THE MEDIEVAL COOK AND HIS KITCHEN

In the Middle Ages, the head cook in a noble household was not the ultimate authority in matters of food, and what went on in his kitchen was by no means determined by him alone. The kitchen was merely one element in the household’s operation, and the cook was just another employee with specialized knowledge, abilities, and, above all, responsibilities. 4 Rather, it was the maestro di casa (housemaster) who oversaw the many activities in the palace, including all the people who prepared food and drink. Interestingly, at Borso d’Este’s court in Ferrara (ca. 1450s and 1460s) his sescalco served both as a housemaster and head steward. Gatamelata, as he was called, took orders directly from Borso. Like most elites, the duke had his own personal cook, Maestro Zohane, whom he took with him on his travels, and he had a master confectioner who prepared a variety of sweets for the duke and his guests.5

There was a complex hierarchy of individuals that determined who did what. The environment in the medieval kitchen was rigid, and each staff member had his place: the kitchen steward came first followed by the master cook, the roasting cook, the person cooking soups and vegetables, the person in charge of the larder and cold foods, and finally the sauce cook and the fruiter.6 The cook himself had to know his position in the hierarchy of the household, had to acknowledge his formal responsibilities to his superiors, had to organize and accept responsibility for those who worked under his authority, and had to ensure that supplies of foodstuffs, fuel, utensils, and labor never failed when they were needed. Most cooks possessed a broad professional repertoire of dishes suitable for various occasions, and they had to be skillful in executing the most appropriate preparations to fulfill those functions. The cook had to make sure he never did anything to impair or endanger the health of his employer, his family, or his guests. The medieval cook was a craftsman—and sometimes an artist—who both excited and then satisfied the tastes of his employer.7 A master cook often sat between one of the fireplaces and the sideboard on a high chair in order to survey the entire room. The large wooden ladle he held, generally used to sample food, was also used to keep the kitchen staff in line.8

The kitchens of any large household were staffed entirely by men, from the head cook to the scullery boy, and the same applied to caterers whose services could be called on for wedding parties and other special occasions, whereas in small households, the cook might well be a woman, the housewife herself.9 A grand household with its own kitchen staff was designed to be self-sufficient, able to provide all the cooked staples and luxuries the master required.

The Kitchen

Upper-class kitchens were not situated close to the dining or main living areas due to the noise, smells, heat, smoke, and threat of fire associated with cooking. Usually kitchens were a room or a series of rooms spacious enough to allow five to fifty people to work at once at their tables, sinks, and mortars. The main room had to be well ventilated to provide oxygen for the flames of the fires in the fireplaces or open hearths and to allow the smoke to be carried up the chimneys on a flow of air. Stone-hooded hearths could be built in pairs against the walls of a large, high-ceilinged room with the main chimney in the center. Large windows provided light and fresh, cooling air. Sinks were made of large, hollowed-out blocks of stone and were drained to the cesspool. Smaller rooms adjoined the kitchen: a room for cold food, a larder for meats, a well-guarded spicery, a pantry, and a wine cellar; whenever possible, water was piped in from a nearby stream. Cleanliness was imperative; everything had to be scoured and washed. Wide doors facilitated movement to and from the palace courtyard, the dining area, and the storage rooms, which held a variety of foodstuffs. Servers took the large platters of prepared food from the dishing-out tables and through a covered walkway to the master’s table.10

Most food was served warm and had to be whisked from the kitchen to the dining area by the serving staff. The table linens and crockery were stored in the kitchen or in a storage room adjacent to it and was taken to the dining area when it was time to set the table. The most common cooking vessels and utensils included a cauldron and a cast iron or copper pot for the preparation of soups, meats, and vegetables. The pot, set on a tripod, was an indispensable implement when preparing meat, especially in peasant households as they did not own skewers, gridirons, or other appliances for cooking on an open fire. Large kitchens were equipped with several frying pans. Long-handled frying pans and pots with feet were common and practical appliances when cooking over an open flame. Other important items included graters, mortar and pestles, sieves and straining cloths, ladles, knives, and huge cleavers placed on butcher-block-like tables.11

