Food & Leisure

Bread - White bread was made from wheat which required the best possible land to grow on and that had to be manured and maintained at a considerable cost. To make bread fit for the upper class, the wheat was carefully ground and the resultant flour sifted several times to make sure it was free of grit. It was grit and coarse grains that wore down teeth.

As you go down through the cheaper breads, more and more grains were mixed in, producing a whole wheat bread. Rye bread was the traditional black bread but you had to make sure it was not mouldy because rye can produce a toxic spore which, if eaten, could cause blindness and temporary insanity. At the bottom was 'horse bread'. When the harvest was poor, weed seeds were mixed in along with beans, peas and even acorns. It was gritty and extremely coarse. Once your teeth started to go, you had to dip the bread it into the soup just to make it soft enough to chew.

Fish - Fish, either fresh (if you could afford it and it was available) or more likely salted was a mainstay each Friday and throughout Lent. Salted or pickled herrings in winter; river fish like grayling, trout, salmon and eel in summer. The wealthy and those living close by could afford sea fish, including plaice, haddock and mackerel. Seal was eaten as were the 'royal fish' - whale, sturgeon and porpoise. Crab and lobster were popular but expensive and difficult to obtain inland.

Meat - Game animals were on the menu but, as the 15th century closed, fewer and fewer wild cattle were found to hunt, although deer and wild boar were still plentiful. Venison was a 'high table' item; the preserve of kings and landowners. It is doubt if the common folk ever tasted venison - legally that is. Like venison, games birds were beyond the common man and poachers were either mutilated or executed if caught. Wildfowl were hunted using falcons, partly for sport but, anything on the wing it seems ended up on the table. Certainly there was an endless variety from swan to blackbird and everything in between. Almost everyone kept chickens. Dove was a popular eating bird; raised domestically in dovecots while ducks and geese were common table fare.

Milk - Most of the milk was made into various cheeses, cream and butter. The whey was probably fed to the children of the lower classes while the wealthy children enjoyed whole milk. Adults considered milk fit for only the very young or the very old or invalids. By age seven, all children drank mead, beer or, sometimes watered-down wine.

Salad - The medieval kind made from the petals of flowers (primroses and violets) mixed with onions, leeks, borage, mint, watercress, rue, rosemary; dressed with a wine and olive or walnut oil dressing.

Soup - The most common meal for rich and poor alike was pottage - soup. Thick, thin, with or without meat, accompanied by bread and maybe a bit of cheese. It not only sustained, it warmed. Even the most humble dwelling kept a pot of soup simmering over the fire. And this is where the vegetables came in or, went in rather. Cabbage, leeks, onions, garlic, turnips, peas, carrots and a wide assortment of herbs such as parsley, rosemary, mint, fennel, whatever. Most herbs were readily available from the 'medicine' garden. Tough bits of meat were rendered eatable after a few hours stewing although it might be wondered sometimes just what went into the pot, particularly during the lean times. During times of famine, people were reduced to eating tree bark, roots, even grass and, cannibalism was not unknown. So, if the pot contained the neighbour's cat, so what. At least it didn't contain the neighbour!

Spices - Spices where heavily used not only to mask tainted meat but as a status symbol. Some were so expensive that they were kept under lock and key but mustard, a favourite, was used by the gallon. To cut the salt, fish and meat were boiled or made into pies flavoured with ginger, pepper and cinnamon. The crust hid the contents which was probably just as well.

Sweets - Only the wealthy could afford imported items like dates, figs, raisins and sugar which was processed in the form of cones called loaves. White sugar was rare and very expensive. Beehives were highly prized. Honey was the chief source of sweetness for rich and poor alike, in cooking, sweetening wine and making mead. It was used by physicians and apothecaries and of course the beeswax was used to make the very best candles.