Tasting the Past: Recipes from the Middle Ages to the Civil War E-Book

Jacqui Wood

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 98

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

The many influences of the past on our diet make the concept of 'British food' very hard to define. The Celts, Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans each brought ingredients to the table, and the country was introduced to all manner of spices following the Crusades. The Georgians enjoyed a new level of excess and then, of course, the world wars forced us into the challenge of making meals from very little. The history of cooking in Britain is as tumultuous as the times its people have lived through. Tasting the Past: Recipes from the Middle Ages to the Civil War documents the rich history of our food, its fads and its fashions, combined with a practical cookbook of over 120 recipes from the early Middle Ages up to the Civil War. Jacqui Wood guides us through the recipes brought ashore by the Normans, the opportunities brought by the food harvested in the New World during the Renaissance, and the decadent meals of the Royalist gentry outlawed by the puritanical Parliamentarians.

Leseprobe

Tastingthe Past

Tastingthe Past

Recipes fromthe MiddleAges to theCivil War

JACQUI WOOD

Illustrations: Utro_na_more/iStockphoto

First published 2009, as part of Tasting the Past: Recipes from the Stone Age to the Present

This edition published 2019

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Jacqui Wood, 2009, 2019

The right of Jacqui Wood to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 9364 7

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Introduction

The Norman Period

Norman Christmas

The Middle Ages

Sweet dishes

Medieval Christmas

The Renaissance

Renaissance Christmas

The Civil War

Civil War Christmas

Bibliography

BRITISH FOOD has been hard to categorise in the past compared to the very distinctive cuisines of countries such as Italy, France and Germany. This is because it is an amalgamation of all of them, in the same way that the English language is a combination of five European languages: Celtic, Latin, Saxon, Viking and Norman. Our cuisine, too, is a combination of the typical foods of those that once conquered Britain over a thousand years ago.

But Britain’s assimilation of the foods of other cultures did not stop after the Norman Conquest. During the medieval period, the spices brought from the Crusades by the Normans were used in almost every dish by those who could afford them. When Britain itself began to have colonies, the culinary embellishments to our diet began again. During the Elizabethan period, strange produce coming from the New World was also adopted with relish by our forbears.

The Civil War period introduced Puritan restrictions to our daily fare, making it against the law to eat a mince pie on Christmas Day because it was thought a decadent Papist tradition. The Georgians took on chocolate and coffee with gusto and even moulded their business transactions around the partaking of such beverages. But it was really not until the Victorian period – when it was said that the sun never set on the British Empire – that our diet became truly global in nature.

This book will hopefully become a manual for those readers who want to put on a themed dinner party, providing a wide selection of recipes from each period in history. I have not included those recipes that I feel you would never want to make, but instead have focused on dishes that will allow you to experience what it was really like to eat during those particular periods. No one, apart from the truly adventurous among you, is going to acquire a cow’s udder from the butcher and stuff it as they did in the medieval period, or stuff a fish’s stomach with chopped cod’s liver!

Each chapter will begin with a brief introduction to the foods of the period that I found particularly fascinating during my research, and will end with the traditional festive food of the period. If you want to celebrate your Christmas in a completely different way, why not try a Norman feast?

THE NORMAN INVASION is remembered by every child in Britain because of the Battle of Hastings in 1066, when Harold was shot in the eye with an arrow. It was, however, just another Viking invasion under a different name. The Normans or North Men were a group of Scandinavian raiders who sailed up the River Seine and forced the French king to cede some territory on the north French coast. They settled in what we call Normandy today, becoming an independent kingdom over time. Even so, the Vikings who settled there quickly adopted the religion, language and customs of the surrounding French population so that, by the time they did invade Britain, to all intents and purposes they were French Normans.

It was the Norman knights’ Crusades and trips to North Africa that really brought another dimension to the diet of this new British nobility. The Crusaders occupied the Holy Land from 1099 to 1187, where the Crusaders ate sugar for the first time, which they called ‘honey-cane’, and they ate almonds, rice, dates, citrus fruits, pomegranates and rosewater on a daily basis. By the thirteenth century, this new cuisine had completely assimilated into the noble British diet.

Most European cookery books from the thirteenth century show that this Saracen Arabic influence was widespread. The Norman territory in Sicily shared much of this Arabic Greek and Latin culture too. Crops such as sugar, rice, citrus, pomegranate and saffron were grown in the Arab-occupied west, and saffron was eventually grown in England, hence the village name of Saffron Walden in Essex. Colouring food was also an Arab invention using saffron and other herbs to colour the drab, grey-looking sauces and make them take on a new vibrancy. Red food colouring was made from Indian sandalwood, which came west in the spice ships with pepper and other spices, but it was found that a cheaper dye could be made with crushed wild rosehips, readily available in the English countryside.

The first seven recipes are taken from the thirteenth-century Baghdad Cook Book by Muhammad ibn al Hassan, and show how much the Crusaders’ travels into the Middle East influenced British cuisine.

Lamb Stew with Mint and Spices

1½ kg lamb meat cut from the bone

Oil for frying

1 tsp salt

2 large onions

2 leeks

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp cinnamon

300 ml yoghurt or sour milk

1 lemon

Bunch of fresh mint

Method

1.   Put the meat in a pan and fry in oil until brown, then add the salt and cover with water. Boil, removing the scum as it forms. Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

2.   When the meat is nearly cooked, add the chopped onions and leeks to the pot.

3.   Add the spices and keep cooking on a low heat until all the liquid evaporates.

4.   Add the lemon, sliced thinly, and the yoghurt and the roughly chopped mint, and simmer for another 10 minutes. Serve with bread.