Cooking

Food could be simmered or stewed in a large cauldron, which might stand on its own supported legs in the heart of the fire, or be suspended from a chain over the flames. Small quantities of soup, porridge (a thick cereal, like oatmeal usually boiled in water or milk), or some drink might be heated or kept warm in a long-handled saucepan, set to stand on its own trivet beside the fire. Food could be fried in a pan, grilled on a gridiron, or turned on a spit. Not every household was lucky enough to have all this basic equipment on hand, nor were there full-scale ovens; rather, the village oven was put to use. A small improvised oven could be put together and put on the fire. Food was placed on a metal plate or bake stone and covered with a lid and pushed into place with ashes piled over it.12 Regulating the heat of the open flame was a demanding task. Pots and pans had to be kept far enough from the flames, an effort facilitated by legs and tripods supporting cookware and adjustable pot hooks, slots, and chains.13

Cooking over an open hearth was an all-embracing way of life. The flickering flames warmed and illuminated the room. Cooking was continual, whether flipping the contents of long-handled frying pans, swinging and stirring the pots that hung over the fire, or basting fragrant meats as they turned on the spit. Most upscale kitchens had more than one fireplace with chimneys for ventilation. One fireplace was kept burning at a low, steady heat at all times for simmering broths and stews and for boiling water. Others might glow with radiant embers for grilling on a spit.14

One of the most important rooms was the baker’s oven, a separate room from the main kitchen—far more important than just a source of breads, including several grades of table bread and trencher bread. The room with its deep ovens and fire chambers was not only the domain of the baker, but also the pastry cook who made pies, tarts, and turnovers— anything encased in dough and either baked or deep fried. The filling was made in the kitchen by the cook and then sent to the pastry cook.15 The medieval oven was a stone cavern heated by a fire within it; once heated the coals were removed and the food to be baked inserted where the fire was (not unlike the modern wood-burning oven). While not all medieval, wealthy households baked their own bread, they did have the facility for baking all the pastries and pies that the cooks turned out.16

Michele’s and Francesco’s Kitchens and Food

An artisan-class kitchen was quite different. Michele del Giogante (1387–1463), an accountant and poet, had a large kitchen in his Florentine home. It had windows that opened onto the front street, Borgo San Lorenzo, as well as the courtyard. A large fireplace was located along the wall with small windows above the canopy; wood was stored just outside the kitchen under the stairs. A pinewood staircase led from the kitchen down to the sala (a large, general purpose room with a fireplace); a door from his room opened into the sala. In the kitchen, to the right of the fireplace, hung pots and pans, and there was a large shelf with sausages; other shelves held bread, kitchen utensils, and plates. The kitchen was equipped with a sink and drains. A door from the kitchen led to a covered porch, and adjacent to that was a terrace with a large table and benches.

His cellar held a variety of produce, with basins of olives, a basket of dishes hanging on the wall, casks of vinegar, two types of white wine in small casks adjacent to barrels, and distilled red wine in other casks alongside of it. It also served as a granary. While other artisans often consumed their food in taverns and bakeries and had few designated places within their homes for cooking and eating, Michele did a lot of entertaining and was extremely interested in food and drink. His friendship with the Medici and their circle, like many relationships between social unequals, involved dining together with groups of cronies of similar interests, a topic we will return to later.17

Moving on to a more upscale merchant-class household, we find parallels with elite kitchens discussed previously, but on a smaller scale. In Francesco Datini’s house in Prato (ca. 1380s to 1410s), there were two kitchens, one upstairs and one at ground level, which only had a table, a flour chest, a wooden sink, a safe for dried meat, a mortar and pestle, and an enormous cauldron. The upstairs kitchen was located at the top story under the roof (because of the threat of fire) and was the one customarily in use. It was sparsely furnished with two tables and a chest; cooking utensils hung on the walls, and there was an enormous cauldron, a great brass pot, two copper bowls, two large copper jars for water, two iron pots that hung on a chain above the fire, a copper frying pan, four other frying pans, two spits, a grill, a mortar and pestle, a copper pan for making black puddings, a big pan for melting lard, a sieve, a bowl for making comfits, and pewter plates. In the pantry adjacent to the kitchen were twenty jars of oil, two barrels of vinegar, one pair of scales, a salt box, one barrel of sugar, three trestle tables, and many fire irons.18 The cellar was on the ground floor and held wine from his own vineyard (trebbiano, vernaccia, and greco). From his kitchen garden came fava beans, chickpeas, onions, garlic, mint, stonewart, thyme, marjoram, and rosemary. In his household, either his wife, Margherita, or other women in the household cooked his daily meals to his specifications—Francesco liked plenty of good food and saw to it that it was well cooked. However, for his daughter’s wedding in 1406, Francesco hired a cook, Mato di Stincone (“cuoco”), and paid him 4 florins, 10 scudi for the single meal (a maid earned 10 florins a year) and six other servants besides his own to wait at tables; they were given new tunics of scarlet cloth and hose.

