FOOD IN MEDIEVAL TIMES
Pepper
If saffron was the most exclusive spice, pepper was the most com-
mon in medieval Europe. It was consumed by the rich and those of
more modest means, albeit in smaller quantities. Indigenous to south-
ern India, pepper is the unripe fruit of the pepper tree, a climber usu-
ally grown on other trees for support. Black pepper is the seed
surrounded by the outer layer that turns black when dry. White pep-
per is the seed with the outer layer removed. Known to the Greeks
since the fourth century B.C., pepper was in antiquity a commodity
paid for in gold, and at times regarded as a currency in its own right.
No fewer than three out of four recipes in the Roman cookbook of
Apicius contain pepper. The pepper sauce piperatum is even named
after the spice. In the Middle Ages pepper continued to be regarded
as a prized possession, distributed, for instance, by the eighth-century
English cleric Bede among his brethren when he was on his deathbed.
The Guild of Pepperers is one of the oldest in the City of London, first
mentioned in sources from the late twelfth century. In the early thir-
teenth century the Pepperers, wholesalers selling “in gross,” bore the
name grossarii (from Latin grossus, meaning “great”), the ancestor of
the modern word “grocer.” In medieval cookery, pepper was added to
a wide variety of dishes that sometimes amounted to half the recipes in
a given collection. A spicy pepper broth traditionally accompanied
game and venison. Medieval medicine classified pepper as extremely
hot and dry in nature, and praised it for stimulating the appetite and
aiding digestion. It was also thought to dissolve wind in the stomach
and intestines, and to remove phlegm from the chest.
Long Pepper
Native to northeast India, long pepper is more pungent than black
or white pepper, and predates the latter in its use by humans. It is
named after the long catkinlike spike that contains the small seeds. In
medieval Europe long pepper played an important role as a foodstuff
and drug.
Cubeb
The climbing cubeb plant is related to the black pepper tree. In-
digenous to Java, it produces seeds with stalks attached to them. The
seeds were harvested and dried in the sun. Other names for the cubeb
are “Java pepper” or “tailed pepper.” The cubeb was used in medieval
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