When Arontius and Laurellen became the Baron and Baroness of Dragons Laire, they proposed a three year plan of focusing on successive eras in the SCA period of study (Commonly 600 AD -1600 AD, give or take a few decades).  The First Age was defined as 600 AD to 1100 AD.  This article covers some of the resources available for reconstructing food from this period. It was originally published in the local newsletter, The Flames of The Dragon in DATE  

In the First Age of Arontius and Laurellen

Cookery Sources

     If one seeks to study clothing, architecture, jewelry, or pottery of a given age, one has some recourse to actual objects to study; a rusty sword, a scrap of card weaving or even carefully preserved manuscripts.

Cookery, however, is an ephemeral art; on the plate today and in the dung heap tomorrow. So where do we look to learn of the art?  There are three categories of information; the written record, in the form of recipes, dietary advice, inventories and other records, the archeological record; sifting through kitchen middens and old fires, and finally ethnographical evidence from surviving folk customs.

    At this distance in time, folk customs are unreliable unless backed by the archeological record. Categorizing fish bones and seeds left in the midden can give one a picture of what ingredients were used but gives little indication of how they might have been combined for specific dishes.

    For actual recipes we must turn to cookbooks. The only cookbook available from this period is the Roman text de re coquinaria. The earliest extent copies hail from the 8^th and 9^th centuries CE. Another cookbook does not appear in Western archives until around 1300. (This does not suppose there were none, merely that none are currently known.)

    The text of de re coquinaria is attributed to the legendary gourmet Apicius. Although he did exist, the attribution was more likely to have been in the nature of a celebrity endorsement, the writer borrowing the famous name to lend prestige to the cookbook.  The recipes date to at least the fourth century CE and perhaps as early as the first century CE. Recipes cover a wide range of dishes from simple marinated vegetable salads to elaborate multi-layered concoctions designed to impress. Many of the items served at our Candlemas Cena last year were from this source material. (These recipes are printed in the DL Culinary Guild’s Candlemas Cena cookbook, available from the guild for a modest price.)

    A handful of other recipes from this period do exist.  These are mainly gleaned from books or other papers concerned with health advice. Often books on health and medicine will yield recipes as proper diet was considered an integral part of health and elaborate theories of how foods related to health had been in vogue since Greek and Roman times. 

    A sixth century document known as De Obseratione Coborum is sometimes regarded as the first French cookbook. This letter was written by Anthimus, a Greek doctor at the court of Theodorick the Ostragoth, while he was an ambassador to the King of the Franks, thus the French connection. It is not surprising that as a doctor the text is more in the nature of advice on health matters, although it does contain several recipes. 

    Another source that skirts the area of cookery is The Leech Book written by Cyril Bald about 920 CE. This was an Anglo-Saxon herbal and contains a few recipes for medicinal soups, salves and other preparations.

Of these three sources, the Roman text de re coquinaria is the most accessible. Several translations into English exist and several authors have provided worked out recipes with varying validity. See the list in the Bibliography.

A simple Roman recipe: There are many vegetable recipes in de re coquinaria. Often they are very simple dishes of cooked (boiled) vegetables dressed with oil, vinegar, salt and pepper and a few herbs. This one for parsnips can be served at room temperature. From the Vehling translation:

Boils the parsnips in salt water [and season them] with pure oil, chopped green coriander and whole pepper.

Pare parsnips and cut into pieces of roughly equal volume. Cook in salted water until tender, drain. Toss with extra virgin olive oil, chopped cilantro and whole or cracked peppercorns. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Bibliography:

Art, Culture & Cuisine; Ancient and Medieval Gastronomy, Phyliss Pray Bober, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1999

Apicius; Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome, Joseph Dommers Vehling, Ed and Trans. Walter M. Hill, Chicago, 1936 (reprint by Dover 1977)

The Roman Cookery of Apicius, John Edwards, Trans. Hartley and Marks, Ltd, Publishers Vancouver, BC, 1984 (Most recipes worked out for modern kitchens.)

Copyright 2011 by L.J.Henson aka HL Rycheza z Polska.  Posted receipt book of Rycheza z Polska February 2013

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