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Hail fellows! Prithee, take a gander at this bounty, a fare ramble througheth meals of ages gone by… Okay, I can’t keep up this medieval speak, but I do love the vibes. And as a food writer, I LOVE thinking about what and how people ate in other time periods.
In culinary school, I learned all about the stale bread once used as plates called “trenchers” and the heavy-handed seasoning used to mask the stench of rotting meat — both staples of medieval European dining. But I could never quite picture what an actual medieval dinner looked like (beyond the overly dramatic portrayals in movies like Sleeping Beauty or A Knight’s Tale)… until now.
Using a quintessential product of the Information Age, generative AI, I can finally actually conceive of some of the wildest medieval dishes I’d only ever read about. Using Le Viandier de Taillevent, one of the oldest French cookbooks out there, I recreated historically accurate images based on recipes for a 14th-century banquet at the royal court in Paris. For this food history geek, the results were SO. FASCINATING.
Feasts at 14th-century French courts didn’t have courses as we think of them — or forks — but they did have plenty of meat…
1.
The upper echelons of the era LOVED eating birds — especially when they symbolized royalty and opulence as peacocks did. French royals stunted on their dinner guests with an elaborate bird dish called “armed* peacock”:
2.
How do you take your lark? Yes, the cute little songbird was a mainstay of Middle Age banquet halls. This is how the royal chef prepared them:
3.
For the grandest of all feasts, the dishes had to be just as blinged out as the guests, as evidenced by this recipe for Gilded Chickens with Quenelles:
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4.
Today, we have Croque Madame, back in the day they had Sauce Madame, which is — you guessed it — not at all like the sandwich we know and love:
5.
While a young cow’s intestines might not sound like a good time to you, it was the talk of the dinner party circa 1345. Here’s how they made it back in the day:
As if this meal wasn’t pungent enough, let’s add some seafood to the mix…
6.
Lemprey is a fish — one that looks more like a sandworm from Dune than an earthly edible thing. And yes, Middle Age nobles ate it stuffed and covered in gelatin:
7.
Honestly wasn’t expecting to read a recipe for dolphin in this cookbook, but at this point, I am way past getting shocked with these dishes:
8.
Based on Le Viandier, the French were not too worried about getting their veggies in. Mustard soup is one of the few vegetarian dishes in the cookbook:
And, a French banquet isn’t really complete without dessert…
9.
Did you know the All-American apple pie has a medieval French cousin? Me neither! Surely, this simple apple tart is going to be simple, spiced, and sweet:
Hath your 21st-century tastes found this medieval feast scrumptious or stomach-churning? Tell us in the comments and share the other historical cuisines you’re curious to learn more about.
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