Where the Middle Ages Begin
De Observantia Ciborum, an early 6th-century book on foods attributed to a Pseudo-Hippocrates, lists cucumere (snake melons) first among the vegetables. The pepone (watermelons), here too, are listed among other fruits that are eaten raw when ripe, pomegranates, grapes and figs, but there is no mention of melopepones or melones
Vegetables: A Biography, by Evelyne Bloch-Dano, offer the stories of eleven different vegetables - artichokes, beans, chard, cabbage, cardoons, carrots, chili peppers, Jerusalem artichokes, peas, pumpkins, and tomatoes – offering tidbits from science and agriculture to history, culture, and, of course, cooking. Here are a few excerpts from the book that detail their history during the […]
The Contours, Frequency and Causation of Subsistence Crises in Carolingian Europe (750-950) Timothy P. Newfield Crisis Alimentarias en la Edad Media: Modelos, Explicaciones y Representaciones (Milenio, Lleida, 2013), pp. 117-172. Abstract The subsistence crises of Carolingian Europe have been widely overlooked in modern histories of the early Middle Ages. Detailed treatment has yet to be […]
This thesis interrogates the evidence of the household ordinances from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, by using a corpus of record sources extant from 1199 onwards, which break through the façade of departmentalism to reveal the complexity of the royal household.
Medieval literature would prove the huge success of such an idea, so we are compelled to stop for a moment and ask ourselves the reasons for this reception. Why did men use to link heaven with repletion? And what shape did this longing take inside of their minds?
I will list some of the causes and consequences of obesity in the Byzantine Empire. However, the aim of this report is to provide evidence to demonstrate that Byzantine physicians had treatments for obesity that are similar to modern day.
One of the better-known images Old Norse mythology has passed down to us is, without a doubt, that of the ash Yggdrasill: the holy place of the gods. There, as High said to Gangleri, each day the Nordic deities held their courts.
In this book an analysis of over 300 animal bone assemblages from English Saxon and Scandinavian sites is presented. The data set is summarised in extensive tables for use as comparanda for future archaeozoological studies.
Through an investigation of staple diets, religious dietary views, medical literature, and wives’ tales of medieval Christian women, aversions to animal flesh and animal products among pregnant women do not appear to be supported
The article shows that, contrary to a commonly accepted assumption, no public consumption facilities such as restaurants, taverns or inns existed in medieval Cairo.
Departing from ancient tradition, which associated the eating of uncooked food (ōmon) only with barbarians, raw food was widely consumed, above all in monastic communities, but also on an everyday basis in Byzantium.
Not surprisingly, as we can ascertain by reading the Bible and many other religious and mythological texts of the past, also in Norse beliefs food and fecundity were central elements in the origin of all things
One of the oddest myths about the Middle Ages is that people did not drink water.
In this essay, I intend to quickly present the case against the spoiled food of the Middle Ages, and then offer a few speculations as to why modern observers continue to perpetuate this distasteful myth.
Here are ten things we learned about medieval drinking horns from Vivian Etting’s book The Story of the Drinking Horn.
This paper examines the impact of hopped beer on the brewing trade in London between the years 1200-1700.
This paper took a closer look at Renaissance drinking vessels and drinking culture and examined the types of vessels commonly used in Italy and the Netherlands during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
For people in the Middle Ages, Lent was a time of both physical fasting and spiritual renewal. In her paper, ‘The Salvation Diet’, Martha Daas examines how medieval people endured the 40 days of fasting.
When we think about medieval people eating together, it seems we invariably conjure up an image of a great hall, filled with people sitting at long tables.
What used to happen during wedding banquets that could threaten the integrity of people?
When medieval people chose what wine to drink, they might check at its colour, smell and taste. More importantly, the choice was often an individual one based what was the healthiest drink for them.
On the 4th of June, 968, Liutprand of Cremona made landfall at Constaninople as ambassador for the German emperor Otto I.
In the religious debate between Jews and Christians, the biblical dietary laws come to illustrate important assumptions concerning the “other.”
A book that any non-academic Viking-enthusiast would love to have on their shelf or in their kitchen.
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