When thinking about food in the middle ages, one often thinks about meats, cheeses, and breads. This is because a good deal of modern media (be it books, films, or television shows) depicts the diet of the average medieval person as fairly bland and meat based. The fact of the matter is that fruit was a common foodstuff where it could be grown, and made a significant part of many European diets when fruit was in season.
One of the most common misconceptions is that medieval Europeans were afraid of fruits, which is far from the truth. In fact, medieval Europeans would consume a good deal of fruit, be it either fresh from the orchard or preserved and dried. This applied to all medieval Europeans where fruit could grow. Some of the more common fruits were apples, grapes, and quinces, though the richer Europeans could afford more exotic fruit like dates.
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| Yummy, yummy quinces |
One of the more interesting facts about fruit in the middle ages comes from the late middle ages, which is the introduction of the coconut to Europe by explorers. As early as 1498 famed Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama brought coconuts to Europe, where they quickly became popular. Not only did Europeans enjoy the taste of the new tropical fruit, but they valued the shells of the fruit and would use them to make cups and chalices. Below is one such example, the St. Nicolas Chalice from about 1500, which is located in Reykjavik at the Iceland National Museum.
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| Wonder if they got it from some swallows |
Picture Sources:
Information sources:
Paul Newman's Daily Life in the Middle Ages
Interesting, I've never really thought about whether people in the middle ages ate fruit or not. Though the medieval diet was better than it is generally portrayed, it's still crazy to think about all the food that they didn't have before the Americas were discovered.
ReplyDeleteSo coconuts were not just used to make horse trotting sounds? ;)
ReplyDeleteOn a real note, I didn't realize there was a misconception about fruit in the middle ages. That's fascinating to me because fruit is a large part of my diet. As Samantha said, it's cool to see how different foods were isolated from people before the discovery of the Americas.
I didn't realize there was a misconception about fruit in the middle ages either. It is cool to see how explorers such as Vasco de Gama could bring so many foreign things, such as coconuts, back to Europe.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea about the introduction of the coconut. This is a fun subject that ties into Monty Python and the Holy Grail and gives insight. You don't typically think of food as being a foreign substance but in medieval times I can see how this could be a sought after product.
ReplyDeleteYou don't usually see too many fruit in medieval movies or hear much about it in medieval times. I've never really thought about what kinds of fruit they ate so this was very interesting.
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