Francesco was a merchant who dealt in spices.19 Francesco’s own farms supplied him with eggs, vegetables, capons, guinea fowl, and game, though he also purchased veal, pork, kid, mutton, and fish. His cheese came from Parma and his eels from the lagoons of Comacchio. His bread was good country bread, made with the flour from his own wheat and baked at home.20 Unlike the humble Michele del Giogante and more in line with the elite class, Francesco was clearly wealthy enough to own farms that supplied his household with a variety of foodstuffs. It was fairly common for a city dweller like Francesco Datini to own land, hire a farm manager, and reap the profits.

MEALS, MEALTIMES, AND MENUS

During the Middle Ages, it was most common to have two meals during the day. The first and larger meal (desinare or dinner) was available in a large household around noon—the sixth hour. At the end of the day, six to eight hours later or just before dusk, the second meal (cena or supper) was served. As cooking became more complex and skilled an undertaking, the midday meal became increasingly more elaborate and its serving time was pushed even past midday. In turn, the evening meal could be delayed until 7 or 8 p.m.; it remained the meal of secondary importance. By the early fifteenth century with meals moving later in the day, it became common to break the overnight fast with a chunk of bread and a mug of watered wine, and at the other end of the day, a very light snack, no more than a drink with a morsel of bread was eaten just before bed-time; at the end of the century, this became the collatione (collazione,collation), a delicate, elegant, little meal. By the late Middle Ages, especially if it was a banquet, the midday meal could be carried on to the second meal, and once the dancing or theatrical performances were over, drinks and desserts might be served. The banquet was intended to impress and was often a reflection of the glory of the person eating; it was merely a marvelously inflated meal.21

The medieval prince insisted that the diverse phases of his meal be handled dependably and in an orderly fashion: this included the setting up of board and bench; clean tablecloths, salt boat, platters, and other silverware and cutlery; the summoning to the table; the washing of hands; the actual serving of prepared dishes and wine; wine replenishing; clearing away after every course of dishes; and the sweeping of table scraps into alms baskets intended for the poor.22

Menus and Meal Planning

In the planning of any menu, the cook was expected to take into account not simply the season of the year and the availability of ingredients, but also the rules of the Church and its calendar of feasts and fasts, days on which meat was permitted, and days when substitutes had to be found. On fast days, for example, the cook could prepare salted salmon simmered in wine or whole fish coated with spices and wine-laden aspic, as well as eel, cod, haddock, oysters, or even lobster.23 The cook had to bear in mind the personal likes and dislikes of his master and be braced to cope at a moment’s notice with the whims of a guest too important to be overruled. No menu was set in stone, for the cook’s suggested choices could be modified or brushed aside by his superiors. After planning the menu, the cook’s job was to list the ingredients, estimate the amounts required, and set in motion the complicated process of gathering them in, on time and in good condition.24

Meal planning involved more than just the menu, especially on festive occasions like the meals organized in April 1388 at Pistoia to celebrate Giovanni Panciatichi’s nomination to cavaliere.25 Staff had to be hired: forty in all, each named and given a task whether it was serving at table, assisting the cook, or working in the stable. Two sinsiscalchi (chief stewards) were enlisted to oversee the court: Bartolomeo di Nieri and Sir Baldo di Mazzo. For the first morning meal (desinare), 250 individuals had to be fed, not just guests, but everyone involved in the festivities— even the horses were provided with hay to eat and bedding for their stalls.

