We’re pretty used to our modern kitchen conveniences, including our stoves and ovens. But somehow people from the Anglo-Saxon and medieval period managed to make a wide array of dishes and baked goods without them. How did they do it?
Managing your fuel supply was a key element. Cutting and gathering wood was a summer task, though it might not be split until winter. How much wood was needed throughout the year for cooking and heat depended on how large your household was. A wealthy household or lord would have access to wooded areas that peasants were not allowed to touch.
For cooking, a variety of woods were used. Charcoal analyzed from the Anglo-Saxon period identifies oak, poplar, willow, and hawthorn. In areas where wood was not readily available, charcoal, peat, straw, or reeds could also be used. However, because reeds and straw burn very hot, and very fast, they could only be used for baking, not roasting.
Fires were difficult to set in an era before matches. Fire-steels, flint, or pyrite (struck against iron to produce a spark) might be carried in a leather pouch along with tinder. Tinder could be dried brush, straw, birch bark, rotten wood, pine needles, wood shavings, small twigs, or char-cloth. Char-cloth was made by briefly catching a bit of clean linen on fire, then putting the fire out. The resulting bit of blackened fiber could be saved for later and easily caught fire. Once a fire had been successfully lit, the resulting coals were protected with fire covers or other means. It was easier to revive a fire from still-hot coals than to start one from scratch.
Once you had a source of heat, the easiest cooking method was of course, direct heat; roasting meat over an open flame, or placing food in a container over, on, under or next to the fire. Different types of wood might be used depending on what was being cooked.
“To spit-roast a pig of 120lb dead weight, the ideal fuel is 15 cwt of large oak logs, a foot long and thoroughly seasoned, cloven into halves or thirds and placed on end to form a bed which will burn steadily. On this 15 cwt of ash with a diameter of 4-5 inches and in foot lengths (cut at least a month previously) is used to provide local areas of fiercer heat in line with the quarters of the animal.” – A Handbook of Anglo Saxon Food by Ann Hagen
Indirect heat was another method of cooking. “Pot-boilers” were heated stones that were then dropped into a pot with water or other food. Cooking pits lined with stones could be used if no cooking vessels were available.
“An experiment in pot-boiler cookery showed that a ten-pound leg of mutton wrapped in clean straw tied with a twisted straw rope, as indicated in early Irish literature, was cooked after 3 hours 40 minutes uncontaminated by ash or mud.”
– A Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food by Ann Hagen
Anglo-Saxon and medieval people also had their own versions of our modern-day ovens. One type was an earth oven. Hot stones were placed in a pit that had already been pre-heated with brush wood. Meat, wrapped in leaves or even clay, was placed inside, then covered with more hot stones that could be changed out with hot ones as they cooled. The time for meat to cook in an earth oven was approximately the same as our present-day ovens.
Come back next week for more information about different types of medieval ovens and kitchens.
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Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog and commented:
More great information from Allison for History or Historical Fiction (or even Fantasy) writers 👍🐵
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Great info. Thanks!
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Fascinating. 🙂
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I like the line about “uncontaminated by ash and mud.” It really makes you appreciate a good clean oven. 🙂
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I love this kind of detail about daily life!
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Me too! Lots of great inspiration in the little details people rarely think about when they look back on history. Give me stuff like this over lists of rulers, battles, and dates to memorize any day.
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The array of skills needed to do basic daily things in those times seems quite daunting. Thanks for this information.
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I’ve often wondered how they cooked in that era. My big question is how did they bake? in the stone ovens? There always seemed to be lots of pies and pastries on the menu for the noble tables. I once cooked a chocolate cake in a stone oven…
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Next week’s part 2 will cover baking among other things. 🙂 I had too much info for just one post.
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Interesting walk back in time!
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Reblogged this on England's History and commented:
Very interesting read from Allison Reid. If you like to discover more she has wrote a part 2 as well!!
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Interesting walk back in time!
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Makes you feel grateful for modern appliances, huh? I love finding out about how past peoples lived.
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Me too! 🙂 Sometimes reading about how people used to do things makes me feel so inept. If electricity went away I’d probably starve to death.
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