Cooking & Food

Descriptions in period recipes and depictions in period artwork reveal that the kitchen of a manor or palace was a well-organized and meticulously coordinated operation with up to dozens of servants assigned to specific tasks.

A list of feasts providing an overview of what people ate, when eating well was a concern, and illustrati ng difference s between Mediterran ean and Northern European cuisines.

Class handout that has been augmented with the lecture notes for a class on garnishing dishes for presentati on through analysis of period culinary manuscript s. The analysis is based on the definition of garnishing : A garnish, or flourish, is something edible that has been added to a completed dish of food in order to enhance either its appearance or flavor, or both.

"To Prepare a Most Honorable Feast" (translated from Maistre Chiquart), "To Make a Feast," "An Islamic Dinner," "A Dinner at Pennsic," "A Jeweler's Bibliography," "Books on Metalworking," and "Period Jewelery You Can Make."

Includes: Sources for Recipes, Sources for Ingredient s, Cariadoc and Elizabeth& #39;s Recipes, Bread, Vegetables , Islamic Dishes I: Meat with Sauce or Stew, Islamic Dishes II: Fried, Islamic Dishes III: with Legumes, Islamic Dishes IV: with Grains, Bread, or Pasta, Islamic Dishes V: Oven Dishes and Roasting, Islamic Dishes VI: Relishes and Dips, Chinese Dishes, Seafood, Soups, Poultry, Meat Dishes, Meat, Cheese and Egg Pies, Desserts, Appetisers , Etc., Drinks, Sauces, Pasta, Rice, etc., Additional Material on Period Cooking, Cooking from Primary Sources, Late Period and Out of Period Foodstuffs , Scottish Oat Cakes, Hildegard von Bingen&#39 ;s Small Cakes, How to Make Arrack.

Cindy Renfrow delights in making historic recipe books more widely available to the modern reader for study and re-discovery.
Author of A Thousand Eggs or More and a Sip Through Time

Cooking is a transitory art. Once the food has been cooked, it is eaten and the leftovers are disposed of ... in a tummy on a later day or into the trashbin. Nothing really remains to tell us how it tasted, what variations were made in the recipe, or what changes are recommende d for the next time. There are a number of reasons why one may wish to document what was cooked: entering competitio ns, proof that one can cook historical recipes, improving SCA feasts, helping new cooks, etc.

Links to a growing number of old culinary & brewing texts that are now available online.

Chapters include: Beverages, Soups & Salads, Breads, Meats - Poultry, Meats - Other, Eastern Dishes, Pastries, Vegetables & Useful Other Links.

General notes on various medieval foodstuffs .

I've never seen a recipe in a period cookbook -– of any century or country within our period of study -– for combining honey and butter to be used as a spread on bread. I hazard an educated guess that honey butter was a popular and contemporary condiment at the time of the SCA's founding that has stuck with us over the years despite cooks improving their research and learning to serve more period dishes.

Mistress Jadwiga's page of cooking info. Includes: Dayboards and Sideboards in the SCA: class handout and resources,
Sauces: handout and recipes for a hands-on class, cooking sauces from medieval recipes
Making Medieval Mustard, Recipes Listings, individual pages of menus and recipies for specific feasts prepared.

Primary sources, secondary sources, bibliography, recipes, articles...

A form allowing the user to search indices of several period cookbooks.

Modern Humours is a group for the discussion of topics concerning historical reenactmen t by those with food allergies or sensitivit ies. It is intended as a forum for anyone that is interested in cooking or eating food from various historical time periods reenacted at fairs, demonstrat ions, and events, in ways that are friendly to those with modern food challenges or “modern humours”.


Discus s ions will highlight the challenges of cooking historical ly accurate foods and to assist those with food issues to find ways to participat e in a safe manner. We will share recipes, discuss particular issues common to those with food sensitivit ies, and the specific challenges faced when trying to fit in to an historical setting.

Most of our information on the diet of the Norse comes from the sagas or from archeological sources.

Endeavoring to build an online research library and network of historical culinary texts, dating from earliest times to the year 1700.

True stories, fables, and anecdotes from the Middle Ages.

A food history timeline, showing when various foodstuffs came about, with literary and historical references.