Thread by @djezreader, #MedievalTwitter I often hear white food referred to as “unseasoned,” an attribution [...]

#MedievalTwitter I often hear white food referred to as “unseasoned,” an attribution that points to not only Anglo-American culinary timidity but also what gastronomic identity means on either side of the divide. (1/34)

This was not always so, of course — & I’d like to present when white-skinned folks (of sufficiently lofty class) did in fact eat “seasoned food”. This stems out of my research into food & foodways in the medieval English literary imagination. (2/34)

“Food choice is always a political act” is the guiding principle of my explorations. (3/34)

By this statement I mean that food is only available to us because of a massive network of political decisions about labor, land use, exchange, distribution, & capital. By selecting one foodstuff over another, you have played a part in these networks, however small. (4/34)

Even taste is political. Folks like to say, “De gustibus non disputandum” (About taste, there is no argument) but this is patently not true, if you look at human life as a series of structures and symptoms, of needs for recognition & belonging. (5/34)

Cuisine always projects an ideal identity of some sort, an imagined prandial community, and through a metabolic exchange with nature, one actually modifies the body to conform to that ideal & community. (6/34)

We might note the valuable work of Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), who charts how taste is guided by class & status aspirations, coining along the way the great phrase “conspicuous consumption”: that people choose products that display their desires for social status. (7/34)

We could say it another way: as Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755–1826), perhaps the godfather or gastronomy, asserts in a well-known aphorism: “Dit-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es” (Tell me what you’ve eaten, and I’ll tell you what you are.” (8/34)

We might choose to say it, ‘You are what you eat.” But it’s probably more accurate to say instead: “You eat what you want to be.” (9/34)

Let’s turn now to medieval status diners: they too were driven in their tastes by the need to project wealth & power, to conspicuously consume the spoils of exploit, and to conform to rigorous codes of social comportment at the table. (10/34)

One aspect of these needs for recognition & control was the liberal use of spices in their cooking. (11/34)

Spices were an exotic commodity to Western Europe, brought from the furthest reaches of the known world, along ancient trade routes from east to west. They were more valuable than gold. They were the most important product of intl trade. (12/34)

Really, the “Silk Road” should have been called the “Spice Road.” (13/34)

What we know of European medieval cooking is mostly derived from extant “cookery books” – most of these are found fairly late in the chronology, most of them showing a lot of similar recipes, and probably dependent on each other to some degrees. (14/34)

These books also provide evidence for global food cultures & strong international trade. Not only do these recipes depend on many imported ingredients, but they also reveal dishes & tastes from the Middle East & Asia. (15/34)

These recipes present an incomplete picture of what a professional medieval cook did in the kitchen, & led early observers to some odd conclusions about the nature of high-status dining (we’ll get to those in a moment). (16/34)

Most of these recipes are for sauces & prepared dishes to accompany the bread & roasted meats that were the main feature of a status banquet. These would be served as side dishes, eaten mostly by dipping bread or using a shared spoon. (17/34)

To give an example of what you might find, here’s a recipe from Harleian MS 278 (edited by Thomas Austin in 1888) for something delicious called “Egredouncye” (Middle Fr. “aigre-douce” [sour & sweet]): (18/34)

This recipe is striking in its vagueness: there are no amounts for the ingredients. This shouldn’t be surprising, many standard household measures were not yet invented, and the users of the recipe were looking more for something to remind them what went into what. (19/34)

So what we are looking at here with this Egredouce dish? How strongly flavored would it have been? (20/34)

I’d say it would have been striking, but probably not overwhelming. Spices were so expensive that the cook did not keep direct control over them. They were held by another household official (the panter) instead. (21/34)

A little bit usually goes a long way, esp. with spices being ground right before use. But the vagueness of the recipe might be strategic as well, allowing a chef to argue for more or less spice as seemed possible. (22/34)

I’d like to get into what spices meant to medieval dietary theory, medicine, and political power, but that’s a big discussion, & might be better saved for another thread…. (23/34)

So I’ll conclude this time, by noting that this reign of “white” seasoning did not last. Right about the same time that Europeans created direct trade routes to spice-producing places, a new culinary fashion swept through Western Europe: (24/34)

These direct routes not only punctured the phantasmagory surrounding the idea of spices, but also lowered their prices so anybody could afford the basic stuff. Spices just didn’t automatically mean distinction, exclusion, & privilege any longer. (25/34)

“Haute Cuisine” was popularized by French chef La Varenne (1615–78), emphasizing reductions, herbs, local flavorings, and other changes. This became the standard of good living & dining, enduring today. (26/34)

Also, nationalistic attitudes between England and France encouraged English cuisine to go its own direction, mostly towards reducing the strong flavors of most dishes (a trajectory prob. hastened by Puritan suspicions of excess). (27/34)

The result of this leads us to the stereotype of white British and American food as “bland”, which has produced some amusing moments in studies on medieval food. I’d like to give you three examples & conclude this thread for another day… (28/34)

One of the first studies on medieval cooking & eating is Richard Warner’s “Antiquitates culinariæ” (1791), which expresses his confoundment at the tastes of his ancestors. He sees them as “unintelligible” much like an Egyptian pillar covered with hieroglyphics: (29/34)

And on the next page, he discovers that “English” food may not be “English” at all, but “colonial,” an effect “very unpleasant” to a “palate of this day,” misrecognizing that people of his day do indeed have a taste for “hot spices”. (30/34)

Here is Thomas Austin, who edited a volume of med. Cookbooks for EETS in 1888. These recipes would “astonish a modern Cook,” wondering if “outdoor life” made his ancestors have “stronger stomachs”. (31/34)

The past literally gives Austin a bellyache. (32/34)

And finally, here is William Mead, in the English Medieval Feast (1931), who finds little to commend medieval cooks for, according to the canons of taste developed since. “Every dish was a riddle” (33/34)

So that’s what I have for you today so far. Look here soon for another thread or two about seasoning” — probably on what spices might have meant for medieval status diners. Hope you enjoyed. (34/34)

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