What Medieval People Ate for Christmas Dinner

It may come as no surprise that medieval Europeans had grand Christmas celebrations. Medieval Christmas feasts, however, were more than just another meal. They were opportunities to cook the most elaborate medieval foods with the most lavish and exotic ingredients. So today, we're going to take a look at what people in the medieval era ate during Christmas feasts. But before we get started, be sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel. After that, we'd be much obliged if you would leave a comment and let us know what other holiday topics you would like to hear about. OK, he brought everything back, all the food for the feast. And he himself, the Grinch, carved the roast beast. In the modern era, the name boar's head is widely associated with deli meats. But in the medieval era, they were very literal. And if someone mentioned boar's head, they were talking about the head of a boar. Boar's head was one of the most common foods associated with Yuletide festivities. The folk tradition was passed down from ancient Germanic origins and continued into Christian celebration through Anglo-Saxon culture. The delicacy was so closely associated with Christmas festivities that a well-known song was put into written history around 1500 called the Boar's Head Carol. The first stanza reads, I bring back the boar's head, singing praises to the Lord. The boar's head in hands I bring, with garland gay and birds singing. I pray you all help me to sing who are at this banquet. OK, it's not quite Frosty the Snowman, but it's not terrible either. In medieval times, a Christmas feast just wasn't a Christmas feast without a boar's head. That being said, not everyone could afford a wild boar. As an alternative, medieval people sometimes baked a cake in the shape of a boar's head to make the table festive. For those with the wealth to serve the real thing, a 16th century German cookbook recommended boiling a wild boar's head and then basting it with wine and serving it with a black sauce made from fat, wheat flour, wine, and cherry syrup. To add more flavor to the sauce, cooks could add sugar, ginger, pepper, cloves, and cinnamon. And to add more texture, they could mix in chopped grapes, raisins, and almonds. Christmas was one of the most important feasting days on the medieval calendar. Those with the means often showed off elaborate dishes like a roast peacock that was usually served redressed in its own feathers. Ooh, you're so fancy and tasty, Mr. Peacock. Mm. Yes, medieval cooks would skin and roast the whole peacock and then cover it in its own feathers in order to recreate the look of a live bird. The peacock dish was a big deal, and the lady with the highest title had the honor of carrying it out to the table. Roast peacock was often served with sauce. One 15th century Italian cookbook, for example, offered the following recipe for peacock sauce. Mix ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and pepper. Add to them wine and sprinkle in a little sugar. Add some of the peacock's drippings to the sauce and serve. Roasted peacock, however, did have its problems. Depending on the age and diet of the peacock, the flavor and texture could be off-putting. As a substitute for poor quality peacocks, cooks often took the skin of the bird but replaced the bird's meat with goose, sewing better quality meat within a more exotic fowl. Sounds like a medieval turducken. In the medieval era, Christmas celebrations often stretched on for days. As a result, Christmas traditions blended with surrounding Saint days, such as Saint Lucia's Day. Saint Lucia, a.k.a. Lucia of Syracuse, was a Christian martyr who lived from 283 to 304 and was famous for allegedly having her eyes gouged out before being killed by a sword to the throat. That's a rough way to get fame. What was the crime, you ask? Well, she wanted to give some portion of her family's riches to the poor. Yeah, bah humbug de you. A traditional feast in her honor was observed by Western Christians on December 13th, when people often celebrated with Saint Lucia buns. A modern recipe for Saint Lucia buns calls for saffron in the dough. After forming the dough and kneading it, press raisins into the dough to represent the martyr Saint Lucia's gouged eyes. Nothing says eat me like gouged-eye bread. Mm-mm, moist. King Richard of England, famously known as Richard the Lionheart, served his Christmas guests mincemeat pies. At the time, they were known as Christmas pies, which, to be honest, sounds much more like a marketable product name than mincemeat pie. The association between mincemeat pies and Christmas dates back to the Crusades, when crusaders returned with exotic Eastern spices like ginger, cloves, and nutmeg, supposedly used to represent the gifts of the magi. Cooks used the spices to season meats left over from the winter slaughter, and then added fruits and other spices before baking the mixture in a pastry shaped like a manger. The pie was topped with a pastry baby Jesus to represent his birth. Mincemeat lovers tried to eat a mincemeat pie for each of the 12 days of Christmas, but they were not allowed to cut the pies with a knife, as it was thought to be unlucky, since they would be cutting through the crib of baby Jesus. The tradition of mincemeat pies for Christmas continues to this day, but the pies have since stopped resembling the biblical manger, which is probably for the best, because now you can use a knife. Eel, along with other fish, was a popular Christmas dish, but Europeans prepared eel differently depending on the region. In Sweden, eel was served in a mustard sauce or smoked. Southern Europeans sometimes cooked eel in wine