Eat medieval for a day (6 servings)

In our modern world, the food that we eat tends to be highly processed. I am trying to get away from this reality while spending as little as possible. Because of this, I started to wonder if I could eat like a medieval person for a couple of weeks. I did not stick to a single area of the world for the medieval dishes, but rather searched for recipes that I could afford to make, utilized ingredients that are in season and had recipes available. The recipes I am making have several servings, so I will be eating this menu for a few days. I will make an attempt at including how many portions the recipes make and nutritional information. If you don't mind repetition, you can eat for 6 days in a row, or you can freeze portions of the food.

A main component of the medieval person's diet was bread, so let us start with that.

Many people got their daily loaves from communal village bakehouses or commercial town bakers rather than baking at home. There are many reasons that people would get their bread from a community or commercial baker. Wood was expensive and time-consuming to collect. Sometimes it was illegal to make your own bread. For example, medieval France required the populace to purchase bread from the bakeries so that they may be taxed and forbade individual ovens. Keeping this in mind, I have opted utilize a community baker and acquire my bread from Barrio Bakery. The three kinds of breads I am purchasing are due to similar ingredients available in medieval times as well as utilizing local ingredients. https://barriobread.com/

1st bread: Mesquite bread While mesquite flour might not be something one thinks of when considering medieval breads, we have evidence that mesquite flour has been used as a staple for over 10,000 years in the Southwest Americas and continues to be utilized by tribes today and can be purchased commercially. Southwestern tribes including the Tohono O'odham or Akimel O'odham, Iviatim, and Ndee or Ndé utilized mesquite pods for flour. In Tucson, you can gather your own mesquite pods and take them to a local mill that will grind your pods into flour once a year.

Where to process your dried mesquite pods and find information on how to properly collect and store your pods: Las Milpitas Community Farm (2405 S Cottonwood Ln, Tucson, AZ 8713) Sliding scale fee typically ranging from $5 to $20 per bucket (or around $2.50 to $3.00 per gallon). Desert Harvesters also has information on how to collect mesquite pods and partners with Las Milpitas Community Farm for milling events, typically around November.

Information on the mesquite bread from Barrio Bread's website: Mixing local Harvest Mesquite flour and hard red spring wheat, this loaf with pumpkin seeds has a unique spice-like flavor. Ingredients: Hayden Mills Barrio Blend Flour, BKW Hard Red Wheat, water, sourdough culture, Mission Garden mesquite flour, Pumpkin Seeds, Sonoran Sea Salt.

Macros: Standard Composite Mesquite Bread (per 100g slice/serving with 15%–25% mesquite flour blend) Calories: ~250–280 kcal Protein: ~8–11g Total Fat: ~1–3g Total Carbohydrates: ~48–55g Dietary Fiber: ~4–7g

Recipes for the week:

Book of Hours France, Paris, ca. 1510-1520 MS M.85 fol. 1r

Breakfast: Toasted mesquite bread: 280 cal Roasted beet: 75 cal Fresh strawberries: 46 calories Fresh farmers cheese: 200 cal To drink: grape juice thinned with water instead of watered down wine. 152 cal Total calories: 753

Lunch: Beet tart: 344 cal European rye bread: 130 cal Fresh plum: 30 cal To drink: sekanjabin 12oz: 65 cal Total calories: 569

Dinner: Stewed turnips: 252 cal turnip greens: 402 cal

To drink - ale: 90 cal Total Calories: 744

Total calories for the day: 2066

Breakfast - The 5th deadly sin of gluttony

Gluttony (Gula) from The Seven Deadly Sins After Pieter Bruegel the Elder Netherlandish Pieter van der Heyden Netherlandish Publisher Hieronymus Cock Netherlandish 1558

Pope Gregory the Great outlined five categories of gluttony in the sixth century, including praepropere, which specifically defined eating too soon or at an inappropriate hour as a sin of excess. Thomas Aquinas: Wrote in the Summa Theologiae that consuming food too early in the day disrupted the canonical prayer hours and reflected a weak, self-indulgent character. Approximately 1265 and 1273. As a result of this, medieval people generally ate just two meals a day.

Breakfast was reserved for young, sick, manual laborers and the elderly. As old age started around 50 and I am just three years away, I am going to claim elderly status and have breakfast.

