But just goes to show the level of outrageous entertainment medieval Europeans enjoyed. He was fine! They cooked the pie and then put him inside. One wild story includes an actual living little person being put into a pie. Butter or animal fats like lard or suet were most commonly used for pie crust.Īt royal feasts, pies were used to entertain! There are stories of real live birds being put in pies and when cut, they would fly open to the amazement of the feasters. Meat pies could use any bits of meat or vegetables to create a filling. if I’m going to the trouble of making this dough, I’m eating it! The word pie comes from magpye, the bird, which collects bits of things for their nest. The outside crust was for cooking and preservation but not usually eaten. Savory pies were originally used as a vessel to cook, with thick walls to stand up to hours of cooking in temperamental medieval ovens. We’re going to make this pie dough all by hand. To the meat and vegetables I’m adding beef stock and ale to braise this meat into a tender filling for our pie. Undercooking meat was a common fear and often meat was salted for preservation so it needed to be rinsed or cooked additionally to offset overwhelming salt flavor. Many times meats were cooked in several different ways like boiling, then roasting, then pan frying. SO SNOBBY! Roasted meats were reserved for royals and nobles. It was common thinking that people of a higher class needed different means of cooking because their bodies responded differently. Noble & royal kitchens had spits to roast meat. Pots were made of cast iron, brass or clay. Typically cooking was done in an indoor hearth with a cauldron (typically with 3 legs to stand alone or over a hook that could be adjusted over the flame). How was cooking done? Today I’m using open fire with a grate For drama and ambiance. Coating the meat with flour will create a thicker sauce for the filling. Man I’m fancy!) cloves, and tossing in a whole cinnamon stick to the pot. For spice, I’m using black pepper (which was worth more than pure gold. There’s a common myth that spices were used to mask the flavor of rotten meat but if you could afford spices, in most cases you could afford meat from a reputable butcher. Vegetables were rarely eaten raw although recipes for “salat” can be found in medieval cookbooks. Onions, leeks and carrots were eaten by all classes in Medieval Europe. Medieval cooking used a wide variety of herbs like parsley, rosemary, mint, basil, thyme and ditany (which I honestly thought was something JK Rowling made up in Harry Potter.) Herbs and spices were commonly used in tonics to cure ailments in Medieval Europe in the days before medicine. Kitchen gardens were on nearly every property & were an important source of nutrients and flavor. Even then, these ingredients were not eaten by Europeans right away. Not one of those ingredients made its way across the Atlantic from the New World to Europe before 1492, and certainly not in the 11th century. I love anything that gets people excited about history but if you’re going to have a themed restaurant, and tell people it’s the 11th century (according to their website), you can’t serve tomatoes, corn and potatoes and be accurate. I’m definitely going to do a better job at illustrating food in this era than a certain Medieval themed restaurant and tournament, you know the one. I realize the medieval era, or Middle Ages covers the span of 1000 years so it’s challenging to pack all the information in one video/post so I’m going to do my best to give a general picture of food in this time. We’re going back to Medieval times to learn about what Europeans were eating from the 5th to 15th century.
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