The Historical Ponderings Society

[EverySongbirdSays]

Following on from the thread "What questions do you have about stuff from History or am I the only one?" Which is here

Ever wondered how we got from the clothes of Cave people to the clothes of today?

Who was the first person to make and eat Cheese? Or cake?

How ideas became widespread

Why the Aztecs didn't have the wheel?

Why Elizabeth I never married?

How accurate historical fiction is?

Then this your thread and we are your people.

PROCEED HISTORY LOVERS

Many foods might have carried dangers before those dangers were understood and prevented.

Storage must have been a particular difficulty. I always recall a Hornblower story in which they knocked the weevils out of the ship's biscuits before they ate them - and I have a memory of a ship's cook who used to feed ship chickens on said weevils. (He would knock the sacks of biscuits a few times before issuing them to the sailors so that the weevils went to the bottom of the sack and could be collected.)

They're only stories - but they sound horribly likely don't they?

someone mentioned Lent coinciding wiht the time of year when food is running scarce.

This is not quite true. the famine month (according to the book 1,000) was, surprisingly, July.
root veg from the previous year had run out, but none of this years crops were ready to eat. It made me think a lot about how we have bread early and late varieties of things, because there would be plenty in crop in a mordern garden. But of course many of our fruit and veg were not yet grown. There was a great quote from Northhanger Abbey on radio 4 about these new, horrible, hard, little, round green vegetables (peas)

Wild strawberries would have been around, but they hardly fill you up do they?

weevils - we lived in the middle east when I was a kid, dad in oil business. There was a port strike for 3 months, and when it was over, the only things you could buy had been sitting in the hold of a ship for 3 months.
All the flour was full of weevils. My mum used to seive it, chuck the weevils away and then use it.
It is amazing wht you get used to when you have to. I suspect the ships biscuit one to be totally accurate, bang the bag, scope some weevils out for the chickens and some biscuits out for the men.

But peas have been around for a lot longer than that haven't they? It's what all the peasants in the middle ages made their pottage out of?

well, I would have thought so, but I think there may be a difference between the peas used in pease pudding, ie more like lentils etc compared with the green peas as a vegetable. I think the quote was about the green ones.

I would have thought they'd have been like marrow fat peas - the sort of thing you use in mushy peas. Fresh green peas are a summer luxury.

The pottage ones would be dried to last through the winter, but ( unless they were imported), would fresh ones not have been around at least once a year? Or maybe only peasants ate them and it took the gentry another 700 years to give them a go?

I'm trying to think of what would not have been around in any shape or form backaways a bit. Potatoes for one - only around for the last 350/400 years or so?

Potatoes, tomatoes, sweetcorn/maize. Far less sugar until there was more access to the Caribbean and slavery. Spices were available, but often expensive luxuries, as they mostly had to be imported. Same with citrus fruits and other tropical fruits, unless they were dried or otherwise preserved. Food was far more seasonal, particularly if it was fresh. Lots more dried, pickled, jammed, bottled, salted and otherwise cured foods, and lots and lots of peas and beans.

Orange carrots pre William

I reckon the horrible, hard, green, round vegetables were Brussels Sprouts, a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with!

No rice, no culture of making pasta. In fact the only real staple you'd have - as far as I can see - was wheat. No wonder people had cats around.

No coffee or tea.

(Sorry, Weeds. I adore Brussels sprouts. Especially cooked and cold. )

I think there was pasta in medieval times though, isn't macaroni pudding a medieval dish?

Just found a recipe for rice pudding dating from 1420. Maybe it was imported from Italy or Spain, if it was growing there in those days. If it was traded from further afield it must have been extortionately expensive. Can't see it being for everyday folks, even if it was from Europe.
I discovered kalets this year - look a bit like sprouts but taste like kale - proper job!

I'd have guessed that it was a bit later? I don't know for sure, though. I have a great many mediaeval recipes - and Victorian ones - and I suspect that it's necessary to distinguish between that which might have been served in the 'big houses' and that which was commonplace fare. I doubt that it would have been on the tables of a basic labourer in mediaeval times.

X post.

I'm pretty certain poor people just ate boiled up whatever was available. No ovens other than the village bread oven!
I looked up rice, grown by the Moors in Spain from the 8th century and in Italy from the 15th. It seems to be used in sweet dishes with lots of sugar and spices, so no, I would think it was a dish for the very wealthy!
Mind you blancmange was originally a dessert made with chicken, milk and sugar sounds awful! Although as there were no " courses" as such in those days, just everything served at once or in random succession, maybe it wouldn't be considered strange at all?

Strewth, Steppe, by the way.

Sorry. steppe.

I had the idea that pasta in Italy had been around for about 1000 yrs?

Something about Marco Polo having come across noodles on his trading trips to Asia and bringing the idea back home? Pasta's basically made of flour and water, and sometimes eggs, so all the ingredients would have been around.

Will have to google to see if the Marco Polo brings pasta to Italy thing is actually true or just some nonsense someone told me once.

Wondering how dried pasta compares to flour when it comes to storing food for winter etc too.

If you were storing year in and year out, I reckon you'd store the actual grain. It keeps better - and the miller would have been going all rear round.

year

(My autocorrect is restive! )

round green things were definitely peas.

I seem to remember that peasants had a pot on the go all the time. You added dried peas, a bone if you had one, grains (don't forget barley rye etc) if you had it, maybe some bacon (lots of villages raised and shared pigs and cured the bacon) etc etc, then you ate it as soup/stew ladled out from the pot.
The pot was emptied and cleaned once a year, it was a permanent fixture. Which boggles my mind!
I am assuming the constant bubbling killed everything off.

I am assuming the strewth was to the weevils I remember it well, didn't think it was that odd
It must have been pretty boring every day too.