or almond milk. Medieval Germans simmered eel in wine and added saffron and ginger. One Venetian recipe called for the cook to slowly cook borlotti beans for one and a half hours. The recipe then says to add butter, an onion, celery, and a carrot, before finally placing garlic and eel into the stew, bringing it to a boil. So yeah, there were lots of options for cooking it, but the bottom line is, Europeans love that eel meal. Gingerbread's association with Christmas has been around since the Middle Ages. One 15th century English recipe starts with a quart of honey, boiled and skimmed. The chef would then mix in saffron and pepper. Next, they would add grated bread and some cinnamon and shape the mixture into a square. Another common technique bakers used for gingerbread was to use molds or stamps. These wooden molds were designed to allow bakers to shape their food, similar to how people created gingerbread men today. Many households in the medieval era featured pottage on their Christmas table. It was an encompassing word for any food cooked in a pot. Appropriately enough, it was often a stew. Thus, pottage could feature a plethora of different meats, vegetables, or fruits. For example, one recipe for Christmas pottage started by boiling a leg of beef and then adding red wine, beer, and spices like clove and nutmeg to give the pottage its Christmassy flavor. Next, the cook would add boiled apples, currants, raisins, and prunes. After some time, the beef could be removed and eaten separately from the rest of the pottage. Another type of pottage, called poiret, was a particular favorite. Made from boiled leeks, poiret probably most closely resembled what we would call today leek soup. Figgy pudding, prominently mentioned in the traditional carol, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, was a kind of thickened medieval porridge. Unlike modern figgy puddings, medieval figgy pudding resembled a stew rather than a solid dish. A recipe in a 14th century English cookbook instructed cooks to start by blanching almonds and grinding them up. After adding wine and water, the cook needed to add quartered figs, raisins, ginger, and honey before boiling it down until it became thick. Instead of eggnog, medieval Europeans drank posset at Christmas. This thick alcoholic beverage included egg, cream, and beer or wine, which was then thickened with bread, oatmeal, or almond paste. One 17th century recipe recommended boiling a quart of cream with whole spice. While boiling the cream, beat 16 eggs and mix them with hot white wine. Stir the eggs and wine into the cream and let it sit for at least 30 minutes over low heat. The cream will curdle into a consistency like cheese. A thinner neighbor of posset, known as syllabub, might also find its place at the Christmas table. Sugar plums were a seasonal favorite for 16th century cooks and a common accoutrement on any medieval spice plate. According to John Gerard, a 16th century herbalist and author, fresh plums contained little nutritional value. However, drying plums transformed them into a more wholesome dish. Plus, preserving the plums made them last longer. A 16th century method for making sugar plums starts with boiling plums in clarified sugar and leaving them dipped in sugar for three days. After removing the fruit, boil the syrup with more sugar. Add back in the fruit and let it simmer. Place the plums on a drying rack and then turn them every other day. Once dry, the sugar plums could last all year. And during the Christmas season, visions of them can dance in children's heads while they've nestled all snug in their beds. Many Christmas recipes call for beer because, hey, it's Christmas. But in addition to cooking with beer, a Christmas feast might feature tankards of ale. Tis the season to be merry. Medieval ale production was ubiquitous. It wasn't mass produced since ale couldn't be preserved for long. So most households made their own. Unlike today's beer, medieval ale didn't contain hops. It was often watery and made from grain, water, and yeast. But it was beloved by Europeans of all classes. A medieval recipe for ale calls for over 4 pounds of malt, 1 and 1⁄2 pounds of rolled oats, and 13 quarts of water. After boiling the water, crush the malt and mix it with the oats. Mix the boiling water and the malty oats, adding the water slowly to let the mixture stand. This process takes several hours. After removing the wort, mix in two packages of ale yeast. It takes several days to ferment the ale. Christmas was the day to feature fancy meats. Even poorer families might slaughter a goose for Christmas dinner. Or if lucky, Scrooge might send them one after being visited by three ghosts. OK, that wasn't the medieval era. But come on, it's a good reference. Moving along, one recipe for stuffed goose dates at least to the 14th century. The recipe required the cook to stuff the goose with sage, parsley, quinces, pears, garlic, and grapes and roast it. After it had finished roasting, the cooks dressed and served the stuffed goose with a sauce made from grease, wine, and sweet spices. Spiced wines went by many names, hippocras, piment, and mulled wine. However, one of the most common types of wine in medieval Europe was claret, though it wasn't the high quality Bordeaux wine we associate the word with today. Spiced wines usually ended most medieval feasts, including Christmas. Most were often very simple to make, consisting of wine, some kind of sweetener, which was generally honey, and, true to its name, spices. So what do you think? Do any of these foods sound good to you? Let us know in the comments below. And while you're at it, check out some of these other videos from our Weird History.