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If you want a fairly authentic Medieval banquet at your wedding fest, birthday party, or other celebration, you need to be aware of a few guidelines to follow. There was never a medieval banquet that included corn, potatoes, pumpkin pie or tomatoes. These four foods were introduced from the New World after the ending of the Renaissance. The cook for a Medieval banquet also would not have the nutritional knowledge that we have, but would go by the nutritional knowledge of that era, actually making sure to include the four humor. There would be foods that were cold and dry to represent melancholy. Hot and dry foods would represent choler. Phlegm included cold, moist foods, while blood was the signature of warm moist foods.
The traditional Medieval banquet would begin with cheese, then light meats that were considered easy to digest, lettuce, moist fruits such as peaches, and soups and broths. Cheese was considered necessary through as doctors believed that it helped digestion. Spices were also used to help digestion. It has often been suggested that spices were used, especially on meats, (remember this was before refrigeration) to disguise the fact that if they were not served immediately after killing, they become to become rancid. Later in the Medieval banquet would come other, more difficult to digest dishes such as pork or beef. There would be several subtleties, mainly made out of sugar, but often made from eggs and / or cakes served through the meal. It would also take several hours with entertainment such as juggling, instrumental music and singing interspersed between the courses. The average person eating a Medieval banquet would have his / her own knife and spoon that he / she would produce in order to eat. No one expected the host to provide eating utensils. The Medieval banquet was usually heavy on the meats, often having fish, venison, boar's head, mutton, chicken, pigeon and beef in the same meal. Vegetables were few and far between, especially during the winter.
When my daughter got married, she embroidered a Medieval theme for her wedding complete with a Medieval banquet. Compared with a Medieval banquet as put on in the Middle Ages, hers was greatly reduced, despite still bountiful. Instead of an 'authentic' Medieval banquet, you might just want a slowly modified one, like my daughter had, one that has what we now know is a nutritionally better balanced meal. My daughter's Medieval banquet began with fruit and cheeses as appetizers. Salad was served with a vinegar and oil dressing. Little subtleties in the form of bread shaped like birds came out, then cheese soup.
Trenchers were placed on the tables next. Trenchers are half- loaves of bread on which the rest of the Medieval banquet was placed before eating it. Carrot tarts were delicious (they tasted like pumpkin pie) as were the mushroom pasties. Grated cheese was available to sprinkle into the pasties to add to the flavor. Every pair of people got an entire roast chicken. It was common during the Middle Ages to serve a course between two people that would have meant to be shared between them. There were mashed turnips, noodles with a beef sauce and hot peas. The subtlety at the end was the wedding cake shaped like a medieval castle complete with attacking and defending forces.
The guests at my daughter's wedding feast were much better behaved than wedding guests were during the Middle Ages. No one grabbed food from another person's plate. Duels over imagined insults did not erupt, and bones were not thrown under the table when the person eating was finished with them. If people in the Middle Ages were supposed to eat everything at a Medieval banquet, I have no idea where they put it all! By the end of this Medieval banquet, the mother of the bride (me) was so stuffed, she could not eat any of the last subtlety, and I LOVE chocolate cake!
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Source by Margaret Provenzano
