FOOD PREPARATION
ered pots that they buried in the coals, or small portable ovens. The
latter were especially popular in southern France.4
The richer the household in the Middle Ages, the better equipped
its kitchen was, the more refined its cuisine, and the greater the likeli-
hood that the food was not prepared by a lone housewife, but by one
or more professional cooks with an army of helpers. Monasteries,
manor houses, castles, and the houses of the wealthy bourgeoisie were
the places where cooks exercised their craft, if they did not run their
own business. Like many other professions at the time, cooks were or-
ganized in guilds. To become a master cook in Paris, for instance, one
had to first work as an apprentice for two years, and then as a jour-
neyman for another master.5 Having attained the title of master, a
cook had several options: he could open his own cookshop, work for
another master, or seek employment in a wealthy household. The rel-
atively low pay cooks received compared to members of other profes-
sions suggests that their status in society was not particularly high.
There were exceptions, of course, such as the famous Taillevent, chief
cook of the king of France, who was handsomely rewarded for his ser-
vices and was even given a coat of arms. Judging from the literary
sources, however, it would appear that on the whole cooks suffered
from an image problem in the Middle Ages, a time in which the spirit
was held in much higher esteem than the body, at least by the edu-
cated elite. Hence the work of a scribe copying a religious text was re-
garded as vastly superior to that of a cook who catered to the needs of
the flesh.6 Aside from their perceived lack of education, cooks and
their staff were often looked down upon because their job was a messy
and smelly one that made them reek of kitchen odors. Furthermore,
they were accused of drinking on the job, of being hot-tempered and
crotchety, and of possessing a rough sense of humor. In their defense
it must be pointed out that their job was not always easy, besieged as
they were by boarders, nibblers, and tasters, who were not only of the
human kind, but included dogs, cats, foxes, rats, mice, and flies, to
name a few. Little wonder, then, that cooks were known to use their
trademark ladle, with which they were usually depicted, not just to
taste the food but also to discipline and chase away the various inter-
lopers.7
But how did cooks themselves view their profession? The little evi-
dence we have suggests that at least when it came to aristocratic cooks,
they regarded their work as much more than just a craft. Master Chi-
quart, chief cook to the duke of Savoy, for instance, saw himself as an
artist and a scientist.8 Entrusted with the health and well-being of
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