website fun?

I never thought the website would take as long as it did. Here I thought a website would be the funner, easier option... yeah not so. Just as much research and easily twice the amount of editing. But I think the outcome was worth it!

It has been an exciting experiment, full of insightful information and hectic cooking fun. I would love to try cooking more over an open fire. Thinking about BBQ, and how different woods add amazing flavour combos to the food, it would be a delicious time trying to figure out just how the fire/smoke changes the flavours.

Status

I found it really interesting just how much status dictated life. There was this neat story a paper talked about how there was this rich young man who decided to eat whatever he wanted. So he chowed down on barely and porridge (the food of the lower class). Subsequently he turned into a robber and later, after being caught by the law, regretting partaking of the serf's food. The story so linked food into personality and how if you eat outside of your birthrights bad things will happen. As if you'd be breaking the laws of nature by eating it.

There was another neat story, where a god came down and stayed over night with different couples and nine months after his stay a baby was born. The poor couple produced an ugly, bent man, who ate dark bread.The noble couple produced a handsome, strong, brave soul who dinned on meat and wine. As if the food went hand in hand with all the personality components.

Website

Ok, so all my info is up there, I just have to site and source everything. SO maybe I can do that on thursday when we get together, and figure out if there is anythign that needs to be changed.
See you thursday.
Katie

Website. Almost done my additons to the website

I have added my recipe pages and working on the medieval equipment page. Getting there!!!

Project!

I will get a start on answering the research question for each recipe today and working on my portion of the report on Medieval cooking practices.
Talk to you all soon!!!1
Katie

Humoral Theory

When finding recipes for our project, the group loved th idea of having a parsley and onion salad that accompanied the salmon dish. We came across and problem that contradicted medieval cooking practices, but the recipe was found in a plethora of medieval recipe books.  The problem was that this parsley and onion salas was cold and not cooked, where the humoral theroy, that was prevalent int hat time, influenced the cooking of all ingredients that were ingested in the meal. All components wanted to be hot and extremley well mixed. Here is a short explanation of the humoral theory:

Dating back to the ancient Greek physician Galen, the Humoral Theory dominated early to mid-Medieval medicine (which was linked, by the theory, to cuisine). The concept that all living things contained four elements (blood, choler, phlegm, and melancholy – correlating to air, fire, water, and earth) corresponded in the kitchen to the cook's need to balance the four natures of these humors (hot, dry, wet, cold). The simplest and quickest explanation of this theory is that it was widely believed that food not prepared with its humors in mind would be unhealthy to eat… or even cause harm to the person who ate such food! Conversely, specific foods were specifically prescribed by the physician to treat ailments; the cook carefully planned meals to balance both his master's health and the various degrees of a dominant humor in each ingredient. A quick look through the Tacuinum Sanitatis and other health handbooks reveal detailed instructions as to how to prepare an ingredient, with what to serve it, and when during a meal to eat it. The Humoral Theory directly influenced the preferred cooking methods for certain foods: beef was boiled because it was "dry" and "cold," while pork was roasted to dry out its "wet" humor. The theory also influenced texture: many period dishes contained well-ground, minced, chopped, or sieved ingredients because those techniques would completely "mingle" the ingredients and thus ensure the dish was easily digested.Fish, for example, was considered to be dominated by the cold and wet humors, and thus generally was fried in order to warm up and dry it out so that it could be consumed without ill effect. (The importance of this theory in terms of food preparation waned in the 16^th and 17^th Centuries.)

Potage of ris

Hello all!
On Thursday night I attempted a recipe on my own: Potage of ris. This was a medieval version of The recipe:

4 cups milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 to 2 cups rice, fully cooked
1/4 cup almonds, sliced
2 Tbsp. butter
pinch saffron, ground

Now, to compare a modern day rice pudding, that make often, I made a modern day version. This was to be able to taste test and compare the dishes side by side.

The medieval "rice pudding" was alot less creamy and less sweet, and less thick than the modern day version. This is probrably due to the inceasing need of our society for sugary non healthy alternatives. 
But on e bizarre addition to the medieval rice pudding is the safforn. Saffron does not add much flavor at all, when cooked so briefly. This is wy I postulate that the saffron was only used to make a statement; a statement about social class, and style. I have found that many igrediants in the medieval recipes have ingredients that do not have a purpose, or mix well with other ingredients. I think that the use of many ingredients such a safforn and other spices, was a display of  power an class. Those who could afford it could use it.

Strawberry mashing adventures!

So we did the cooking yesterday for the major part of our project. We all got together at Maria's house and I showed up early to chop strawberries for the strawberry pudding. A couple things are interesting to note here:

1) no matter how many times I read the recipe for the strawberry pudding, I pictured it totally differently than what the recipe said. For some reason in my mind it would be chopped up strawberries and some bread... sort of a strawberry cobbler type thing. The recipe did not give this indication, I just like to make stuff up in my head I guess.

2) It was going to be my job to mash up the strawberries. I was very excited about this because it sounded super fun. I like to make art and play with food and generally get into stuff, so mashing anything is super cool to me. (26 year old who acts like a 5 year old say what?)

So I chopped the strawberrries into little tiny pieces so they'd be easier to mash. This was also fun for me.

After that, the mashing began. I was very fun at first. I had little chunks of strawberry and was mashing them through a siv with a spoon! It gushed and gooped and was really messy. So exciting for me.

