La cuisine médiévale

TEXT IN FRENCH

This book is just as much for amateurs of good cooking as it is for enthusiasts of the Middle Ages. Each recipe is adapted to today’s tastes; it is placed in its historical context and details are provided in the insets for it to be reproduced. Forty recipes are brought together from the very depths of the Middle Ages, the Merovingian period, then the transition period that was the 15th Century. This new book enables the reader to follow how culinary practices evolved throughout the Middle Ages. Indeed, cuisine never stopped developing from the 5th Century through to the end of the 15th, and was a compromise between the Mediterranean and the Capetien styles. The former was a legacy from Greco-Latin antiquity, incorporating elements from the invading barbarians’ cuisine ; the latter was created at the court of the Kings of France during the last two centuries of the medieval period. Posterity has retained two representative works: le Viandier de Taillevent and the Mesnagier de Paris. These two works are the base of our gastronomy and are part of our culinary heritage. Let’s re-discover the tastes, colours, textures and bouquets of dishes that shouldn’t be forgotten : brouet, galimafrée, comminée, cretonnée, porée… today they all deserve a place once again on our tables.