Medievfal Food

The heritage seed library, which is a very good source of seed as well as relevant information, may be found using the following link;

When presenting a living history display involving food preparation, you might want to take into consideration the seasonal availability of the crops. A good example is look at what your grandparents ate, leaving out all the new world crops such as;

Potatoes - Solanum tuberosum,

Tomatoes - Solanum lycopersicum,

Runner Beans Phaseolus coccineus,

French Beans Phaseolus vulgaris

Sweetcorn - Zea mays,

Chillies - variety rugosa ,

Sweet pepper - Capsicum species,

Pumpkins, Marrows and Courgettes - Cucurbita species.

The crops and fruit outlaid below are not generally available from the average supermarket or greengrocers although some of the larger stores sometime stock some of them. (Purple Carrots have been found in Super Markets!).

Farmers markets or organic box schemes increase your chances of supplying the crops outlaid below.

If you would like to see examples of medieval crops and techniques then visit the Weald and Down Land Museum. The bay leaf farmstead is a very good example of a medieval garden, have a look here;

The method laid out below is called a clamp. This is a storage method is for root crops only. A clamp can be as large as your root crop supply, but it would be more prudent to make several small clamps incase of infection from bacteria or pest infestation.

Clamps can be adapted to be used in a pit in the soil. Many root crops were stored this way during the Iron Age, (As well as grain).

Select a sheltered spot on well drained soil.

Lay 20cm layer of dry straw, hay, leaves or bracken.

Lift your chosen root crop and pile then in a heap on the chosen material.

Keep the heap no higher than 60cm

Cover the root crops with 20 cm of chosen material.

Cover this area with 15cm of soil. Take this soil from around the base of the heap so that a drainage channel is formed.

Storing crops in this way could keep them edible until the next harvest!

Fruit and some root crops such as all the onion family should be stored in cool dry places such as caves or purpose built cold stores. These buildings were built with a north to north west orientation. (To avoid the full glare of the sun) The building should be thick walled and squat in construction with a thick heavy thatch and a well fitted thick insulated door. These buildings would be for communal use in medieval Europe. In some examples the floor is lower than the out side walls this allows the surrounding soil to act as insulation.

The only way to guarantee a supply of your chosen crops is to grow them your self, the seeds and plants are readily available, here are a few suppliers.

Rich, Nobility and Church

Same fruit, vegetables with the addition of crops which take time and care to produces. These were grown for taste or even status such as asparagus cauliflower and Brussel sprouts. (God knows why) and fruit grown in enclosed (walled)gardens: grapes and peaches and nectarines.

Same nuts as yeomen and peasants with addition of expensive imported crops; these being Orange, Pomegranate, Pistachio nuts and Long grain Rice.

www.gardenorganic.org.uk

www.wealddown.co.uk

Each village would be surrounded by several large open fields, usually not physically divided from each other, with each field containing a different crop as part of a three-field crop rotation. The fields would be split into a number of sections a furlong (220 yards, about 200 metres) wide, each of which would be subdivided into strips covering an area of half an acre (about 0.2 hectares) or less. Each villager was allocated a set number of strips in each field (traditionally about thirty) which they would subsistence farm. The strips were generally allocated by lot in a public meeting at the start of the year. The individual holdings were widely scattered, so that no single farmer would end up with all the good or bad land. Ploughing techniques usually used ridge and furrow cultivation to prepare the land for drainage and planting.

In addition to the three fields, there would be large common hay meadows (allocated in strips in a similar way), common pasture land or waste where the villagers would graze their livestock, woodland for the pigs, and a communal village green for social events, as well as some private fenced land (paddocks, orchards and gardens), called closes. The ploughed fields and the meadows could also be used for grazing outside the growing season.

Peasants and Tenant Farmers

Apple, pears cherries and plums were sometimes grown as crop in closes but more often they were planted or arose from seeds from rubbish or animals droppings in the wide field margins (in Kent, Essex and Sussex they are called Shaws) These margins where often remnants of the “wild wood “which were left during field clearance.

Hazel nuts were also planted and trees for timber where also planted or arose naturally in these margins such as oak, ash and elm and were cut at of intervals of 3 to 7 years depending on the timber or the how its to be used.

Soft fruit could be grown in plots surround the homes but more often they would be planted or arose naturally at the edge of the field margins (Shaws) mimicking their origins as woodland edge plants.

Villagers would also grow crops in plots surround the homes. Often a raised bed method was used, which alowed for the maximum amount of crops

All root crops and all leaf crops, apart from asparagus, as this was a favourite with nobility and it was uneconomical crop for people trying to grow enough food to eat. .Oat, barley and rye was grown and more rarely wheat for your own consumption. Wheat was mostly grown for the lord of the manor to do with as he pleased or sometimes for the church ,but generally the church grew its own grain and food crops.

Yeoman, Lower Classes within a Household Structure

(e.g. Servant Cook)

Same roots crops and leaf crops as peasants /tenant farmers.

Same grain but with the addition of wheat which may have been part of the crop which was grown for your lord of manor as payment (this was often sold again ) bought or exchange for services.

Short grain /brown rice were available but as this was an import it had to be purchased so no money no rice.

Rice was sometimes part payment for services for example a blacksmith or carpenter but this would depend on your lord’s wealth.

Raisins, figs and dates (dried) were available for those who could purchase them being an import and they too were often part payment to tradesmen for services rendered

The payment in goods for labour could also include spices such cinnamon, cardamom, blade mace and saffron and on occasion (which often depended on your lords wealth) black pepper corns.

Same fruit trees/soft fruit as peasants /tenant farmers

Fruits such as medlar, quince and grapes were available but these nearly all being cultivated, rather being harvested from managed areas (Shaws) and to a lesser degree sweet chestnut and walnuts (Limited to the south counties), these nuts were also imported along with almonds and pine nuts in slack barrels .almonds were often imported as ground powder .