The modern twenty-first century kitchen has an array of time saving
equipment for preparing a meal: a state of the art stove and
refrigerator, a microwave oven, a food processor, a blender and a
variety of topnotch pots, pans and utensils. We take so much for
granted as we prepare the modern meal - not just in terms of
equipment, but also the ingredients, without needing to worry about
availability or seasonality. We cook with gas or electricity - at
the turn of the switch we have instant heat. But it wasn't always
so. Just step back a few centuries to say the 1300s and we'd find
quite a different kitchen, if there was one at all. We might only
have a fireplace in the main living space of a small cottage. If we
were lucky enough to have a kitchen, the majority of the cooking
would be done over an open hearth, we'd build a fire of wood or
coal and move a cauldron over the fire to prepare a stew or soup. A
drink might be heated or kept warm in a long-handled saucepan, set
on its own trivet beside the fire. Food could be fried in a pan,
grilled on a gridiron, or turned on a spit. We might put together a
small improvised oven for baking. Regulating the heat of the open
flame was a demanding task. Cooking on an open hearth was an
all-embracing way of life and most upscale kitchens had more than
one fireplace with chimneys for ventilation. One fireplace was kept
burning at a low, steady heat at all times for simmering or boiling
water and the others used for grilling on a spit over glowing,
radiant embers. This is quite a different situation than in our
modern era - unless we were out camping and cooking over an open
fire. In this book Katherine McIver explores the medieval kitchen
from its location and layout (like Francesco Datini of Prato two
kitchens), to its equipment (the hearth, the fuels, vessels and
implements) and how they were used, to who did the cooking (man or
woman) and who helped. We'll look at the variety of ingredients
(spices, herbs, meats, fruits, vegetables), food preservation and
production (salted fish, cured meats, cheese making) and look
through recipes, cookbooks and gastronomic texts to complete the
picture of cooking in the medieval kitchen. Along the way, she
looks at illustrations like the miniatures from the Tacuinum
Sanitatis (a medieval health handbook), as well as paintings and
engravings, to give us an idea of the workings of a medieval
kitchen including hearth cooking, the equipment used, how cheese
was made, harvesting ingredients, among other things. She explores
medieval cookbooks such works as Anonimo Veneziano, Libro per cuoco
(fourtheenth century), Anonimo Toscano, Libro della cucina
(fourteenth century), Anonimo Napoletano (end of thirteenth/early
fourteenth century), Liber de coquina, Anonimo Medidonale, Due
libri di cucina (fourteenth century), Magninus Mediolanensis (Maino
de' Maineri), Opusculum de saporibus (fourteenth century), Johannes
Bockenheim, Il registro di cucina (fifteenth century), Maestro
Martino's Il Libro de arte coquinaria (fifteenth century) and
Bartolomeo Sacchi, called Platina's On Right Pleasure and Good
Health (1470). This is the story of the medieval kitchen and its
operation from the thirteenth-century until the late
fifteenth-century.
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