"Medieval Life~16 Th Century- ITALIAN KITCHEN" Wall Sticker

Medieval cooks had no scruples about using and overusing sugar; to the contrary, medical thinking of the time actually considered it healthy. In England, though, honey remained the sweetener of choice well into the renaissance, and sugar settled into the same quasi medicinal status as spices. The variety of raw ingredients available to the medieval cook was largely similar to the selection we are presented with today. With the exception of items later brought over from the Americas (maize, chocolate, turkey), and some which were known but considered suspicious or downright poisonous (potato, tomato, banana), and a few which for other reasons reached Europe in later ages (coffee, tea, vanilla, broccoli), most the selection available to the medieval cook was largely similar to today's palette. The most important limitation on variety was imposed by what could be produced locally; through the medieval and renaissance period, import was a costly and time-consuming business, and so often priced its bounty out of reach for common folk. Typical food stuffs available were : Beef and marrow pies, hare soup, a white broth of coneys, capons and venison, white beet, turnips, salted olives; carp and sea-perch, jellied eels, partridge, plovers, whiting, pheasants and swans, pies of turtle-doves and larks, the best roast, a grill of shad, a fricassee, numbles and tail of boar with hot sauce, fat capons in pies, fritters and rich pasties, frumenty, venison, olives, cream fritters and sugared fried bread slices, forcemeat in hot galantine, a jelly of capons, coneys, chicks, young rabbits and pigs, hippocras, wafers, pears, shelled nuts.