My Breakfast:

Toasted bread, roasted beet root, fresh farmers cheese, fresh berries. Fresh berries were gathered wild as well as cultivated in medieval gardens. Drink: grape juice with water instead of watered wine.

This image is a 14th-century depiction of cheesemaking from the Tacuinum Sanitatis, a medieval health handbook.

Farmers Cheese:

Ingredients: 4 cups (1 liter) whole milk (cow, goat, or sheep) 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar (or sour/clabbered milk) Pinch of salt

Macros: A half-cup (about 4 oz or 100g) of fresh homemade farmer's cheese Calories: 120 kcal (from skim/low-fat milk) up to 200 kcal (from whole milk) Protein: 13g to 15gTotal Fat: 8g (low-fat) to 14g (whole milk) Carbohydrates: 2g to 5g Sodium: 35mg to 40mg

Instructions: Heat the milk: Pour the milk into a heavy pot and warm it over low heat until it is hot and gently simmering, stirring often so it does not burn. Add the acid: Remove the pot from the heat source. Slowly pour in the apple cider vinegar and gently stir. Let it sit undisturbed for 10 minutes until the white curds separate clearly from the yellowish liquid (whey). Strain the curds: Place a clean muslin cloth or cheesecloth over a colander and set it over a bowl. Pour the contents of the pot through the cloth. Squeeze and drain: Gather the corners of the cloth, twist, and gently squeeze out the extra liquid. For a firmer texture, hang the cloth to drip for about an hour. Season:  Open the cloth, turn the fresh cheese into a bowl, and mix in the salt and optional medieval herbs like rosemary or garlic. I am opting to not add herbs.

Fresh Berries: In medieval Europe, July berry seasons featured wild strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and bilberries. I am using strawberries as they were on sale.

Nutrition:

A 1-cup serving (152g) of fresh whole strawberries has 46 calories Carbohydrates: 11.1g Dietary Fiber: 3g Net Carbs: 8.1g Sugars: 7.4g Protein: 1g Fat: 0.4g

Roasted beetroot: Many vegetables were directly roasted. As my lunch is using beet greens, I thought I should find a way to use the beetroot. Breakfast seemed like a good place to have it to get some vegetables in.

Macros:

Calories: 75 kcal Carbohydrates: 17.0g Fiber: 3.4g Sugars: 13.6g (natural) Protein: 2.9g Fat: 0.3g

8 oz fresh squeezed grape juice with additional water added

Macros:

Calories: 140–152 Total Fat: 0g–0.3g Total Carbohydrates: 34g–37g Sugars: 34g–36g (naturally occurring) Dietary Fiber: 0.2g–0.5g (negligible) Protein: 0.5g–1g

Fresh Plum (1):

Nutrient Breakdown (Per 1 Medium Plum) 30 cal Carbohydrates: 7.5g total Dietary Fiber: 0.9g Sugars: 6.6g natural sugar Protein: 0.5g Fat: 0.2g

Lunch

Detail of a miniature from a 15th-century manuscript of Le Ménagier de Paris.

Beet Tart

2 cups beet leaves

1 cup Parsley (Chevril is french parsley)

3-4 cups Spinach

1 sprig Fennel

1 cup Swiss Cheese

1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese (Grana / Parmesan Precursors)

2 Eggs

1 tsp. Powder Fine

Pie Crust

Chop greens and sauté, drain to get rid of excess water. Let cool then mix with fine powder, eggs and cheeses. Roll out pastry dough of choice and place in pie pan, fill with greens mixture and bake at 375°F for 30 minutes.

Source [Le Ménagier de Paris, J. Hinson (trans.)]: a 1393 French housekeeping and conduct book written by an aging middle-aged Parisian husband for his much younger teenage wife.

To Make a Tart, take four handfuls of beets, two handfuls of parsley, an handful of chervil, a sprig of fennel and two handfuls of spinach, and pick them over and wash them in cold water, then cut them up very small; then bray with two sorts of cheese, to wit a hard and a medium, and then add eggs thereto, yolks and whites, and bray them in with the cheese; then put the herbs into the mortar and bray all together and also put therein some fine powder. Or instead of this have ready brayed in the mortar two heads of ginger and onto this bray your cheese, eggs and herbs and then cast old cheese scraped and grated onto the herbs and take it to the oven and then have you tart make and eat it hot.

