Belina Lansac’s way of life
Life five hundred years ago was very different in many ways from now. Think about it. How would you survive without social media, internet, electricity, motor cars, fridge, freezer . . .? However, the late 15th century was a time of innovation because of the invention of printing and the increasing use of paper. In that way, it was similar to the introduction of the internet in our times. Ideas could be exchanged, trade was easier, knowledge of the outside world increased.
Nevertheless, the daily task of cooking food was time and energy consuming. Firewood had to be obtained and lit and managed according to the type of cooking. Cauldrons could sit on a slow burning area while in another zone a fish or an egg could be fried quickly – if you knew how to manage both the cooking and the fire, or had help to do that.
Gascony was already known for its good quality bread. The main dish was garbure, which was – and still is – a cabbage and vegetable stew, simmered with preserved duck or goose or salt pork. It is also the traditional dish of Ecuador. Click here for a modern recipe to make your own garbure.
Everyone kept chickens. Click here to discover how and why they did.
Fires can be dangerous and the medieval housewife had to know first aid (click here for some methods) and she had to do the washing and ironing, or supervise others doing such onerous tasks. Click here to read more
The medieval housewife also had to know safe ways of clothes storage and pest control. Click here to read more
Cats were popular pets in medieval times, especially in flour mills because they protected the grain from mice and rats. Belina, Jordi and Catalina cherished their cats for that reason but also for companionship. Exeter Cathedral had cats on its payroll and a cat-sized hole through the north transept wall. Presumably, Condom Cathedral also employed cats to keep down rodents. However, the tower was in such a bad state in the fifteenth century that the cats had many entrances.
There is a legend in the village of La Romieu, not far from Condom, which dates to a famine in 1342. The starving residents had eaten all the cats and it was forbidden to keep any. But a little girl called Angeline begged her parents to let her hide her own two cats. With the disappearance of all the cats in the village rats took it over and started eating all the remaining crops until Angeline released her two cats and they quickly killed off all the rats. Stone statues of cats have been placed throughout La Romieu as reminders of the Legend of Angeline.
Men went hunting, for sport and for food. Gascony still had many forests but there were laws about who was allowed to hunt where and what Click here to read more about hunting. The rivers contained an enormous amount of fish, but fishing was a commercial task not a sport. There were many days in the year when meat eating was forbidden: every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday; on the eve of festivals; during the forty days of Lent.
Spices were expensive and were NOT used to camouflage meat that had gone off (another 19th century myth). A favourite sauce was called cameline, after its camel-hair colour; its main ingredients were cinnamon and almonds. Click here for a modern recipe. Bon appétit!
GARBURE
Ingredients – serves 8
- 200 g white haricot beans (cannellini beans)
- 5 carrots
- 3 white turnips
- 1 bunch leeks
- 1 onion stuck with 2 cloves
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled
- 1 bouquet garni
- 1 large savoy cabbage
- 4 large potatoes
- 8 preserved goose or duck legs or 1 piece of salt pork
- 1 heel of ham
- Salt and pepper
Boil the beans in a large stewpan for 15 minutes. Discard the water and refill the pan with water until three-quarters full. Add the preserved or salted meat, heel of ham, onion, garlic and bouquet garni. Do not cover the pan. Bring it to the boil while you peel the carrots, turnips and leeks and cut into small pieces. Add to the pan, cover and simmer for one hour. Add the cabbage and potatoes. Continue cooking for a further 30 minutes then season with salt and pepper. Remove the bouquet garni and onion. Serve with toasted slices of brown bread.
Preparation time: 30 minutes Cooking time: approx. 2 hours
MEDIEVAL CHICKENS
They were omnivores. They ate seeds, grass, leaves, soil, insects, rodents, slugs, snails. Also, wheat, beans, lentils (same food as humans ate). Keeping hens was cheaper than keeping geese and they were too small and weak to destroy crops. They helped to fertilise farms. They could be watched over by children. Their average life was seven years. Modern hens lay 300 eggs per year but medieval ones laid less than that. Cocks were castrated, becoming capons, in March or between 15 Aug (Assumption) and 8 Sept (Nativity of Virgin Mary).
There were many predators: foxes, pigs, dogs, polecats, curlews, buzzards, humans.
In manors chickens lived in lean-to additions to the main grain storage barns, or sometimes in dovecotes with the lord’s pigeons. On smaller farms, peasants kept hens and geese, a few pigs, two sheep, sometimes a pair of oxen or horses. In towns chickens lived outside the house, in the yard, in domed structures made of wattle and daub (interwoven sticks and branches covered with mixture of mud, straw, and animal hair). Peasants took some hens to market, and kept others for their eggs which were cooked in soups, stews, spit-roasted, baked into pies. Old hens were boiled in soup with vegetables. Selective breeding did not start until 16th century.
MEDIEVAL FIRST AID
- Fever – make a powder of ½ oz. pepper, ½ oz. kermes (female insects living in evergreen oaks), ½ oz. ginger, 2-3 raisins; put in same amount of mustard and grind everything small in a mortar; stir in 6 spoonfuls of vinegar and ⅓ quart of stale ale; boil and reduce; sip it for 3 days; when patient is recovered put on fresh sheets and cover warmly.
