So, you’re interested in period cooking? Perhaps your local group has just "volunteered" you to do the next event’s feast, or maybe you think Medieval cooking sounds really intriguing, or maybe you just like what you’ve eaten at feasts and want to find out more about the subject of food in the Middle Ages.

In any case, you want to research period cooking, but you can’t afford to buy any books right now, there’s no cooks guild in your local group, you don’t know anyone who can lend you some books, and you haven’t the foggiest idea where to start searching on the ‘Net.

Or, scarier still, you’ve done a little web surfing, and you have no idea which websites are credible and which ones are so hideously inaccurate that you should run screaming...

We are blessed now with countless online sources for period food research, including excellent analytical websites with articles on the subjects of cooking, cheese-making, brewing, setting a feast table, and so on. There are ones with easy and well-written redactions which you can use (with attribution, please!) if you feel nervous about dipping your toes in the water. And there are ones with primary sources, if you’re fearless and want to dive right into figuring out how to do an original recipe.

On the other hand, there are a lot of websites that purport to have "period" recipes, but they don’t have any documentation to back this up. I’ve seen lots of "medieval" recipes on sites for wassail or cockaleekie soup or other dishes which certainly sound Medieval, but there’s no source cited… or the website owner cites something like "100 Traditional Scottish Recipes." Even worse, from a research standpoint, they say it’s a traditional recipe from their grandmother, who got it from her grandmother, "so it must be period!" <groan>

I am not going to point out any specific websites which you should avoid, since the web changes daily and I’d like to believe that a cook whose site currently has no cited resources will do more research and start posting good documentation on their site. I’ve seen it happen.

Rather, I will recommend sites which I have found to be useful, in whole or in part, and I recommend that you use your best judgement. I strongly suggest, if you’re serious about preparing and serving period food at your feasts, that you never use a recipe or believe anything you read on a website unless it’s backed up with valid documentation (a primary source or a credible modern analytical resource). Kind of basic logic, eh?

So, the following is a fairly thorough, but by no means comprehensive, series of tables of websites where you can find primary sources, on-line translation programs for those pesky foreign cookbooks, original recipes and redactions, on-line merchants who sell period cookbooks and spices, artwork of Medieval cooking, and other sites which I hope you find useful. Oh, and a public service announcement to check out that ignored but potentially rich resource, your local library.

Happy surfing!

If you want primary documentation, here are websites with original period manuscripts (many are partial postings):

Don’t be frightened off by primary sources in foreign languages! If there isn’t already an English translation, try using the following translation and dictionary sites on a section of text. The result may be very workable. On the other hand, be warned that on-line translation programs often make really silly mistakes…

http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/translate.dyn

http://www.mediaevum.de/wb.htm

http://gaer27.uni-trier.de/MWVnew/MhdWBBody.html

Okay, you now have some original recipes. Maybe you want to see some good redactions of these or other recipes so you can figure out the Medieval style of cooking. How do you find out how and why Medieval cooks prepared food the way they did? For redacted recipes, articles, and discussions on period cooking, check out the following webpages:

As you explore Medieval cooking, you’ll find that some ingredients aren’t available at your local supermarket, such as cubebs, grains of paradise, cone sugar, poudre douce, long pepper, and sometimes even saffron. Here’s some merchants who have what you need. I strongly recommend the Pepperers Guild and Francesco Sirene for the really unusual ones, and Penzeys for all the spices which are still common today – cinnamon, ginger, pepper, etc.; Penzeys’ spices are EXCELLENT quality, their prices are fair, and their service and shipping turnaround is exceptional. I personally love King Arthur for its flour and grains, and all the specialty items.

Perhaps you’d like to see what Medieval food, equipment, and kitchens looked like? Although many sites have nice artwork in the background, here are some sites with archives of artwork which you can clip to use in your own website, articles, etc.

WARNING! Official Katja Rant Follows: Whatever you do, please don’t buy Fabulous Feasts - not if you want to redact accurate recipes. The book’s front section has some useful information on period cooking and dining practices, but the back section of recipes are untested, inaccurate, and completely lacking in any documentation. Sadly, you’ll find it at Amazon and at virtually every Barnes & Noble and Borders, as opposed to excellent redactions sources like Pleyn Delit, The Medieval Kitchen, etc. Bleah! Don’t buy it – it’s a waste of your money if you’re just starting out and have very little budget for cookbooks. End of Katja Rant

Okay, now you know where to buy some books. How do you decide which books to buy? I wrote an article on sources available to Medieval food researchers, Choosing and Comparing Medieval Cookbooks, which I can email interested gentles. In addition, here are some other SCAdians’ bibliographies and lists of books on Medieval food and cooking:

http://www.lepg.org/biblio.htm

Just curious… did you think to try your local library? It might be, well, so "twentieth century" to look there, but if you’re low on cash, it’s really worth your time to check out this nigh-forgotten resource.

At my local library in Downtown Rochester, there are two copies of Madge Lorwin’s Dining with William Shakespeare, an out-of-print 1976 book which contains terrible redactions but tons of original recipes from late-period English cookbooks. Many of these recipes were taken from sources in British museums which haven’t been reprinted, so these recipes aren’t available anywhere else!! I keep begging the library to let me have one of the copies, since I and another SCAdian are the only people in two years to take this book out, but to no avail…

• Apicius’s De re coquinaria (a 6^th Century Roman cookbook which was treasured during the Middle Ages) is available as Roman Cookery: Elegant & Easy Recipes From History's First Gourmet, translated by John Edwards, Hartley & Marks, 1986.
• Le Menagier de Paris, a 14^th Century French treatise on moral and domestic economy, is available as The Goodman of Paris, English translation by Eileen Power, Harcourt, 1928.
• The Medieval Cookbook, Maggie Black, Thames and Hudson, 1992.
• Food In History, Reay Tannahill, Crown Publishers, 1989.

If you would like me to email you this class handout so that you can have an electronic copy and thus use the hyperlinks without having to type the URLs into your browser, please contact me at Katja at Thescorre dot org

College of Three Ravens, Feb. 3, 2001

Chris Adler