November 06, 2006

Historical Fiction: How do medieval-themed restaurants get it [so] wrong? via Steve.
posted by jb 18 years ago
  • I knew tomatoes and potatoes (or tomatoes and potatoes if you're picky about pronunciahtion) weren't in Europe until after 1500 but I didn't realize "Cornish game hens" were a breed popularized in the 1960's by a . . . chicken . . salesman . . person. Tofurkey for me anyhoo. Save the deer and peacocks and porpoises and orangutans and sloths and breakfast cereals . . .
  • William Hazlitt's Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine
  • The author repeatedly writes sentences to the effect that X would be very unpopular with modern persons, and yet fails to grasp why medieval-themed places don't do X? He's missing the beef for the cattle.
  • Because who wants to be served four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie?
  • Because medieval theme restaurants want to retain their customers, that's why. They are not about historical accuracy in any way, shape or form, but about entertainment, as in disnefication. I suggest you buy Steve a book on marketing.
  • I'm really interested in food/produce history and origins. I wish there was a website dedicated to it.
  • damn it. don't preview because you're in a hurry? you will pay. just pretend the Making Light link doesn't go on past TNH's name, and note that the next link begins at "The Cambridge..."
  • I'd like to go to a real feast as described. I'm all about feasting. Besides, watching a bunch of people play live-action dungeons and dragons while eating tomato soup with a jazzy name really doesn't appeal to me if I don't get my stale bread plate and animals stuffed in animals. Maybe I'll look for a Bedouin Times? One elementary school I went to did a medieval themed feast on a small-class-sized scale one year. We stuck more or less to the rules of what was historically appropriate (at least closer than these restaurants, apparently) and had a lot of fun dressing up like knights and ladies and eating with our hands off stale pita plates.
  • I remember being fascinated with the Bronze Age cooking tools in the British Museum. They had, like, tongs and shit.
  • my medival geek thanks you for the link :)
  • verbminx, that World History of Food looks neat, but I think I'd be more interested in the appendix than the rest of the book.
  • > How do medieval-themed restaurants get it [so] wrong? I think the big problem is a general lack of filth. Also, the food is way to fresh.
  • to + o = too
  • There's nothing like a well-hung stag!
  • Always let your meat hang!
  • Also, this seems like a good time to re-link Gode Cookery. Including How to Make a Foole.
  • OK, can lines from a link be taglines? I hope so, because... Monkeyfilter: frumps for his folly, and flouts for his foppery
  • A Chef and His Library
  • Any luck with finding the name of that book, verbminx? I looked through the site you linked, but had no luck, mostly because I don't know exactly what I'm looking for.
  • I think the real medieval food sounds much tastier than roast chicken and potatoes. Spices and rich sauces - yum. (I also love Indian food).
  • Aha! I did find it, after concerted searching (and I couldn't find the Teresa Nielsen Hayden list I mentioned either). The book I'm thinking of is On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee. There's lots of commentary in there about the science behind food, including things like the development of various vegetables (what they looked like 500 years ago, for example), or why salt is enormously helpful in making good ice cream. Another book that might be worth looking at, on this tack, is Food in History by Reay Tannahill (who also wrote the excellent Sex in History). I haven't looked at it yet myself. Finally, there are a few medieval-renaissance cookbooks, like Shakespeare's Kitchen by Francine Segan and The Medieval Kitchen by Odile Redon et al. Both have palatable recipes that are largely authentic, so they're worth looking at if you're planning a medieval feast. A friend used Maggie Black's Medieval Cookbook for her college's "Twelfth Night" celebration; everything I had from it was pretty good, if not always visually attractive. There's another book called Pleyn Delit, by Constance Hieatt, which I haven't ever looked through, but which seems to be highly esteemed. It's interesting to note that, contrary to popular perception, the average medieval/renaissance European probably had teeth as good as or better than those of the average modern American. Why? Their sugar consumption was usually much lower, and they didn't have soft drinks, which have a combination of ingredients that promote tooth decay. Their teeth would have been worn down by certain common ingredients in their food, but the enamel would probably have been in pretty good shape. The archaeological record largely bears this out. (I've read.)