If your purse can survive the price of admission the world of gastronomy is open to all. Given advanced technologies in farming, food processing and kitchen know-how, most of us eat particularly well. Especially when compared to our ancestors, ancient and not quite so.
Stone Age Englishmen survived essentially from hunting and fishing. Neolithic remains found at Whitehawk Hill near Brighton, East Sussex, England, suggests that our distant brethren probably ate each other from time to time and washed the meal down with a type of beer.
It wasn't until 3,000 years BC that the concept of farming drifted across the channel from Europe. The breeding of cattle, pigs, and sheep began about the same time.
Although the last Roman soldier left Britain in AD 407 they left behind a legacy of new foods, the concepts of some would last to the present day.
Apples, cherries, anchovy sauce, and wine were a few. Join me on a journey down history's byways and enjoy a course in historic dining.
Permission to grow grape vines was given under Emperor Probus.
The anchovy sauce comes from the Roman garum and was little more than a tub of anchovies and fish guts set out in the sun to rot. The juice that leached through holes in the bottom of the barrel was the coveted sauce which Romans poured over nearly everything they ate Today's anchovy sauce is very similar.
The Saxons knew about herbs in cooking and had a daily feast, sometimes lavish, in large halls with a raised, head table for the chief and his cronies. Some of their dishes included applesauce, crayfish, wild strawberries and roast pork. The spices used were saffron, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin, cloves, and mace.
The invading Danes, apart from raping pommy maidens, introduced the pressing and smoke-drying of beef and improved storage methods for perishable foods.
The first English cookbook was written in the twelfth century and is now tattered and unusable. However, the fourteenth century brought forth the still well-preserved book, The Forme of Cury. which was compiled by the cooks of Richard ll.
Another book at that time was on the Knightly Art of Carving and contained special sayings, like: "Unbrace a mallard" and "Slat a pike". Should you be of nobility you could utter those and other phrases, could wield a carving knife while holding the roast with only two fingers and a thumb, and only then you may be qualified to carve at a fine table.
Upon those fancy tables of the middle centuries was set a dazzling cornucopia of plenty. Royal feasts lasting seven hours offered multiple courses of every kind of bird that ever flew, fish and shellfish of every nature, meats of beef, pork, mutton and venison, boiled and spitted, with a melange of nuts, sugared treats and clotted creams all washed down with a spiced wine similar to port - this scribe's preferred tipple.
The ordinary folk, poor bastards, waged a constant battle with their dogs over scraps and meatless bones.
As centuries passed, the tables of the rich groaned louder as the vigorous quest for greater decadence by master and chef alike attained new plateaus. Meanwhile, the gentle folk continued to scratch out a meagre existence from black bread, milk, cheese, eggs and the infrequent fowl or piece of rancid bacon.
Oven-type-stoves in private homes were indeed rare, so cooking was restricted to charring bits of food over a naked flame. Those fortunate enough to have a piece of meat large enough for roasting or braising would take it to the local bakery where it was cooked in the bread ovens. The baker added his own spices and the cooking was free. The idea was to have the client return as a bread customer.
During the age when inflation hampered the economy (nothing’s changed), the Mayor of London brought down laws aimed at the extravagance of the rich and noble. Archbishops, dukes, earls and marquis were allowed seven main dishes. Viscounts, barons and bishops could serve only six. Knights of high standing and worthy squires had to suffer with five dishes while all others who could afford it were limited to four. Soups, salads, offal meats, puddings and fruit were not counted. The ordinary man must have grimaced as he gummed through a piece of stale bread.
If you’d like a taste of the past, the following is a very simple recipe for onions and beans lifted and converted from a 1378 cookbook.
They really did eat better than this, but, the recipes are more complicated and use hard to find items. I haven't tried these beans yet but it seems like an austerity recipe and perhaps windy nevertheless.
Beans Fried with Onions.
serves 2
1 onion, chopped
1 cup red kidney beans, cooked or canned
1 clove garlic, chopped finely
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. powdered ginger
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
Saute the onions and garlic in the oil until lightly browned Add remaining ingredients and stir fry until heated through. Wash this down with a flagon of ale or a gallon of plonk.
On the other hand, toss the bloody lot in the bin and call for a pizza.
We do have it easy, don’t we?
MORE ON THIS NEXT WEEK.
Chaucer
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