Medieval Cuisine: What Did People Eat in the Middle Ages?
Learn more about medieval cuisine. Food, recipes, ingredients, and the life of a cook.
Medieval Britain
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Learn more about medieval cuisine. Explore and learn how recipes were prepared in the Middle Ages: Stews and purees of minced and pounded meats. Medieval liaisons, tarts, sauces, and pastries.
This meat roaster, pastry-cook, and potager,
And even the scholar that follows in company,
First to you I will show
The points of cookery, all by row,
Of Pottage, roasted meat, and bake-meat,
And small cookery, I won’t forget.
The names in table I shall set
From the Liber Cure Cocorum, an English cookbook dating from around the year 1430.
Learn more about medieval cuisine. Food, recipes, ingredients, and the life of a cook.
Medieval Cooks usually prepared their food over an open fire. They sometimes shared communal ovens for everyone on the premises of a town.
Get a taste of Christmas past with these medieval cooking ideas for Christmas, New Year’s and other celebrations.
The Liber Cure Cocorum is an English cookbook from Lancashire that dates back to the year 1430. The original text was in the Sloane Manuscript Collection and was found as an appendix to the “Boke of Curtasye”. The book describes a great variety of dishes like potages, broths, roasted meats, sauces and petecure and was written in a northern English dialect of the 15th century.
Charlet (Pork hash with egg) is a medieval recipe from the 1430 book Liber Cure Cocorum.
Chaudron (Entrails) of Ducks, Swans, and Pigs is a recipe from the 1430 book Liber Cure Cocorum.
Blancmange is a sweet medieval desert from the 1430 book Liber Cure Cocorum.
Mortrews (Pottage) of Flesh is a medieval recipe from the 1430 book Liber Cure Cocorum.
Meat of Cyprus is a medieval recipe from the 1430 book Liber Cure Cocorum.
Chickens in Cretoneé (Soup or Pottage) is a medieval recipe from the 1430 book Liber Cure Cocorum.
Rabbits in gravy, or Coneys in gravy, is a medieval recipe from the 1430 book Liber Cure Cocorum.
This (originally French?) medieval recipe for mixed pickles can be vegetarian and vegan and is the perfect accompaniment for meals.
Gyngerbrede (or Ginger Bread) was a popular medieval recipe made with breadcrumbs and fresh ginger.
Breney was a fruit compote or salsa popular in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Plum broth or “Christmas Potage” is a medieval recipe made with mutton, raisins, currants, and spices.
Clarrey was a medieval drink consisting of spiced white wine and honey.
