff document for my class and we’re going to consider the prices of various comestibles and how this affects who could eat them.
* my rant is much politer than its name sounds, unfortunately.
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