Medieval foods.

[Sir Nate]

What Are some great medieval foods.
If you guys have any recipes or just names of foods just say.
Haggis, mutton, mead, shepherd pie, CAKES, beef stew, venison.
What did they eat for breakfast? Lunch, dinner, supper... second breakfast.
What kind of tea did they drink.
what kind's of vegetables would they serve with certain meals.

[Thorsteinn]

Do you mind Kosher foods?

[Thorsteinn]

Also, if you can, find the show Malto Mario.

[Sir Nate]

kosher is fine.

[Sir Douglas]

Well, if we're talking medieval England, tea wasn't around yet. It didn't come until around the 17th century, I believe. It was originally from China, but the British Empire introduced it to India and mainly got it from there. So the quintessential English drink isn't even English. I always thought that was amusing. Alcoholic beverages like ale and beer would have been the main drink. The fermentation process made it safer to drink than most water at the time.

As I understand it, only royalty was really allowed to hunt and eat game animals. Mutton, beef, and chicken would have been okay, though. Mainly, they would have eaten a lot of fish. In Mike Loades' documentary Going Medieval, he shows a big ol' pike - the fish, not the weapon - being wrapped in a pastry crust and baked. The crust acts like medieval aluminum foil. It actually looked rather tasty. He also showed this curdled cheese/egg mixture stuff which did not look tasty at all.

Then there's pottage. The idea behind pottage is to basically take any scraps of edible substance you had at hand and boil the heck out of it.

[Sir Edward]

Then there's pottage. The idea behind pottage is to basically take any scraps of edible substance you had at hand and boil the heck out of it.

Yep, let nothing go to waste.

What people often don't realize is that medieval people ate rather well, with a wide range of fruits, vegetables, and meats available. They knew how to make cheese, bread, and many other things. Class/wealth limitations were there, of course, but even peasants were able to have a fairly well rounded diet, though their meat options might have been more limited. Chickens and cows were worth a lot more alive, so they'd be eaten less frequently than we're used to today. And of course there are things they simply didn't have because of regional limitations. For instance, we have this picture in our heads (thanks, Hollywood) of medieval kings chewing on a turkey leg, however turkeys are North American. Not to mention, that would be extremely poor manners to eat that way. No one in the upper classes would deign to appear so gluttonous, and would instead only eat bite-sized pieces that they cut with a knife.

[Sir Nate]

king henry the 8th introduced turkey legs to other courts didnt he?
and I love mike loades, me and my brother always joke about him turning everything medieval into a deadly weapon and fighting everyone around him.
He's awesome.
What kind of waters would be ok to drink?
Well water.
little streams

[Sir Douglas]

Streams you'd have to watch out for. At their source they may or may not be drinkable, but once you get downstream and they've had a chance to flow a bit, they pick up all kinds of nasty stuff from the stream bed, plus whatever falls into them. If a bear poos in the woods and all that....
Rainwater collected in a cistern would have been a safer choice.

[Sir Edward]

In Europe, most sources of water were polluted by humans, so it was hard to find a sufficiently clean source, unless it was an underground spring (or cistern of rain water, as Sir Doug mentioned). Making beer/ale was the primary way of making water safe to drink (though the alcohol content was a lot less than in modern beer). Frequently wine and water would be mixed, since it would both stretch out the wine supply, and disinfect the water.

The dangers of drinking plain water were so well known that when Europeans first landed in the Americas, they didn't want to risk drinking the local water, and continued to rely on alcohol for quite a while.

[Sir Nate]

drinking out of the river thames would be a death sentence.lol.

[Sir Vander Linde]

I only know pike-pie (imaging a family style pie, with the whole fish and what not vegies and spices in side a long pastry). I'll try to get the recipe from my grandpa's sister.

here is one that is similar.
http://neilcooksgrigson.blogspot.com/2012/01/328-salmon-in-pastry-with-herb-sauce.html

[Bradamante]

Sir Nate,

I have two book suggestions for you that I read while I was performing research for my novel. The first is The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy by Odile Redon, Francoise Sabban, and Silvano Serventi. The second is Fast and Feast: food in Medieval Society by Bridget Ann Henisch.

Those two books were fascinating. I didn't realize that during periods of fasting such as Lent, Advent and the regular fast days of Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays that there was a mandatory abstention from not only meat, but also dairy products. That meant no cheese or eggs. Seafood was fine because it was of the sea and not of the earth.

One weird passage in the Fast and Feast book is found on page 47:

The rule forbidding meat on a fast day was the one most strictly enforced and conscientiously obeyed, but some desperate ingenuity was applied to the definition of meat and fish. Reluctantly it had to be conceded that the beaver was a mammal, even though he spent so much of his life in the water, but his tail, being covered with scales, looked distinctly fishy. It was permissible, therefore, to brighten a fish menu with a dish of beaver tail.

I could not include any mention of beaver meat in my story because it would have stopped the forward narrative flow. I can just imagine my readers looking up from their books and saying, "BEAVER TAILS? Whaaaaaaa?"

But I do pull that anecdote out to amuse and entertain people when discussing medieval history. Like today. 

[Sir Wolf]

drinking out of the river thames would be a death sentence.lol.

lol i walked around in the thames when the tide was out.

[Sir Nate]

well I do have a medieval celebrations book, that tells me how to make alot of clothing and foods.

[Ian]

A fun but good resource for medieval and renaissance food is the Game of Thrones cookbook A Feast of Fire and Ice

It takes food inspired by the TV show and books, but it actually backs them up with primary sources from the 14th and 15th centuries or the renaissance (some recipes are a bit more modern and go into Victorian era).  It gives each recipe twice.  A particular dish is given using modern ingredients, and then the recipe is duplicated with more authentic medieval ingredients and often with text from an original medieval 'cookery book.'

It's a cool dose of fantasy, based quite firmly in history that will grant you some insight in to medieval and renaissance cooking.