Posted on 04/20/2013 8:42:31 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A 12th-century manuscript contains the oldest known European Medieval food recipes, according to new research.
The recipes, which include both food and medical ointment concoctions, were compiled and written in Latin. Someone jotted them down at Durham Cathedral's monastery in the year 1140.
It was essentially a health book, so the meals were meant to improve a person's health or to cure certain afflictions. The other earliest known such recipes dated to 1290.
Many of the dishes sound like they would work on a modern restaurant menu...
Gasper added, "The sauces typically feature parsley, sage, pepper, garlic, mustard and coriander, which I suspect may give them a Mediterranean feel when we recreate them. According to the text, one of the recipes comes from the Poitou region of what is now modern central western France. This shows the extent to which international travel and exchange of ideas took place within the medieval period. And what more evocative example of cultural exchange could there be than food?"
Gaspar and colleagues are recreating some of the dishes for a workshop to be held on April 25 at Blackfriars Restaurant in Newcastle, U.K. A lunch the following Saturday will feature the same dishes. The researchers are also putting together a translation of the cookbook under the title "Zinziber" (Latin for ginger).
While much of the food is still tasty to modern palates, not all of the medical cures would work today.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.discovery.com ...
Well, after using it a couple of times, I suppose your original ailment would be the least of your concerns.
Take noumbles of Deer oper of oper beest parboile hem kerf hem to dyce. take the self broth or better. take brede and grynde with the broth. and take the oynouns and parboyle hem. and mynce hem smale and do per to. colour it with blode and do per to powdour fort and salt and boyle it wele and serue it fort --Copied word for word, capitalization, punctuation, everything.Yum!
If they worked then, they would still work today; if they don't work today, they didn't work then, either.
Translation from Presstitutese: "Not all the medical cures are efficacious." )Nor safe, most likely.)
Problem: do they mean "juicing" coriander plants (cilantro); extracting oils/juice from the coriander seeds; or a decoction of cilantro?
At least it has enough garlic in it to cover the day(s)-old fish smell & taste.
That's obviously 'onions', but I sure would like to hear how they pronounced it.
It's interesting how languages change over time. I read somewhere once, that if a person from the present were to go back to the time of Shakespeare, that the English of the day would sound like a foreign language.
I believe it. I once asked a Cockney guy on the street in London for directions, and couldn't understand half of what he said.
“Eye of newt”
She turned me in to a newt!
A newt?
I got better...
I believe it! Reading Shakespeare, even given the close similarity to modern English, is almost impossible for me. At least, I don't get very much out of it without help.
Fortunately, when we studied Shakespeare at the university, we used fantastic study guides which had footnotes that explained every word, phrase or sentence that might have given us a problem. That's the ONLY way to study Shakespeare! Check this out... Just found it ==> http://midenglishrecipes.blogspot.com/
I don't know what it is, but even when I was a kid, I had no problem following Shakespeare. Could have had something to do with the fact that my mom read to us all the time from adult fare, or the fact that Mom and Dad spoke straight adult English to us kids from the time we were little.
Dunno, but I always excelled in school at anything having to do with English. It was my easiest subject. Modern English came easy to me, and that ease extended into older forms of the language, and even some foreign tongues. I do know that I was reading rudimentary words before I started school.
When I was working in England, I used to translate the tougher Northern and Scottish accents for my American friends. My ear just seemed to tune in better than theirs.
Interesting stuff. Odd, though, that the article does not disclose where this cookbook was “found” or how such a discovery came to light.
What’s more, you will never et a good rutabaga pie because there will never be a good rutabaga pie, even one garnished with anchovies
Sorry to interrupt, but rutabaga/carrot/pea pie ain’t bad with good gravy. Now, for desert a sweet rhubarb pie with honey cream would top it off, fair thee well.
Thanks for the Bugs frame...found it on YouTube. Hysterical.
The lament of a Roasting Medieval Goose:
Olim lacus colueram, Once I lived on lakes,
olim pulcher extiteram, once I looked beautiful
dum cignus ego fueram. when I was a swan.
(Male chorus)
Miser, miser! Misery me!
modo niger Now black
et ustus fortiter! and roasting fiercely!
(Tenor)
Girat, regirat garcifer; The servant is turning me on the spit;
me rogus urit fortiter; I am burning fiercely on the pyre:
propinat me nunc dapifer, the steward now serves me up.
(Male Chorus)
Miser, miser! Misery me!
modo niger Now black
et ustus fortiter! and roasting fiercely!
(Tenor)
Nunc in scutella iaceo, Now I lie on a plate,
et volitare nequeo and cannot fly anymore,
dentes frendentes video: I see bared teeth:
(Male Chorus)
Miser, miser! Misery me!
modo niger Now black
et ustus fortiter! and roasting fiercely!
(Carmina Burana Carl Orff, adapted from a 12th Century source)
“Does it have the ancient green bean casserole recipe? with the mushroom soup and the french fried onions?”
I despise that creation and once read on a thread dedicated to it’s corruption that a soup company (Campbells?) invented that culinary offense as a way to sell more product during the holidays.
If it stinks - use it as a poultice.
Had a great feast at an SCA event late night..lots of meieval cooking is very good. Course some not so much..
The fact that the cats are doing their own work is how we know it’s fantasy.
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