Medieval Cookery at Blackfriars

Yesterday was bright and warm(ish) in the north-east of England; and a perfect day for a class on medieval cookery. Led by Blackfriars’ new Cookery School Chef, Anthony O’Shaugnessy, whom you may remember as a semi-finalist in series 14 of MasterChef; with help from Andy Hook, Giles Gasper, Florence Swan, and Mollie Hook, the class time-travelled between the 13th and 15th centuries. Food from medieval Catalunya and medieval England formed the basis of the dishes prepared which ranged from vegetable sides to fish versions of meat dishes for Lent (only a few weeks late!), chicken, and a host of delicious desserts, including Creme Bastard. With historians on hand and a tour of Blackfriars this was cooking with context, and with some very interesting questions and conversations on the way. We’ll have more classes over the course of the summer and autumn so do keep an eye out on the Blackfriars website for bookings.

We have lots more on over the summer – our next lecture and lunch on May 14th on Food and the Baltic region in the Middle Ages, and then our in-person Summer School in September (12th-17th), timed around the much-anticipated exhibition of the Lindisfarne Gospels at the Laing Gallery in Newcastle. We’ll have some more events on that theme over the autumn for school groups and for grown-ups, and we’ll keep you up to date on this blog.

New course arriving soon! Fit for a King

Here at Eat Medieval we are very excited about our upcoming course 28th June – 2nd July (for which there are still places – book here – and book soon!). The course materials stay available for up to four weeks afterwards so you can take your time, experiment, and share your expertise and experience on our social media channels. Blackfriars Restaurant, Newcastle, Durham University’s Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and Filmmaker Alan Fentiman present this unique collaboration between research into medieval food, the modern restaurant, and online delivery to your door!

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New Features from Eat Medieval

The Eat Medieval team are really looking forward to our next course, which starts in 9 days (we do have places left and there is still plenty of time to book). It’s been fascinating to explore the recipes and their collections over the last few months. We’ve learnt a lot – the balancing of sweet and savoury flavours continues as a constant theme in medieval cuisine. We’ve been thinking a lot of about seasonality, especially in the

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Talking of Medieval Easter

As part of the activities and preparations for our next online course – Fast and Feast: A Taste of Easter Past – Professor Giles Gasper will be giving a talk as part of the Durham Inspired Live in Lockdown series on March 17th at 18.00 UK time (GMT). This series has been running all the way through lockdown and reaches out not only to Durham alumni and friends but to the wider public. Durham is the third oldest university in England (the claims of UCL notwithstanding!) and a wonderful place to study, teach, and learn. And, especially for anyone interested in medieval culture it is a particularly special place, nestled as we are underneath the romanesque Cathedral.

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Thank you to the Hexham Local History Society

Earlier in February, the evening of the 9th to be precise, Giles Gasper gave a talk about the collection of sauces from 12th century Durham to the Hexham Local History Society. The ‘Sauces from Poitou’ collection was discovered by Professor Faith Wallis of McGill University, Montreal, Canada, analysed by her and Giles in an academic paper (the link requires library access), and has proved a fertile area for working with Andy Hook and the Blackfriars Team. As things stand this is the earliest culinary collection in the medieval European canon. Although a short collection, and with a close relation to contemporary medical thought, some of the most popular sauces of medieval cuisine can already be seen here in the second half of the 12th century.

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Eat Medieval @ World Anvil

Andy and Giles are very excited to be featured on World Anvil’s Twitch Channel talking about medieval food and our new online course for Easter (A Taste of Easter Past – there are still places available for those still deciding!).

World Anvil is a fantastic online Worldbuilding tool for writers, gamers, and anyone interested in creating and visualising stories. Janet Forbes and Dimitris Havlidis are the founders and are hosts for the show.

Listen in at 19.00 UK time – 11 am Pacific time: and join in live questions as well. See you there, whichever world you’re in!

Old Yule

Have you ever wondered about Christmas in the Middle Ages? At Eat Medieval we have been thinking about exactly that. And just in time for Christmas! We still have places left on our new online course for Christmas – so do book, and share the news!

Now, the Middle Ages in Europe is a long period covering many peoples from about 400 AD to about 1550 AD. Kingdoms and principalities come and go, we see a huge growth in urban centres, and, from the 12th century onwards more evidence for trade across Eurasia. Exotic ingredients are important drivers for that trade; local and basic commodities like grain the engine room of local and regional economies. There are significant differences between northern and southern European climates, between whether wine or beer are more prevalent, olive oil or butter, large cattle herds or smaller.

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A Taste of the Past Day 1: Mutton, Lamb (and 13th century WiFi)

An enormous thank you to everyone who has signed up and embarked on this Eat Medieval journey with us to taste the past. The online, virtual cookery school allows us to share our love for medieval culture cuisine and its modern interpretation with fellow foodies and scholars around the globe. We’ve welcomed over 80 participants from America to Australia, and from Finland to Ireland.

And thank you to all who attended our Live at 5 session – and stuck with it, despite the technical issues – for which we are very sorry. We had an internet outage which cut the connection and it took a little while to get everything back online. So, we’re very grateful for your patience and goodwill on this one.

It was great to see all of the comments and questions on the live feed, and very stimulating they were too. And equally the social media posts of the dishes you’ve tried. This is a creative process and we hope that you enjoy the deeper engagement with the 12th century sauces and their intriguing blending of herbs and spices as the week progresses.

A Taste of the Past – Tomorrow!

We’ll delighted that our online course A Taste of the Past opens tomorrow – and thank you to everyone one who has signed up! We have a week working through recipes from the 12th century – which is very early tradition for medieval culinary collections. And we’ve gone to the 13th century for some sweeter recipes for dessert.

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