Despite the initial fun, after about 15 minutes I realized that mashing strawberries wasn't all it was cracked up to be. It hurts your hands and takes a long long time. My other group members completed so many other tasks before I was even half way done. You'll see in the picture that they're doing other stuff while I am still mashing away.

The really good thing I will say about mashing strawberries is that it smells delicious! I loved that part! I wanted to eat them as well as wear them as a perfume. I wondered how they might have mashed the strawberries back in the Middle Ages, and if they would also have thought the smell to be so amazing. How could you not? I wonder if they played with it the way I did though?

So after a while of continuous mashing...

It was time to add the ground almonds, wine, and cinnamon, and bring it to a boil. After simmering it and realizing it wouldn't chill as quickly in the fride, we popped it in the freezer (handy for us, but we did talk about the fact that in the past maybe they just left it sitting for a few hours to cool). Then it was time for a taste!

It was beautiful and amazingly delicious. We couldn't believe there was no dairy in it! We decided that we'd all make this simple and yummy recipe in the future.

So mashing strawberries for what seemed like forever, and having pains in your hands and arms, were nothing compared to how wonderful this tasted! I'd do it again for sure! Best dish of the day! And we had a lot of fun!

Onion Soup experiment

So I was so keen on the onion soup recipe that I decided to do it on my own.
The ingredients were extremely simple: onions, white wine, almonds and salt. thats it. so here is me trying to make this dish:

Chopping the onions. I had to do 4 of them.

Soo many onions in the pot. I had been concerned that the soup was going to be too thin, but looking at the amount of onions in the pot I got worried it would be too onion-y

I got a little teary-eyed. stupid onions... and silly me for forgetting to chill them before cooking. I wonder if medieval cooks had a technique for dealing with the onion-eye problem...

This is the wine that will be the base of the soup. Yay wine!

I needed to have a 1/2 cup of boiling water, but I happen to lack a kettle, so I improvised and used my little frying pan. it worked out just fine.

Here is some almonds soaking in boiling water and wine. It looked a little gross, but I was hopeful.

Onions were cooked (about 17 min) so it was time to add the wine. Yes the whole bottle (less the amound soaking with the almonds).

Waiting on the onion/wine mix to simmer for a good 15 min

After simmering

In goes the almond mush. It seemed to help thicken up the soup a bit, and it made me wonder if that was its main purpose. 

Pinch of salt

Traditionally it was served on top of bread so I put it on a nice french bread (the recipe just said bread)

A close up of one of the completed soups ^_^

After trying it, I was a little taken back at how alcohol-y the flavour was. I think I thought it would have cooked off a bit more. The other things I thought about was that I think I picked a bad wine for the recipe, I think it wasnt quite dry enough so the soup ended up being a little sweet. I also wondered how using different onions would change up the flavours, I used simple white cooking onions, but there are more types out there and the recipe did not specify which ones to use. Also how would changing to bread add to the flavour? Maybe having a more flavourful bread would help to add a bit more punch to the soup.

Overall it was good, but I wouldn't make it again without making some changes. I think I would want to add garlic into the cooking process, as well as pepper, and maybe have a couple different types of onions. Tastes back then were definitely different (if I did indeed get an authentic flavour :P )

Shopping fun!

Off to the shopping store we went:

Amy and Katie checking out the red wine vinegar. Delicious looking, but a little pricey for our pockets.

I made a fishy friend. cute, but not the right kind. 

Onions galore.  but which ones to pick. Need 1/2 for salmon and 1/2 for salad...... hmm choices choices

Parsley, makes for a great shot.

Booo ya strawberries!!!!! I can't wait to make the pudding!

Fishy fishy fishy... nom nom nom

It was a fun shopping, checking out all the lovely foods. Can't wait to put it all together into medieval noms!

Random interesting blog.

So I started to research for Medieval table manners and found some interesting things, but when I poked around just on Google I found this woman's blog where she talks about all sorts of stuff from the Middle Ages. If you scroll down on the main page you can see she's interviewed some experts about misconceptions about Medieval cookery, which I thought was pretty cool. What they have to say about the meat and spices and table manners is pretty accurate to what people tend to think. Here is the link if you're interested. I don't know much about her but she seems pretty keen about this stuff, so I thought it was worth looking around at.

http://www.getting-medieval.com/my_weblog/2006/11/index.html

Also, been thinking about how I have the flu or whatever it is (getting better now though) and Katie has Pneumonia, kind of funny that we chose cooking. Perhaps we should have chosen Medieval Medicine? Cures for the horribly sick? Haha, oh well. Excited for our cooking adventures!

-Amy

Feasts

I think it is so cool that people really get into medieval food. I think making a themed dinner would be cool, dressing up and all. Too bad we don't have random medieval costumes kicking about. I could totally cook in a dress! :P

 

This looks like it was fun to make, and an adventure to cook in, but I am very glad to be not trying that out right now >.< I think I would burn anything I put in it. Though someday it might be nice to play around with one.

Rough proposal

I sent out a rough proposal last night. the refernces still need their annotations, but are in the right style.

Katie i need your source ^_^

please take a look at the proposalo outline and the body of our proposal and see what you think ^_^

Proposal

I will have a look for sources on Friday, and send them to you for the proposal references. : )

Start this thing

I am excited to be planning to make a medieval meal! I am sure it will be awesome fun!

I will check out a couple of cook books on Friday ^_^  hopefully they will have measurement, or this is going to be interesting.

So yes here is the blog.
Enjoy.