- Cough or cold – wash feet each evening with hot water; warm soles before the fire; mix together garlic and a little horehound; anoint feet with it and warm soles in front of fire before going to bed.
- Headache – mix together incense with 1 oz. pigeon’s dung and 1 oz. wheat flour; add white of egg; place it where head hurts and ache will vanish.
- Eye ache – put fresh cheese upon the eyes OR anoint the eyes with milk of 2 women (mother & daughter).
- Toothache – boil ivy berries in vinegar; put liquid hot into mouth and keep it there till cold; then spit it out.
- Ointment for burns – fry together pure hen’s dung and fresh pig grease; press them and draw through a cloth; anoint the sore.
- Jelly for burns – take 1 quart of sweet cream and 1 handful of washed fern roots cut up small; boil together in earthenware pot until it turns to jelly; keep it carefully and use when required.
- Ointment to heal a sore – crush red cabbage; mingle it with sour dough and honey; lay ointment on the sore.
- Dog bites – take roast garlic and onions; crush them with honey; lay the ointment on the bite; on top of that put a plaster of boiled mallows.
- Spider bites – take flies and rub well on to the place.
- To make hair grow – crush red onions till small; anoint the bare place. OR take cow dung and old soles of shoes and burn them to a powder in a new earthenware pot; mingle with raw honey and make an ointment; anoint head with this and cover with a leather cap for 9 days.
WASHING AND IRONING CLOTHES
Washing: powder was made by mixing two cups of sieved ashes in a litre of water; left to soak overnight ; filtered and mixed with boiling water; after washing, sheets etc were rinsed in the river or lake, beating them very hard.
In medieval times outer clothes were not washed often, merely shaken and brushed. Underclothes were rinsed frequently and hung to dry over a pole. Woollen clothes with a long nap could be re-shorn when they were dirty (skilled procedure). Soapwort (saponaria) was a medieval detergent.
In medieval times outer clothes were not washed often, merely shaken and brushed. Underclothes were rinsed frequently and hung to dry over a pole. Woollen clothes with a long nap could be re-shorn when they were dirty (skilled procedure). Soapwort (saponaria) was a medieval detergent.
Garments were waterproofed by waxing.
Instructions for stain removal using fuller’s earth soaked in lye: let it dry and then rub stain. Or ashes soaked in lye. Silk soaked and washed in verjuice (acidic juice made by pressing unripe grapes). To remove grease and oil: take urine and heat until warm. Soak stain for two days. Without twisting the fabric, squeeze the afflicted area, then rinse. As an alternative for stubborn greasy or oil stains, soak in urine with ox gall beaten into it, for two days and squeeze without twisting before rinsing. OR: Soak chicken feathers in very hot water and then wet again in cold water; rub stain with these feathers.
Colour was restored to faded garments by rubbing with damp sponge dipped in clear, clean lye.
Clothes were re-hemmed to extend wear and new bits were added to a dress.
Ironing involved holding a flatiron over or in a fire – or on a box containing coals to retain radiant heat for longer – and when it was heated it was picked up by the handle with a padded holder. A thin cloth was placed between the iron and the garment in order not to dirty the clothing during ironing.
CLOTHES STORAGE AND PEST CONTROL
Furs or fur skins were revived by removing fur from garment and sprinkling it with wine. Then spat on. Flour was rubbed into the wetted parts and then the furs or fur skins were dried for a day or two.
Clothes were aired in summer. Sieved rose petals were scattered on them and then the clothes were very tightly wrapped and stored inside chests. Lavender, rue, rosemary, wormwood, iris, valerian, bay leaves, cypress wood were also used.
Fleas were a major problem. Fleas were combed out of hair when the sufferer was standing by an open window. Fleas were caught with flea traps made of alder leaves (crushed like cabbage leaves), made up into cakes like woad. Belina had to wash the cakes, break them up like wax, knead them in running water, put the mixture in a pot and keep the pot well-covered.
Nits and lice also sucked blood. There were several ways of destroying them:
- Wash your head with bryony
- Make quicklime into a powder, mix it with vinegar and anoint head with it
- Use the juice of a herb called blight
- Take a broad strip of cloth as long as a girdle and anoint one side with grease mingled with quicksilver; spread powder of lichen on it and press on it with finger so that it sticks; fold it together and sew the sides; put it inside a linen cloth and sew that; wear it and the lice and the nits will die
Flies left at dawn through an east-facing little opening in the wall. Other methods of getting rid of flies were:
- Put bowls of milk and a hare’s gall in places where flies gathered
- Put a rag smeared with honey on the bottom of a pot
- Take raw onions and shred them, and put them where flies gathered
- Hang a string soaked with honey so that flies are stuck on it; remove them in a bag in the evening
Ants were killed or discouraged by sprinkling with sawdust from oak planks or by placing an owl’s heart on the ants nest, or dried fish, or a mixture of vinegar and ashes.
