FOOD IN MEDIEVAL TIMES
aristocratic sport, deer were kept in enclosed tracts of land, perhaps as
early as antiquity and certainly in the Middle Ages, when extensive
deer parks were a part of many noble estates. They helped ensure a
steady supply of venison, especially when a big banquet was planned.
The stag, popular in Roman times, judging from the chapter devoted
to it in the cookbook of Apicius, also appears in many medieval recipe
collections. Venison was usually roasted, or chopped up and sur-
rounded with pastry to form venison pasties. In the Tyrolean Alps roe
deer head seems to have been a local delicacy. The liver of deer was
prepared in a similar fashion as that of wild boar, and for it, too, beef
liver served as a less-expensive alternative. Hartshorn (deer horn) was
used both in the medieval kitchen and apothecary. It was thought that
a drink containing hartshorn strengthened the heart and drove away
worms. Although the meat of roe deer was considered preferable to
that of other deer by medieval physicians, all venison was said to gen-
erate bad melancholic blood.
Hare, Rabbit
The hare is native to Europe and has been part of the human diet for
some 20,000 years. It is larger than the rabbit, has darker, more
strongly flavored meat, and has never been domesticated. It was eaten
by the Greeks and Romans, and in medieval Europe was frequently
prepared in a sauce thickened with bread and the blood of the animal,
and seasoned with pepper, or made into an onion-based stew known
as a “civet of hare.” The rabbit, whose flesh is lighter and milder in fla-
vor, is native to Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula. In Roman times
the animal, which can be domesticated, was brought to Italy, but not
until after A.D. 1066 was it introduced to Britain by the Normans. An
expensive novelty, rabbits, especially those older than a year and
known as “coneys,” are frequently mentioned in late-medieval En-
glish cookbooks. Along with beaver tail and barnacle goose, unborn
and newly born rabbits were apparently not considered meat and
hence could be eaten on meatless days. Rabbits were often roasted,
stewed, or their meat was put in pies. Rabbits and hares are small game
animals belonging to the same family. Physicians classified them as
moderately warm and dry in nature, and warned of the melancholic
humors they supposedly generated in the human body. Eaten by the
aristocracy and wealthy bourgeoisie, the animals were recommended
against obesity, a condition that in the Middle Ages was practically un-
known among the lower classes.
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