But what? We need to get gen Z to look past the claggy disappointment of supermarket pork pies and nudge them towards smaller, well-respected producers. They are bad, old food that people ate in the days when they had limited choice. These are all horrible foods from the 70s. Why would anyone want to gnaw on a well-done steak? OK then, a third of gen Z has never sat down to a dinner of liver and onions. OK, then what about this: almost half have never eaten a well-done steak. Two-thirds of them have never eaten jellied eels, for example. There are plenty of other foods these zoomers are reluctant to try. Pork pies are just the tip of the edible iceberg that gen Z wants to destroy. That’s that, then, let’s organise a minibus convoy to the beautiful market town of Melton Mowbray. Then why has gen Z abandoned it? Because, get this, a large proportion of young people have never tried one. Nothing on Earth is finer than a proper hand-thrown pork pie, made with a hot water crust pastry, eaten outside on a warm summer’s day. Or at least they were.įirst they came for skinny jeans, and I said nothing. They’re an immovable part of British culture. There are medieval cookbooks that contain recipes for pork pies. A new report has been published, claiming that we may be living through the final generation of the pork pie.īut pork pies have been around for hundreds of years. This weekend I’m going to experiment with a medieval recipe and I’ll be sure to share the results with you.This sounds ominous. Well, I can’t read about medieval cookery without wanting to give it a try. If you think it’s gross to have sugar in your meat sauce, think for a minute about ketchup and barbeque sauce-both of those have plenty of sugar in them. Although sugar was available in many forms in medieval times, it was used sparingly as more of a spice than a sweetener, especially for meat sauces. Honey was the most common sweetener in the Middle Ages.Spices were something of a status symbol, and the more you had, the more you used, and people were impressed. Experimentation with varieties of herbs and spices was not a well-established art: instead, spices were frequently used in combinations that would be unlikely for today’s palates.Spices were expensive! Wealthier people that had spices kept them locked up for safekeeping.Do some of those sound exotic? Grains of paradise are seeds that have a pepper-like flavor. The more well-to-do would enjoy spices such as pepper, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, saffron, grains of paradise, cloves, ginger, and galangal.Their foods were more often flavored with onions, garlic, and herbs like parsley and sage that they could grow in their garden or forage for in the fields and woods. ![]() One exception was rabbits-a peasant caught poaching rabbits was subject to only a small fine. Peasants who poached game on these reserves might even be put to death if caught. The homes of the nobility often had “deer parks,” which were wooded areas where the gentry could hunt for sport and food.These birds were far more valuable as egg-producers than as meat for the table. Many households raised chickens, ducks, or geese for eggs and eventually for meat, but only after they had stopped laying.The liquid collected was used as a substitute for milk in soups, main dishes, and desserts. Instead of fresh milk, some wealthier households used nut milk- ground almonds or walnuts boiled and strained through a sieve. So milk was made into cheese that had a shelf life of several months. Fresh milk did not last long in the Middle Ages because there was no refrigeration.Manchet, or white bread made from wheat, was usually only eaten by the wealthy. The stale bread could also be cut into thick slices and used as plates called trenchers. When it got stale, it was crumbled and used to thicken soups and stews. Brown bread made from rye, barley, or oats was eaten in most homes on a regular basis.A staple food of the poor was called pottage-a stew made of oats and garden vegetables with a tiny bit of meat in it, often thickened with stale bread crumbs. In medieval times the poorest of the poor might survive on garden vegetables, including peas, onions, leeks, cabbage, beans, turnips (swedes), and parsley. ![]() As promised, today I’m going to share a few things I’ve learned about food and cooking during the Middle Ages. In last week’s blog I shared a little bit about my family history with food that was inspired by work on my second Sir Kaye book, The Lost Castle Treasure.
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