The Real Life Cooking Strategy Guide Blog: Medieval Europe; Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Bedtime Snack

A painting by Jean Fouquent of a Medieval Banquet in a French Castle
The robed people seated at the guest table were, the host King Charles the V (in the blue robe), and his guests King Charles the IV of the Holy Roman Empire (in the yellow robe), and his son, King of the Romans

King's or Prince's Breakfast
Prince Bisket (Bread)
Buttered Beere (Buttered Ginger Ale)
Preparation Time: 5 minutes – 20 minutes
Needs no marinating
Prince Bisket and Buttered Beere are recipes from 1600 CE or AD England. Breakfast in the Medieval times was small because it was believed that it was the sin of gluttony to start eating too much, too soon after the fast during the night. Men who worked hard labor jobs, women, children, the elderly, and the infirmed were allowed to eat an early large breakfast without it being considered a sin. The largest meal of the day was lunch.

Photo of Regular Ale, not Buttered Beere from http://fullhomelydivinity.org

Ingredients and Shopping List:

Angle Food cake
Can of Ginger Ale or Cream Soda (Zevia is the best kind of sugar free soda pop to start the day with, it is only available at health food stores).
1 Egg (or the equivalent in egg substitute)
1 Tablespoon of Pumpkin Pie Spice
1 or 2 Tablespoons of Butter (not margarine)

Equipment:
Microwave
12 ounce coffee cup

Instructions:
Cut the cake. Open the ginger ale. Put the ginger ale or cream soda in a large coffee cup. Whip it and mix it very well with a fork, the egg and the pumpkin pie spice. Drop in the butter. Microwave it for about 2 minute, until it is as hot as tea.

Eat.

Note: The brain food in this meal is the egg.

Note: Prince Bisket was actually made of baked flour, sugar or raw honey (if you weren't at a castle rich enough to afford sugar), eggs, anise seeds, and rose water. It was served like a cookie that was sort of the texture of angle food cake. Angle food cake is the only cake recommended to be eaten by diabetics, although some diabetics find that eating it doesn't help them manage their blood sugar levels.

Note: Buttered Beer was actually beer mixed with egg, sugar or raw honey, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and butter so it tasted like a cross between beer and pumpkin pie, sorta like a spicy ginger ale.

Note: Zevia pops are much healthier because they are made with erythritol and stevia.

Lunch
Spiced Grape Juice (Hypocras, Mulled Wine, or Spiced Wine)
Bread (White Bread)
Stuffed Pork (Imitation Stuffed Piglet)
Almond Cakes (aka Honey Cakes)
Preparation Time: 20 minutes.
No marinating required.
In the castles medieval people at bleached white bread, the villager at brown bread, even though the brown bread was healthier. Spiced wine was served from 1300 – 1500 CE or AD in England, France, and Spain. This Stuffed Piglet recipe is like that from 1300-1400 CE or AD England. The Almond Milk Cake recipe is from 1400 CE or AD England.

Photo of Spiced Wine courtesy of Clement Petit
In Ancient Rome and Greece Spiced Wine was used as a medicine, but in Medieval Europe it was used as a royal beverage.

Ingredients and Shopping List:
Spiced Wine:
1 glass of Grape Juice (really watered down wine, but grape juice is healthier for the brain)
½ teaspoon of Sugar (or Truvia or Stevia) or 1 teaspoon of Honey or Raw Honey (optional since grape juice is already sweeter than wine)
1 Tablespoon of Allspice

Bread:
White Bread (Wheat bread is healthier)

Piglet:
4 Hot Dogs or Kosher Beef Dogs (They are healthier)
Piglet Stuffing:
2 eggs
1/4 tsp. Ginger
1/4 tsp. Salt
1/8 tsp. Pepper
A pinch Saffron (optional)
4 slices White Bread all crumbled up
¼ cup Raisins

Almond Milk Cakes:
2 tablespoons of Honey or Raw Honey
1 cup of Crushed Almonds
2 Sweet Rolls

Equipment:
Small mixing bowl
Small cake pan
Oven
Cup
Microwave

Instructions:
Mix the optional sweetener and allspice into the grape juice. Set it aside, or chill it if you like, although in Medieval times chilling was probably not done.
Preheat the oven to 350 Degrees. Put the hot dogs in a small cake pan. Cut the raw hot dogs across the top, about halfway through, for the stuffing. In the mixing bowl, mix well the eggs, raisins, ginger, salt, pepper, and optional saffron. Mix in the crumbled up bread slices. Stuff the hot dogs. Its OK if there is too much stuffing. Bake for about 15 minutes.
Mix the crushed almonds and honey. Spread them over the top of the sweet rolls. Microwave for about 1 minute.

