It is a little-known but intriguing fact that the medieval palate was far more adventurous than our own today. As proof of this, historian Bruno Laurioux reveals the extraordinary range of spices and flavorings used to season popular dishes of the time: ginger, saffron, galangal, cumin, and cardamom are but a few. In addition, we learn that the medieval epicure savored spices no longer in use today, such as a variety of long peppercorn imported from Northeast India, judged by some to be far superior to the more common round peppercorn we know today. These observations, taken from a wide variety of sources including journals, menus and cookbooks, offer us a fascinating glimpse into the medieval diet.
With a gastronome’s enthusiasm, Bruno Laurioux helps us taste the charms of that period, leading us on a journey of rich discovery. Although cooking during this time was dependent upon natural, economic, religious and cultural forces, Laurioux demonstrates through the manner and quality of the foods eaten how the Middle Ages was a period of great richness, openness and diversity. We learn of how a nobleman could be distinguished from a poor man, a law clerk from a civil servant, an Englishman from a Frenchman, and so on, by the very foods they ate. Ultimately, the author reveals how in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, eating had stopped merely being a necessity of survival; it had become a form of pleasure as well.