Sunday 9 December 2012

Christmas Fare Present and Mediaeval

Christmas Fare Present and Mediaeval


Today, those who wish to celebrate Christmas with special food have a much wider choice than their mediaeval ancestors. There would have been no potatoes roast or otherwise, no tomatoes and no turkey, for the lands which produced them were unknown in Europe.

My family and I are vegetarians, but on Christmas day we will enjoy a wide variety of festive food, including a vegetarian Christmas cake, Christmas pudding and mince pies.

Our main dish, a large vegetable and cheese pie will be served, brussel sprouts, carrots, parsnips, potatoes and other vegetables as well as gravy and sauce. On Boxing Day lunch will be accompanied by a large salad in which there will be avocado, olives and tomatoes as well as other ingredients - a very different menu to that served in mediaeval times.

Vegetables were not usually served with fish, fowl and meat. As well as fruit they were used to make sauce or incorporated in pottage – which – I think - was a cross between a kind of thick, nourishing soup and a stew. Apart from the boar’s head, which I wrote of in an earlier post, at Christmas, bacon, beef or ham might be served and, maybe, swan or goose. On noblemen’s estates the peasants would partake of communal meals and – if they were lucky - drink Christmas Wassail, a spiced, sweetened mixture of ale and cider.

Frumenty, sometimes called plum porridge, wheat boiled in milk to which eggs, spices and later, when they were available, dried fruit was added. Eventually, the frumenty was tied in a cloth and boiled thus making an ancestor of the Christmas pudding. Then, as now, I suspect rich fruit cakes were relished, particularly the twelfth night cake.

Mince pies are traditional Christmas fare but the one eaten by our ancestors were very different to modern ones. The filling of minced meats made from leftover scraps bound with suet was put in layers in a large pastry case between fruit and spice. Sometimes it was Christmas Fare Present and Mediaeval

Today, those who wish to celebrate Christmas with special food have a much wider choice than their mediaeval ancestors. There would have been no potatoes roast or otherwise, no tomatoes and no turkey, for the lands which produced them were unknown in Europe.

My family and I are vegetarians, but on Christmas day we will enjoy a wide variety of festive food, including a vegetarian Christmas cake, Christmas pudding and mince pies.

Our main dish, a large vegetable and cheese pie will be served, brussel sprouts, carrots, parsnips, potatoes and other vegetables as well as gravy and sauce. On Boxing Day lunch will be accompanied by a large salad in which there will be avocado, olives and tomatoes as well as other ingredients - a very different menu to that served in mediaeval times.

Vegetables were not usually served with fish, fowl and meat. As well as fruit they were used to make sauce or incorporated in pottage – which – I think - was a cross between a kind of thick, nourishing soup and a stew. Apart from the boar’s head, which I wrote of in an earlier post, at Christmas, bacon, beef or ham might be served and, maybe, swan or goose. On noblemen’s estates the peasants would partake of communal meals and – if they were lucky - drink Christmas Wassail, a spiced, sweetened mixture of ale and cider.

Frumenty, sometimes called plum porridge, wheat boiled in milk to which eggs, spices and later, when they were available, dried fruit was added. Eventually, the frumenty was tied in a cloth and boiled thus making an ancestor of the Christmas pudding. Then, as now, I suspect rich fruit cakes were relished, particularly the twelfth night cake.

Mince pies are traditional Christmas fare but the one eaten by our ancestors were very different to those made today. The filling of minced meats made from leftover scraps bound with suet was put in layers in a large pastry case between fruit and spice. Sometimes it was left open; sometimes it was covered with a pastry lid topped with a carefully shaped infant Jesus modelled in pastry. A charming tradition was to give the first helping to the youngest child at the feast, who could make a wish when he or she took the first bite.