Food
-
So, let us say you find that time machine and go back to Richard III’s era, and you are going to dine with him. How do people act? What should you expect? In old 1950’s movies we see neat and tidy castles and perfectly coiffed people cavorting merrily between trestle tables and dancing in stately…
-
Pieter Bruegel the Younger, “Spring”, c. 1600 So Richard got up one December morning, and thought, “By all the saints, I fancy some asparagus today.” Er, sorry, sire, it’s the wrong time of the year. Hmm, the royal taste buds are well and truly thwarted. Being king didn’t quite get you all you wanted. Today…
-
Mulahwajah* “Anything green that grew out of mould was an excellent herb to our fathers of old” So wrote Rudyard Kipling when describing the English medieval addiction to herbs and spices – the more exotic the better. And surely there is none more exotic than Alpinia officinarum, or lesser Galangale, now simply known as galangal although,…
-
Pare saffron plot, forget it not. His dwelling made trim, look shortly for him. When harvest is gone, then saffron comes on. A little of ground, Brings Saffron a Pound The history of saffron, that exotic spice of the Levant, spans three millennia, landing in England some time in the mid-14th century – although certainly there are…
-
Keeping on the subject of mediaeval food, I decided to write about a foodstuff that is no longer commonly eaten or even very well known of in the UK – the lamprey. The lamprey, an ancient and primitive species of fish, was popular in mediaeval times because of the Church’s ruling that people were not…
-
What connects St. George’s Hall, Windsor, to a wild boar pie??? No, not a feast at the castle, but a fireplace. I wanted to know how many fireplaces there are/were in the hall, and so Googled pictures of it. Lots and lots of pictures, some new, some old, but no sign of a fireplace at…
-
I have now seen the excellent Channel Four documentary on whether or not Richard III could have led the cavalry charge at Bosworth. Well, of course, it was already known that he did, so the question was, how efficiently could he do it? The …answer was “Bl–dy well!” The young man, Dominic Smee, whose scoliosis…
-
In Ricardian fiction, one can always depend on a banquet scene to feed the body and soul of devoted readers who defend the most maligned king in history. Because medieval food was so colourful and robust, it is understandable that a wealth of novels, stories and cookery books would emerge larded with roasted whale, fried…
-
She had small hounds that she fed roasted flesh, milk and small bread — The Canterbury Tales If one follows the life and times of Richard the Third, it also follows that one becomes immersed in the culture of medieval England. Whether it’s the choral music, the fashions of the royal court, the cutting wit…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 