Food in Medieval Times | Foodstuffs – Part 02

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Native to the Caucasus and a member of the rose family, apples were known to the Greeks and Romans and are mentioned in the Bible. As early as the second century B.C., the art of grafting cuttings of a good tree to another rootstock is described in a Latin text. While enjoying the status of a luxury fruit in classical times, apples were a staple food in medieval Europe. Of the many different kinds, Pearmain, Costard, Pippin, and the Pippin-variety Blaunderelle were popular in England, and Faro and Reinette in France. Apples that were not eaten fresh or cooked right away were usually stored in a dry and cool place for the winter or peeled, cored, and dried, either whole or sliced and put on a string. Generally smaller and not as perfectly shaped as the ones we buy in the supermarket today, apples were often processed or cooked. They were turned into cider, especially in Normandy and parts of England, or added to verjuice, the tart liquid food additive that was a characteristic feature of medieval cookery. As early as Roman times, apples were an ingredient in meat dishes. Cored and diced, sliced, or mashed, apples appear in a wide variety of fillings, pies, fritters, rissoles, apple sauce, and almond-based Lenten dishes. The consumption of raw apples, and most other raw fruit, was frowned upon by the medical community. Describing sour apples as cold and dry in nature, and sweet ones as moist, physicians considered all apples as good for the heart but bad for the nerves.

Related to the apple and the quince, the pear, too, goes back to a wild ancestor from the Caucasus. In Greece and Rome, the pear was an esteemed fruit that came in many different varieties and was ranked higher than the apple. Pears were cultivated in most of medieval Europe but were especially popular in Italy and France. The best-known British pear was the Warden pear, a cooking pear cultivated by Cistercian monks in Bedfordshire. Since fresh pears spoiled very quickly, they were often halved and dried. Cooks used pears in much the same way as apples, for stuffings, sauces, meat dishes, and the like. In the opinion of medieval physicians, pears were a cold and moist fruit, somewhat more temperate when fully ripened, that fortified the stomach and were best eaten cooked at the end rather than the beginning of a meal. Unripe pears were thought to cause colic.

Still growing in the Caucasus in its wild form, this lumpy, yellow fruit that is hard and sour was usually eaten cooked and sweetened. Reaching the Levant and southeastern Europe earlier than the apple, namely in the first millennium B.C., the quince came to play an important role in Greek mythology and the Greek diet. The Romans preserved it in honey and called it, appropriately, melimelum. This word is at the root of Portuguese marmelada from which the English word “marmalade” is derived. The Persians and Arabs frequently combined meat and quinces in stews, for instance, and made quince preserves with honey. In medieval Europe, quinces were used for stuffings, sauces, and a quince sweetmeat known as codignac. Classified as cold and dry, quinces were praised by physicians for stimulating the appetite, aiding digestion, and as a cure for heartache.

00:00 Fruits
12:00 Nuts
16:11 Condiments
24:28 Domestic and Wild Animals

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