Tools of a medieval kitchen

Auger photo by Flickr user Marion Doss. Brick and Mortar photo by Flickr user BinaryApe. Sickle photo by Flickr user Dennis. Spindle photo by Flickr user hspauldi. The middle ages were a time of castles, jousting, and innovations in tools.

Developments in tools and castles were made out of necessity - tools to facilitate new methods of farming and castles to provide defense against invading armies. Jousting tournaments were held for entertainment.

Page content. I do not know what we will be doing in class. No it is not required to cook with the group, but I highly encourage it. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account.

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Search Home About. Bookmark the permalink. I consider the mortar and pestle to be the most important tool because it is what all cooks used to help grind all their spices, which I will be discussing in a later post.

Salting is basically curing meat with salt and no other spice s. You want to completely coat the meat rub it i nto every pore! Knives, ladles, pottery and wooden bowls, forks and scissors were also important tools. For cooks preparing spices to complement a dish, a mortar and pestle were used.

Many medieval recipes call for food to be finely chopped, mashed or diced, so there was a lot of prep work for cooks. This was due to the belief that the more processed the food the more efficiently it would be absorbed by the body. The cooks took this as an opportunity, and used the finely ground food to build elaborate designs and dishes. A common process was farcing. This was where the animal was skinned and dressed, then the meat was ground with nuts and spices and then returned to its skin or put in the mold of a different animal.

Common people had simpler fare. The main meal was pottage, a thick stew made by boiling vegetables and grains. Meat or fish was added if it was available. It was kept in a pot over the fire and more ingredients were added as the pottage was eaten. Despite its ever changing nature, it sounds bland and unappealing. For the medieval traveller, dining on the open road depended largely on your social class and the hostelry you chose to stay at. For the majority, this meant a tavern and for a lucky few, early coaching style inns.

The food in these establishments was pretty hit and miss, for the budget price you could expect the omnipresent pottage, as above… its quality dependent on the skills of the cook and the availability of the produce.

If you were of noble stock, you could expect to pitch up on the household of some local gentryman and expect a decent meal to be thrown together, no expense spared.