FOOD IN MEDIEVAL TIMES
Blank-Mang [White Dish]
Take capons and cook them. Then remove them from the pot. Take blanched
almonds. Grind them and mix them with the capon broth. Cast the [almond]
milk in a pot. Wash rice and add it and let it cook. Then take flesh of capons,
tear it small, and add it. Take white grease, sugar, and salt, and cast them in. Let
it cook. Then divide it into portions and garnish it with red or white confec-
tioned anise and with almonds fried in oil, and serve it forth.6
But blanc manger was not always white; in fact, it sometimes came in
bright colors. One recipe from fourteenth-century Germany asks for
pounded violets as an ingredient, for instance. What is also remarkable
about this recipe is that it provides a fast-day variant of the dish, and
gives information on quantities, something not normally found in me-
dieval cookbooks. The instructions are to take goat’s milk and to pre-
pare half a pound of almonds. A quarter pound of rice is to be ground
to flour and put into the milk. Then the breast of one chicken is
chopped and added. The mixture is simmered in pure lard, and finally
pounded violets and a quarter pound of sugar are added before the
dish is served. During Lent the recipe recommends pike as an alterna-
tive to chicken breast.7
Somewhat more varied in name and preparation than the “white
dish” but nevertheless standard fare on medieval dining tables were
the many egg dishes found in the various cookbooks. As every novice
in the kitchen knows, an omelet is one of the quickest ways to prepare
a meal and satisfy one’s hunger. An elaborate example of arboulastres,
or herb omelets, is the “green omelet” by the Italian cook Maestro
Martino. To color this cheese omelet green, either the juice of chard,
parsley, borage, mint, marjoram, and sage or the finely chopped and
lightly fried herbs are added.8
Brewets and civets are variations of another type of medieval dish, the
potage.9 As the most economical means of preparing a cooked meal,
the stewing pot was especially popular among the lower classes, for
whom roasting or baking in an oven were luxuries they could not af-
ford. But broths, or brewets, are also included in aristocratic cook-
books, sometimes with names that point to foreign lands, such as the
Brouet sarrasinois, or “Saracen brewet,” and the Brouet d’Alemagne
d’oeufs found in the Viandier of Taillevent. For this “German egg
brewet,” eggs poached in oil, almond milk, and sliced onions fried in
oil are boiled together. Then ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, grains
of paradise, and a little saffron infused in verjuice (the tart juice of un-
ripe fruits) are added to the other ingredients, and the broth is
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