Powder fine:

3 Tbsp. ginger 2 Tbsp. sugar 1 1/2 Tbsp. cinnamon 1 tsp. cloves 1 tsp. grains of paradise

Tart macros: Ingredient Breakdown 2 cups beet leaves: 26 calories, 3g carbs, 2g protein, 0g fat 1 cup parsley: 22 calories, 4g carbs, 2g protein, 0g fat 3.5 cups spinach: 25 calories, 4g carbs, 3g protein, 0g fat 1 sprig fennel: 3 calories, 1g carbs, 0g protein, 0g fat 1 cup Swiss cheese: 430 calories, 6g carbs, 30g protein, 32g fat 0.5 cup Parmesan cheese: 215 calories, 2g carbs, 18g protein, 15g fat 2 eggs: 143 calories, 1g carbs, 13g protein, 10g fat 1 tsp fine powder (salt/seasoning): 0 calories, 0g carbs, 0g protein, 0g fat 1 standard pie crust: 600 calories, 60g carbs, 8g protein, 36g fat

Per-Serving Estimate (6 Equal Slices) Calories: 244 per slice Carbohydrates: 13g per slice Protein: 12.5g per slice Fat: 15.5g per slice

Image from The Canon of Medicine. | Library of Congress. I am uncertain which recipe or information this is showing.

Sekanjabmin (pronounced see-con-jab-min): History's Gatorade. The medieval Persian adaptation made from vinegar and honey (derived from serke for vinegar and angobin for honey), often simmered with fresh mint.

The oldest detailed formulation and recipe for sekanjabin comes from the 10th-to-11th century works of the Persian polymath Avicenna (Ibn Sina), appearing in his medical encyclopedia, The Canon of Medicine (completed around 1025 AD).

Sekanjabin is the medieval Arabic version of oxymel. Hippocrates (c. 400 BCE): Detailed the therapeutic applications (Of oxymel) in the treatise On Regimen in Acute Diseases, prescribing the honey-and-vinegar mixture to promote breathing, expectoration, and fluid balance of the humors. Whether you call it Oxymel or Sekanjabin, this mixture is an excellent way to boost electrolytes and promote hydration, which is most excelled for our Arizona summers.

4 cups sugar (or honey) 2 cups water 1 cup white or red wine vinegar 1 bunch of fresh mint leaves

Combine the sugar and water in a pot over medium heat and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

Reduce the heat and let it gently simmer for about 10 to 15 minutes to thicken slightly.

Pour in the vinegar and add the fresh mint leaves, then let the mixture simmer together for another 15 to 30 minutes.

Remove the pot from the heat, strain out the mint leaves, and let the syrup cool completely before storing it in a jar.

Dilute 2 to 3 tablespoons of the syrup with cold water and ice cubes before drinking.

Macros: Calories: 50–65 kcal Total Carbohydrates: 12g–16g Sugars: 10g–14g Total Fat: 0g Protein: 0g Sodium: 4 mg

Dinner Stewed Turnip, Buttered wortes, Ale

German Stewed Turnips / Köel Ruben (1604)

Manuscriptorium   <http://www.manuscriptorium.com/index.php> (Document # 95.107)

Ein New Kochbuch by Max Rumpolt, 1604. This book was written in 1581. Digitized version here. The transliteration from the original book into modern German text was done by Thomas Gloning here.

Nim̄ Köel Ruben/ schel vnd schneidt sie fein klein/ quell sie in Wasser/ thu sie in ein kleinen Fischkessel/ vnd seig ein gute Rindtfleischbrüeh darüeber/ the gute frische Butter/ die vnzerlassen ist/ darein/ vnnd lasz Kurtz eynsieden/ so wirt es gut vnd wolgeschmack

Translated to english with help from german dictionary: Take kohlrabi, peel and finely dice it, and parboil it in water; then place it in a small fish kettle, pour a good beef broth over it, add some good fresh (unmelted) butter, and let it simmer briefly—this will make it delicious and flavorful.

Stewed Turnip:

1 Large Turnip or kohlrabi

1-2 tbsp. butter

1/4 tsp. salt

1 c. beef broth

Macros: 252 calories total Large Turnip (300g): 84 calories 19g carbs3g protein0g fat 5g fiber Butter (1.5 tbsp) Beef Broth (1 cup): 15 calories, 1g carbs, 2g protein, 0g fat

Buttered wortes:

From England in the 1400s, “A Dish of Cooked Greens”.

