EATING HABITS AND FOOD IDEAS
Cockaigne is God’s commandment that man henceforth had to work
for a living. Cockaigne is always portrayed as a place where idleness
reigns supreme and reaps handsome rewards. Not only does it allow
its inhabitants to eat well, it also provides them with shelter—and ed-
ible shelter, at that. In the oral tradition of the Land of Cockaigne,
eternal idleness, superabundant food, and edible architecture are the
three most common features that are nearly always present. Others
that were added in time include communally owned property, self-
cooking animals, a delightful climate, an excessive number of holidays
at the expense of fast days, and gratuitous sex.67
By the fourteenth century, rhymed poems describing the Land of
Cockaigne began to appear in written form in various parts of Europe.
There is a Middle English poem called the Land of Cockaygne from the
fourteenth century that made ironic references to the fall of man, there
were French versions that expanded greatly on the food aspects in the
poem, and from the second half of the fifteenth century a Middle-
Dutch version has come down to us whose contents, in brief, are as
follows: In the Land of Cockaigne work is banned, women are beauti-
ful, sleep is long, and despite the lack of work there are no shortages of
any kind. Walls are made of sausages, windows and doors of salmon,
sturgeon, and cod, tabletops of pancakes; jugs are made of beer, plates
and platters of gold; there is bread, wine, and sunshine; the beams of
houses are made of butter, distaffs and spools of the crispiest cracknel,
benches and chairs of meat pies, attics of gingerbread, rafters of grilled
eels, and roofs tiled with tarts. There are rabbits and hares, and wild
boar and deer are available all year round. Clothes are lying in the
streets or piled on tables free for the taking, and when it rains, precip-
itation takes the form of custards, pancakes, pies, and tarts. The rivers
that flow through Cockaigne carry wine, beer, claret, muscatel, and
sherry. Of ginger and nutmeg people can eat as much as they want.
Hate and envy are unknown, and it is May all year long. But time is
tampered with in more ways than one. There are four times as many
church holidays than normal, fasting happens only once in a 100 years,
and even then it only lasts half a day. And last but not least, the river
Jordan runs through this land whose water makes people forever
young. Together with music and dance, the conditions are ideal for
eternal revelry.68
Such were medieval man’s dreams of the good life. One element the
author of this Middle-Dutch poem does not elaborate on that is, how-
ever, found in many other versions, is the “self-preparation” of food,
and the “pushy way” roasted birds and pigs with knives sticking in their
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