One of our leading culinary researchers recently attended a lecture by food historian Jim Chevalier on Early Frankish Foods, hosted by the Culinary Historians of San Diego. In addition to a discussion of the foods mentioned in Anthimus, and in the Capitulary de Villis, he spoke about the types of…
The rhythm of life in the Middle Ages in most of Western Europe was governed by the seasons as much as by the calendar of the liturgical year. Those who did the labor to produce food were busy. Each task had to be done in the proper time of year.…
The Mary Rose, King Henry VIII’s pride of the fleet, sank in the Solent in southern England during a sea battle with the French in 1545. The wreck was discovered in the mud under the Solent water in 1971 and excavated starting in 1979. In 1982 a section of the…
Early 20th century historians were enamored of the mistaken idea that medieval people ate badly, either starving in rat-infested hovels or gorging themselves on unhealthy spoiled meat, over-spiced to cover the taint. Through research and careful reconstruction, we now know that our medieval counterparts ate a widely-varied and healthful diet.…