Of course, the capabilities of the medieval table were directly dependent on agriculture - plant growing and animal husbandry. That is, it is difficult to eat sturgeons where there is no Volga, and, accordingly, grape wine is constantly there, where grapes do not grow. It was not for nothing that Klyuchevsky said that we all came out of the rye field, and the Chinese say that "if you are lazy, then this is wheat." This determines not only the economy, but also the culture of this or that people, and then the mentality of the nation grows out of it.
Barbecue in the Middle Ages was already known, judging by the images on the "Bayesian embroidery". We do not know if the meat was marinated before cooking, but it was made exactly on skewers and on coals. But the knights ate it on their own shields, putting them on special goats!
So, at the beginning of the Middle Ages, it was the breeding of sheep that became almost the main occupation of the peasants in many countries. They were unpretentious, easy to graze, and besides, they provided meat, milk, and wool. By the way, it was for the wool that they were valued. The meat of the sheep of that time was tough. The fact is that sheep herds were driven over long distances, the sheep experienced great physical exertion, which did not improve the quality of their meat at all.
"The Magnificent Book of Hours of the Duke of Berry", otherwise the "Luxurious Book of Hours of the Duke of Berry", early 15th century. Preserved in the medieval collection of the Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In this miniature, the Duke of Berry is enjoying a feast.
But already in the 15th century, judging by the recipes of English cookbooks, chefs already knew how to turn meat practically unsuitable for food into a completely edible product. They ground fried lamb into minced meat, mixed it with egg yolk, bone marrow and spices. The result was a mass, from which the British made lamb meatballs, and the lamb brisket was stewed in a cauldron with the addition of ale, seasoned with marjoram and cinnamon. Nowadays, it is quite simple to check how tasty it is - take and stew lamb in dark beer, adding all the specified spices. Interestingly, ale itself has been known since the 8th century.
The same image, but larger (fragment). Greyhound dogs are running around the table. A baker with a knife cuts the carcasses of some animals … It is quite possible that these are dormouse fried in honey. For rabbits, that they are very small!
Well, the stuffing itself was also known in Europe for a very long time. So, one of the earliest mentions of pate is a legend about how the inhabitants of the city of Chartres fed the soldiers of Attila with a huge pate, thus trying to appease them. The conquerors consumed the pâté to their fullest and, in gratitude for the treat, decided not to ruin the city.
People very quickly learned to make cutlets and the same meatballs from minced meat, but in Eastern Europe they began to make zrazy or "filled cutlets" from minced meat. Poles, referring to written sources of the XIV century, claim that even then zrazi were known in Poland. However, this is not a local dish: it is believed that many dishes of Italian cuisine were brought to Poland by the wife of the Polish king Sigismund I, the princess of Milan, the Queen of Poland and the Grand Duchess of Lithuania in 1518-1556. Bona Sforza. That is, it was already a slightly different era …
Charles V's feast in Sage. Dishes from the kitchen were carried under covers so that they did not have time to cool down, since the kitchens in castles and palaces were arranged away from the master's chambers.
Well, having minced meat and intestines at hand, it was not at all difficult to learn how to make sausages. However, nothing new was discovered in the Middle Ages. Sausage, as a food product, has been known since time immemorial, and references to it can be found in sources not only of Ancient Greece and Rome, but also of Babylon and Ancient China. But it should be noted that in medieval Europe sausage was a very rare and very expensive product, since it required a lot of work and skills to cook.
Spit roast. "Decameron", 1432. Under the spit there is a tray for dripping fat. Again, remember the immortal Dumas: "Gusini shir, very tasty with jam!" Brrr …
There was not enough meat for sausage, and vegetable raw materials, for example, boiled peas, were very often added to sausages. In Milan in the 16th century, the word "cervelat", for example, just meant - "sausage with meat", which emphasized its dignity. The oldest cervelat recipe dates back to the same century. This sausage was made from pork with the addition of lard and cheese, and the minced meat was properly flavored with seasonings - ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. Interestingly, at that time, cervelat was not smoked, but scalded with boiling water.
March. Plowing on oxen. Fragment of the "Magnificent Book of Hours of the Duke of Berry".
However, the main items on the tables in the knightly castles were "dishes from the flesh." Well, let's say, a whole roasted wild boar or its head. The boar's head was generally considered not so much even as a dish, as … an adornment of the festive table of the mighty of the world of that time. It was always served at royal dinners and … remember how Porthos, who became Baron, fought like a boar's head, having dinner at the same table with King Louis XIV (the third part of A. Dumas's novel about the three Musketeers "Viscount de Bragelon"). A properly cooked boar's head is tasty, and … it allowed to tell (like the whole boar itself roasted on a spit!) To the guests about the twists and turns of how this animal was hunted, how many pedigree dogs died (they say, I can afford it!), and which of the hunters showed themselves how.
But beef was tough, like lamb, and was the food of commoners, since cows were slaughtered in old age. But ox-tail stew was approved in medieval Europe. Its recipe was brought to the British Isles by French Protestant fugitives. True, the British used them for food before that. The fact is that when cooked, a strong, but not fatty broth is obtained from them, which the then doctors considered a medicine. But the French contributed to this recipe: they added carrots, leeks and quite a bit of spicy herbs to the broth.
February. Keeping sheep in winter. Fragment of the "Magnificent Book of Hours of the Duke of Berry".
But in chickens, the people of the Middle Ages understood much more than ours. For us there are chickens from the village and from poultry farms. Some are yellower, others "bluer". There are indocks, turkeys and geese … But in France in the Middle Ages, there were four types of chicken meat: chicken, chicken, poulard and capon. And the taste was different for all of them, and - most importantly, they were all cooked differently! The chickens were fried and boiled. Broth was cooked from chicken and stewed by cutting it into pieces. The poulard was fried whole or in halves. But the capon - that is, the rooster, was cooked whole, as a ceremonial dish. However, if you think that the capon is just "such a cock" and that it was the French who called him that, then this is actually not at all the case.
First of all, the capon is a castrate rooster, and he underwent this operation at a very early age. Actually, the origin of the name comes from the Latin caponus, that is, "polished". To control the quality of the removal of the testes, the scallop was also removed: and if it grew again, this meant that the operation failed, and this capon must be isolated from its fellows, so that it does not provoke them into rooster behavior that is not characteristic of them. Then the future capons had to graze in the wild for nine months. And not just "free". What was needed was a lawn with lush grass, a stream and woods - all this was absolutely necessary as a guarantee of the necessary amount of movement and appropriate nutrition, without which the desired taste from the capon could not be achieved.
The capon spent the last month of his life in a cramped cage, where he was fed only with a mixture of corn and wheat flour, which was soaked in fresh milk. As a result, by Christmas it weighed at least four kilograms (no worse than any turkey!) And was served fried on the table.
December. Boar baiting. Fragment of the "Magnificent Book of Hours of the Duke of Berry".
Pula are also specially fed meat chickens. The most famous were the Bresse poulards from the city of Bresse in western France. It is believed that this breed is about 5000 years old. Although for the first time the "bird from Bresse" is mentioned in the annals of 1591, when the Burgundians helped the inhabitants of the city of Bourgogne-en-Bresse to repulse the attack of the Savoyans. For this, the inhabitants gave the leader of their saviors, the Marquis de Trefort, as many as two dozen Bresse chickens!