Lamb Stew with Mint and Apples

1 kg fatty lamb meat (breast of lamb is good)

2 chicken thigh joints

2 onions, chopped

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ginger

1 large bunch fresh mint

½ tsp pepper

450 g cooking apples

50 g blanched almonds (soaked in boiling water for 1 hour)

Method

1.   Put the chopped lamb in a pan and brown with oil before adding the coriander and salt and cover with water. Bring to the boil, taking the scum off when it forms.

2.   After about 35 minutes, when the lamb is almost cooked, add the chopped onion, spices and roughly chopped mint.

3.   Very finely chop the apples and crush them with a mortar and add to the pot with the pre-soaked almonds.

4.   Return the pan to the heat and add two chicken joints. Simmer until the chicken is cooked and serve with bread.

Veal Stew with Lamb Meatballs and Spinach

250 g veal (or chicken breast) cut into cubes

50 g dripping

450 ml water

½ tsp salt

½ tsp ground coriander

½ tsp cumin

1 tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp pepper

Meatballs

225 g minced lamb

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

½ tsp cumin

½ tsp coriander

1 finely chopped onion

450 g spinach leaves

3 cloves of garlic

Coriander and cinnamon to garnish

Method

1.   Cut the veal into thin slices and brown in the dripping, then cover with water.

2.   Bring to the boil and skim away any scum that forms.

3.   Add the salt, coriander, cumin, pepper and cinnamon and continue cooking until the meat is tender.

4.   To make the meatballs, add the minced lamb to the cinnamon, coriander, cumin and salt. Form into lots of small meatballs and put to one side.

5.   Add the chopped spinach to the veal pan with the onion and garlic and stir well.

6.   Put in the meatballs and bring the pot to the boil. Simmer until the meatballs are cooked and most of the liquid has evaporated. This might take about an hour.

7.   Serve on a large platter and sprinkle with coriander and cinnamon.

Sweet and Sour Spicy Lamb

Here we see the origins of the medieval and Tudor obsession with spicy meat dishes that included dried fruit. Also, the equal quantity of honey and vinegar is the basis of any sweet and sour sauce, which we tend to think of as a Chinese invention.

1 kg breast of lamb

1 bunch fresh coriander

1 tbsp ground coriander

1 stick cinnamon

4 large onions

2 leeks

4 carrots

200 ml runny honey

200 ml vinegar

12 threads of saffron

½ tsp pepper

1 tsp cinnamon

125 g blanched almonds

50 g raisins

25 g currants

125 g dried figs

3 tbsp rosewater

Method

1.   Put the cubed meat, coriander (tied in a bunch), cinnamon stick and salt into a pan and cover with water.

2.   Bring to the boil and remove the scum when it forms. Cook for 30 minutes.

3.   Take the bunch of coriander out and add the dried coriander.

4.   Into a separate pan, put the chopped onion, leek, carrot and salt with some water. Cook until tender and then strain.

5.   Put these vegetables in with the meat in the first pan and add the rest of the ingredients and cook for about 15 minutes. Then mix the saffron with a little boiling water and add to the pot with the almonds and dried fruit. Cover the pot and put on a very low heat for another 15 minutes.

6.   Serve in a large dish and sprinkle with rosewater.

Spinach with Spices

450 g spinach

1 tbsp sesame oil

2 cloves garlic, chopped finely

½ tsp cumin

½ tsp dry coriander

½ tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

Method

1.   Cut off the stems and boil in a little salted water until cooked. Drain well.

2.   Put the oil in a pan with the spices and garlic and cook for 1 minute, then stir in the spinach and serve at once.

Spiced Celery

1 tbsp sesame oil

300 g celery

½ tbsp dried coriander

1 tsp cumin

2 tbsp vinegar

A pinch of saffron

4 eggs

Method

1.   Fry the chopped celery in the oil until tender.

2.   Add the spices, vinegar and saffron and heat until hot.

3.   Break the eggs individually into the pan, keeping them separate.

4.   Put the lid on the pan and heat for 2 minutes until the eggs are cooked.

Sweet Fruit Cakes for Travellers

450 g breadcrumbs

450 g dates, stoned

125 g ground almonds

125 g pistachio nuts

225 g melted butter

Sugar to taste

Method

1.   Add the melted butter to the chopped dates and nuts and gradually work in the breadcrumbs until you have a stiff dough.

2.   Roll into balls and dust with icing sugar and store in a pot.

Sweet Almond-filled Bread

500 g flour

150 ml oil

Water to mix

Filling

175 g ground almonds

350 g scented sugar (sugar that has been left in a jar for a week with a vanilla pod)

Rosewater to mix

Method

1.   Make the dough by mixing the oil and flour and kneading it to a fine paste. If it is too dry, add a few tablespoons of water as necessary.

2.   Leave the dough to rest in a warm place.

3.   Make the filling by mixing the almonds with the sugar and moistening it with rosewater to make a paste.

4.   Cut the dough into four pieces and roll out to a long, flat oblong piece.

5.   Cut the dough in half lengthways and spread a quarter of the mixture along the middle of it.