•“Dismembre that heron:  Take a heron, and reyse his legges and his wynges as a crane, and sauce him with vynegre, poudre of gynger and salte.”  From Babees Book.
•“Roast Goose with Sauce Madame:  Take sage, parsley, hyssop and savory, quinces and pears, garlic and grapes and fill the geese therewith and sew the hole that no grease come out and roast them well and keep the grease that falleth thereof – take gallantyne and grease and do in a possynet when the geese be roasted enough:  take and smite them in pieces and that that is within and and do it in a possynet and put therein wine if it be too thick, and do thereto powder of galinale, sweet aromatic powder and salt and boil the sauce and dress the geese in dishes and lay the liquor thereon.”  From The Forme of Cury, 1378.

•Aristocrats ate three times a day:  at dawn, at 10 or 11, and in the afternoon.  Meals were eaten with spoons and knives from platters made of bread, called trenchers. 

•Meals consisted mainly of stews, fruit, and cheese, with bread as the most important component.  On fasting days, including all Fridays, people ate fish.

•Popular spices available at the time (many imported) were cinnamon, pepper, cloves, dill, ginger, garlic, saffron, anise, fennel, galingale, mustard, and the expensive delicacy sugar.  Honey was the most common sweetener.

•Meats available to the aristocracy included:  peacock, swan, porpoise, seal, sturgeon, crane, heron, and whale. 

 

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Botticelli's Nastagio degli Onesti

A medieval kitchen

A medieval ladle