There Was a Costly Culinary Trend During the Middle Ages That Would Make Food Inedible Today: Soaking Dishes in Spices

During the Middle Ages, wealthy landowners like counts and barons hosted extravagant feasts to impress their guests. These lavish banquets featured an abundance of fish, meat, wine, and sweets. Everyone has different tastes, but if you were a guest at one of these gatherings, you’d likely be safer if your culinary preferences leaned toward very spicy foods. It was common to find a platter of pheasant served with a sauce made from 17 different spices–an amount that today’s palates would hardly find enjoyable.

While this menu may seem unappetizing now, it made perfect sense to medieval diners.

Love for spices. People in the Middle Ages had a profound appreciation for spices. Their banquets were a stunning display of flavors, featuring an array of ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, nutmeg, saffron, and many other seasonings. Michael Delahoyde from Washington State University points out that a meat sauce could include around 17 different spices. Other experts mention recipes featuring up to 15 spices and a generous amount of sugar.

These spices were often combined in a single dish, creating a mixture of flavors that would likely be unpalatable to 21st-century diners. Ironically, it’s never been easier to find spices than today. Simply walking into a supermarket reveals shelves stocked full of them.

A window into the gastronomy of the past. Experts’ understanding of how medieval nobles ate comes largely from the work of historians and texts like The Book of Sent Soví, which features medieval recipes in Catalonia and Valencia in Spain. It’s the oldest recipe book of its kind in the Iberian Peninsula and is currently preserved in the University of Valencia. The work includes 72 recipes and dates back to the 15th century. However, experts believe it’s based on an earlier original manuscript, now lost, written in 1324.

The manuscript is notable not only for its recipes but also for what it reveals about the diners of the late Middle Ages. While their tastes may have differed from ours, their attitudes didn’t. They took great pride in the flavors of their dishes and often used gastronomy as a status symbol. Wealthy nobles desired kitchens with large stoves and relied on carvers to cut and serve the meat. They surrounded themselves with spices and sugar to enhance their meals.

Cooking and marketing in the medieval period. “Everyone has to eat every day, but in the Middle Ages, people didn’t have the same means of distinguishing themselves as we do today. They transformed food into a liturgy–a ritual that showcased their wealth. This was evident to others because they often gave leftovers to the poorer classes. It served as a way to demonstrate their status,” Juan Vicente García Marsilla, a professor of medieval history, told Spanish outlet El País.

The 15th-century recipe book embodies much of the pomp and prestige associated with medieval kitchens and pantries. Its prologue suggests that the original work was commissioned by an English king. However, the recipes hint at a different reality, likely reflecting a Valencian or Catalan author familiar with Mediterranean gastronomic traditions. “It’s a form of marketing of that time,” García Marsilla pointed out. The recipe book aimed to convey an aura of exoticism and prestige by attributing the work to a foreign and ancient chef.

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Why so many spices? Chefs used so many spices in medieval cuisine partly due to their association with status. While today spices can be found in any supermarket, centuries ago, they were luxuries that many couldn’t afford. Delahoyde explains, “Spices were… a sign of luxury and affluence. They signified prestige.” This points to the unique value of medieval cookbooks. Not all cooks could read, and these recipe books may not have been used in kitchens but rather kept in private collections.

Were cookbooks used by those in charge of the supplies? Were they a sign of status? Were they a way to explore the exotic ingredients of each dish that might go unnoticed by diners?

The pursuit of flavors and names. Expert Analida Braeger offers some intriguing insights on Medievalist.net, a platform focused on medieval history. She explains that the medieval palate was accustomed to foods heavily flavored with spices, which symbolized power, particularly due to their exotic origins and imports from the East. These spices included cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, pepper, saffron, mace, cardamom, and galangal.

An insatiable demand. “Europe’s insatiable demand for spices in the late Middle Ages (1200-1500 AD) is a remarkable example of dramatic historic change triggered by consumer preferences,” medievalist Paul Freedman said in a 2012 article published in The Oxford Handbook of Food History.

This demand led to unique recipes, such as chicken with sugar, which is found in the Valencian 15th-century manuscript. Spices were utilized not only in cooking but also had medicinal applications.

According to experts, a considerable percentage of recipes from the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries included spices despite their limited availability and high cost. Some even mention up to 40 different types. However, it’s important to note that the cooking of the aristocracy differed significantly from that of the lower classes, who often consumed cold food for economic reasons.

Revisiting old clichés. Much of what we think we know about the Middle Ages is often clouded by clichés and misconceptions. For instance, Delahoyde points out the “common myth” that cooks of the era heavily relied on spices to mask the flavor of spoiled meat. The reasoning typically follows that, since there were no refrigerators or freezers to keep meat fresh, seasoning it would disguise any unpleasant tastes.

However, this assumption is likely incorrect. During the Middle Ages, people understood the importance of fresh food. Anyone wealthy enough to afford spices would probably not use them to cover spoiled meat, given that spices were too expensive to waste on this purpose. Additionally, an aristocrat with cloves or galangal in their pantry would likely also have access to fresh meat.

A food preservation method? Another widespread misconception is that spices were used for food preservation. “Medievals were not idiots,” Delahoyde says. It wouldn’t make sense to rely on spices when meat or fish could be effectively preserved through methods such as salting or using vinegar, sugar, and honey. Moreover, Delahoyde notes a significant point: Spices seemed to lose their prominence in cooking around the 17th century, long before the invention of refrigerators. This raises the question: Did meat and fish stop going bad, or did culinary tastes simply change?

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