Get your spiced wine. Put your slices of bread and stuffed hot dogs on a plate with the almond cakes.

Eat.

Note: The brain food in this meal is the raisins, almonds, and the raw honey; and the meat if it is low-fat enough.

Note: If you are more ambitious, you can make stuffed pork loin instead of stuffed hot dogs. I wouldn't try a whole piglet unless I was an experience chef. Food poisoning can happen really easily when trying to cook large amounts of stuffed meat. For pork loin, get a 4 pound piece. Its a log-like roll of pork, sometimes wrapped in a thick net. Cut it along the middle, like you did the hot dog. Cut through the thick netting if it has netting. But don't remove the netting. If it is simply pieces of meat held together by the netting unwrap it if it is pieces of meat. Then stuff it the stuffing in the cut or in the middle of the pieces of meat. Then take a cooking needle and thread and sew the netting back together. Then bake at 350 Degrees for 1 hour and 20 minutes. If you go to the trouble of stuffing a pork loin, you may as well know that stuffed piglet was traditionally served with hot yellow pepper sauce (basically white wine and white wine vinegar spiced with pepper, lemon juice, ginger, and safforn with mushy bread in it) or Cameline Sauce (basically spiced wine and wine vinegar with mushy bread in it).

Dinner
Ale
Bread
Stewed Chicken
Cheese
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
No marinating needed.
Medieval dinners by upstanding members of the community were smaller, as it was believed that eating too much, too late, was gluttony. Only the wild immoral members of their society ate large dinners.

Ingredients:
A slice of Bread
A can of Hungry Man Chicken Soup or Stew
1/8 teaspoon of Powdered Sage or a Sage Leaf
A slice of goat cheese or any other kind of cheese
A can of Ginger Ale

Equipment needed.
Microwave
Wax paper for covering microwaving food

Instructions:
Pour chicken soup or stew into the microwave-safe bowl and cover it with wax paper. Microwave for a few minutes. Put the piece of bread and cheese on top of the bowl. Get your ginger ale (you can make it like Buttered Beere if you like).

Eat.

Note: The brain food in this meal is the sage and the low-fat chicken and the garlic already in the canned stew.

Note: For a more elaborate, but more rarely eaten dinner, known as stewed rooster or stewed capron, you can add little bits of raisins, dates, prunes, lemon juice, and and a very tiny pinch or powdered mace to your Hungry Man Chicken Soup or Stew.

Bedtime Snack
Italian Pudding (Bread Pudding)
Preparation Time:
No marinating needed.
This recipe is from 1600 CE or AD England.

Ingredients and Shopping List:
1 cup of Milk
2 eggs
½ cup of Raisins
½ cup of Dates
3/4 teaspoon of Nutmeg
1 Tablespoon of Truvia or Stevia or ¼ cup of Sugar
1 ½ tablespoons of canola oil or melted butter
1 tablespoon of rose water (optional, since you can't buy it at Wal-mart)
1/2 loaf of White Bread (Whole grain bread is healthier)

Equipment:
small mixing bowl
small rectangular cake pan
oven or toaster oven

Instructions:
Preheat the oven at 350 Degrees. Put aside a little bit of the oil or butter, about one teaspoon. Mix together well everything but the bread. Crumble up the bread, mix it in til it soaks up the liquid. Grease the cake pan with a little bit of oil or butter. Bake in the oven or toaster oven for 30 minutes. You must be careful not to start a fire when baking in a toaster oven; don't leave unsupervised.

Eat hot or let cool.

Note: The brain foods in this recipe are the raisins and the eggs.