MEDIEVAL HUNTING
According to a manuscript by Gaston Phebus, there were stags, deer, roe buck, hare, wild rabbit (‘of an idle and roving disposition’), wild boar, bear (‘so timid’), wolf (‘hunted for fur’), fox (‘countryside’s thief’), badger, wildcat (‘hounds frightened of them’), otters caught in nets.
Huntsman training began aged seven. They learnt to make nets to ensnare game. They exercised dogs and trained hounds for the hunt. They learnt to recognise stags by their footprints.
Rabbits were hunted by putting nets over all but one hole in a rabbit warren. A muzzled ferret was sent down that hole and rabbits rushed up their tunnels and into the nets draped over the holes.
Nobles hunted on horseback whereas peasants made game traps with bait: pits, nooses, wallowing in mud, putting needles in meat left near wolves, two thick circular fences.
Animals were shot with bows and crossbows. Carts were camouflaged with leaves, with huntsmen inside the carts and on top of them. Cart wheels were deliberately made squeaky so that all other noises were masked.
Hares were caught in nets set before dawn to catch them on their way back to their warren in the morning. Nobles were against the cruel snares that were used by peasants.
CAMELINE SAUCE
This is a cold sauce, not prepared by boiling, and served cold. Sometimes garlic is added to it.
Ingredients
- 70 g blanched almonds
- 40 g raisins
- 40 g dry breadcrumbs
- 300 ml verjuice (or 3 parts cider vinegar to one part water)
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- Salt
Soak the raisins in warm water for an hour. Grind the almonds finely in a blender, add 60 ml warm water and continue blending until thoroughly combined. Strain through a fine sieve, pressing with a spoon to extract the maximum possible almond milk. Moisten the bread with a little water and let it stand until softened. Puree the raisins in a blender, together with the spices and the bread. Add the almond milk, then the verjuice. Blend until well combined, then add a little salt; taste for seasoning. This should be quite a loose sauce, of a strong tan colour.
Vinegar and verjuice, or verjus, (which was made from unripe grapes whose juice and seeds were preserved in salt) were flavourings of paramount importance in medieval cookery and could be kept in store for several months. Cooks also used young wine, produced within the past year.
MEDIEVAL BLANCMANGE (chicken breasts with sugar and almonds)
Ingredients
- 2 chicken breasts (approx. 250 g)
- 250 ml water
- 2 tbs creamed rice
- 2 tbs ground almonds
- 4 tbs castor sugar
- ½ pomegranate
- Almond slivers
Place the chicken breasts in a large saucepan and cover with the water. Bring to the boil and cook for 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool with the lid on for 1 hr 30 mins. Drain the chicken breasts and mince them. Add to the liquid in the pan: ground almonds, creamed rice which has been diluted with some of the liquid from the pan, the minced chicken breasts. Cook on low heat stirring all the time until the mixture is thick. Divide it into two parts, and cover one part with almond slivers and the other part with pomegranate seeds. Sprinkle with sugar.
This form of blancmange (or “blanc mengier”) was described in all medieval cookery books throughout Europe and recommended especially for invalids. In the Middle Ages sugar was considered to be a medicine, was expensive and difficult to obtain.
BOOKS ON MEDIEVAL COOKERY
- The Medieval Kitchen by Odile Redon, Françoise Sabban and Silvano Serventi, translated by Edward Schneider (1991, 1998)
- The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages by Terence Scully (1995)
- A Culinary History of Food, edited by Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari, translated by Albert Sonnenfeld (1996, 1999)
- Cooking in Europe, 1250-1650 by Ken Albala (2006)
- Consider the Fork – A History of How We Cook and Eat by Bee Wilson (2012)
The first epidemic of the plague was in the 6th century. The second one was in 1347, coming to Europe from Central Asia. It was thought to be a problem in the atmosphere and possibly caused by a ‘conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in the house of Aquarius’. Medieval doctors studied astrology as well as medicine. It was not until 1894 that a Swiss doctor, Dr Alexander Yersin, discovered that rats were the main source of the plague.
The plague returned from time to time and it was endemic in Venice from 1477-1498. It was in Perugia, Mallorca, and Valencia in 1475 and in Königsberg the following year. In 1478 there was plague throughout Europe, with 6,662 people dying from it in Venice, and 2,000 more dying elsewhere having fled from Venice. 1479 was another very bad year for the plague, and Mathurin Lussan died of it (in A Mystery of Blood and Dust). So did John Paston (in The Paston Letters). 14,000 people died in the Hotel-Dieu, Paris in 1481 and the plague did not end until 1482 in Paris and Perpignan.
Medieval people tried to flee from the plague. They held religious processions, and in 1483 Barcelona and Gerona sent representatives to Santiago de Compostela, praying especially to St Roch (a plague victim) and imploring St James to lift the plague from their cities. Gascons in Condom would have known about the continued risk from the plague. It was a problem added to two years of very bad winters and floods.