“Buttered Wortes. Take al manor of good herbes that thou may gete, and do bi ham as is forsaid; putte hem on þe fire with faire water; put þer-to clarefied buttur a grete quantite. Whan thei ben boyled ynough, salt hem; late none otemele come ther-in. Dise brede small in disshes, and powre on þe wortes, and serue hem forth.” (by Thomas Austin, from Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books: Harleian MS. 279 & Harl. MS. 4016)

2 to 3 lbs mixed leafy greens and herbs (such as cabbage, kale, spinach, beet greens, and parsley), coarsely chopped

2 to 3 leeks or onions, sliced

1/2 lb (2 sticks) clarified butter or regular butter (a "great quantity")

Salt to taste

1 to 2 cups diced bread or croutons

Wash and coarsely chop all greens, herbs, and leeks. Place the greens and leeks into a large pot with clean water and add a generous amount of butter. Bring the pot to a boil and cook until the greens are tender and soft. Season the mixture with salt to taste once cooked. Drain any excess liquid from the greens. Place small cubes of diced bread into individual serving dishes. Pour the hot, buttery greens directly over the bread and serve warm.

Macros per Serving: Calories: ~402 kcal Fat: ~32 g Carbohydrates: ~21 g Protein: ~8 g

Ingredient Amounts per Serving (makes 6 servings) Mixed Greens & Herbs: ~6.7 oz (189g) Leeks or Onions: ~0.4 of a leek Butter: ~2.7 tbsp (38g) Bread / Croutons: ~1/4 cup

Ale: Corona Premiere: 90 calories, 2.6g carbs, 4.0% ABV

The Fruit Seller, by Vincenzo Campi (1580)

Grocery list:

Barrio Bread cost: Mesquite Bread $6

Groceries and cost at Safeway in July 2026

6 black plums: 0.51 ea, total $3.06

6 beets (2 bunches) with their leaves attached: $2.99 per bunch x2 =$5.98 1 gallon whole milk: $3.99

Simply Grape Juice 52oz: $3.79

Purple top turnip x 6 - $1.00 each: $6

honey 32 oz - Local Hive Southwest - Raw honey $15.99

vinegar - 16 oz - $1.29

fresh mint - $2.50 0.5 oz

curly parsley - 1 bunch: $1.29 8 oz

2lb Strawberries (allows 1 cup each day, appx 0.3 lb per cup)- $6.99

Corona 6 pack - $13.99

Lucerne Butter: $3.79

Pie crust: $3.99

1 cabbage (2lbs) $1.98

Signature Select Spinach: $2.50

3 leeks (1 bunch) $2.24

Beef broth 32 oz x 2 @ 1.79ea =$3.58

Dozen eggs: $2.99

Lucerne Swiss Cheese: $3.49

Fennel: $3.99

Total: $99.42

Per day: $16.57

Calories per day: 2066

This menu is nearly vegetarian, with the exception of the beef broth used in the turnips. It would be easy enough to use vegetable broth if that was a goal of yours.

Overall, it seems to be a fairly healthy week. There are lots of vegetables, some dairy, fresh fruits, bread with grains and seeds.

Stuff I did to save money:

The following was not especially period, but I made these changes to stay within my budget. It takes about one pound of grapes to make an 8oz glass of fresh squeezed grape juice. The grape juice was going to be a substitute for the watery wine, it would instead be watery grape juice. Grapes are Hekka spendy, so I went with Simply grape juice instead of fresh-squeezed.

I purchased a pre-made pie crust as it was cheaper than getting all the stuff to make one from scratch. I have no access to a faithfully medieval style beer, so I went with a lower alcohol beer.

Stuff I would probably change in the future:

I don't think I need a beer at dinner and I'm honestly okay with drinking water for most of the day. The honey mint vinegar drink was refreshing, but honey is expensive and I might go with sugar instead of honey or forego it entirely. I might have a glass of milk with one of the meals and iced tea, plain, for a lot of the other drinks.

For the buttered wortes: I think I would add garlic and some bacon, and maybe not use as much butter. I would also add black pepper to the turnips, or maybe some fresh herbs.

The turnip soup would be nice with bacon and thyme, both of which are ingredients used in soups and dishes of that time. I would also see if I could brown the leeks and turnips a little in bacon grease.

Note: Toasted bread with farmer's cheese and roasted beet sliced on top is delicious.