The guests were listed by status and gender, but not by name, for example, “forestieri” foreigners/guests), “cittadini” (citizens), “donne” (women,and they were seated separately), and “trombetti e pifferi” (trumpeters and fife players), among others. The food served to the women was prepared in a separate kitchen (“la cucina delle donne”) by Lazaro di Colino and Nicolo di Tomeo and brought to them by two attendants, Paparino and Ciabotta. In preparation for the morning meal, 250 bread trenchers had to be made and enough tables and benches found and set up; tablecloths, napkins, cutlery, serving dishes, glasses, pitchers, plates, and flasks for wine and salt cellars had to be gathered—nothing was overlooked. Food had to be ordered: 125 capons, 125 chickens, and 300 pigeons were bought at the market in Prato; fish, veal, pork, cheese, eggs, lardo, bread, and fruit were also purchased. For making ravioli, additional pork and cheese had to be bought. White wine and “vermiglio” were brought up from the wine cellar. “Confetti dorati” (golden sweets), “zuccherini” (sweetmeats), “ravioli gialli,” cooked pears, and “guinchote” with sugar were made. As well, donations of veal and wine came from guests and nearby communes. Gifts of food and wine were quite typical and helped to defray the cost of such events. Oddly, no precise menu for the event survives; so we do not know the number of courses nor exactly what was served.

Even the most astounding banquet menus were little more than very long lists of quite normal dishes. Grand banquets began with the same dishes as the cook prepared for any dinner and continued during the lengthy succession of courses by an accumulation of dishes that was served at a similar point in just about any regular meal. Great feasts cost money. The cook, in equal measure, was expected to put on a splendid show and trim expenses wherever a corner could be cut. Not everyone was served all the dishes. The most luxurious dishes were reserved for the most important people present. Even for those in the charmed circle of privilege, there were careful gradations in the actual amounts offered to each person. Rank had its own distinct advantage. Behind the scenes, the cook and all the other senior officers in the kitchen quarters had to keep a sharp eye out for what was to be saved or recycled to cut down on waste of every kind.26

The Sequence of Dishes

The menu for the first morning meal served at Panciatichi’s table would have started with sweets like “confetti dorati” (golden sweets), served with white wine, and “zuccherini” (sweetmeats), a specialty of the nearby monastery.27 An array of dishes would have followed, perhaps a salad of herbs, bianco mangiare with boiled capon, salsiccioli, roasted young pullet (pollastri) and quail, capons with sugar and rose water, fish from the Arno, a large roast, and a vegetable tort. The meal would have ended with fruit such as cooked pears and jellies or aspic (gelatina). Throughout the meal, the guests would have been served a variety of wine.

Like his upper-class counterparts, Francesco Datini and his wife, Margherita ate two meals a day: desinare (dinner) around 10 a.m. and cena (supper) at sundown; sometimes in the summer, when the sun set much later, a snack (merenda) was allowed between meals; he drank wine only at mealtimes. Francesco and Margherita liked food and wrote about it often; for example, he penned a detailed order for dinner: “A good broth with fat cheese of one kind or another to eat therein, some fresh eggs, several fine fish from the Bisenzio, and if there are some (fish) in the market that are still alive and are fresh and good, take several pounds, and many good figs and peaches and nuts and look to it that the table be well laid and the room well cleaned.”28 After bread, the most important part of Francesco’s meal was the first course, la minstra. Sometimes this was a broth made from chickens, capons, or partridges. A sauce made with pounded almonds, a little cinnamon, clove, and ginger was added to the broth, and the dish was sprinkled with cheese or sometimes with sugar. Other times the first course could be lasagne, long strips of macaroni paste, cooked like macaroni or ravioli and made of wheat meal paste and stuffed with pounded pork, eggs, cheese, and a little sugar and parsley; they were fried in lard and powdered with sugar. This was followed by a meat or fish course depending on the season.29

NOTES

4. Terence Scully, The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1995), 241.
5. Luigi Alberto Gandini, Tavola, cantina e cucina della corte di Ferrara nel quattrocento (Modena: Società Tipografica Modenese, 1889), 51.
6. Anne Willan, The Cookbook Library (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London:University of California Press, 2012), 59.
7. Scully, The Art of Cookery, 253.
8. Willan, The Cookbook Library, 59.
9. Bridget Ann Henisch, The Medieval Cook (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2009), 9.
10. Scully, The Art of Cookery, 86–88; Willan, The Cookbook Library, 58.
11. Hannele Klemettila, The Medieval Kitchen: A Social History with Recipes (London: Reaktion Books, 2012), 60–61; Willan, The Cookbook Library, 58.
12. Henisch, The Medieval Cook, 36.
13. Klemettila, The Medieval Kitchen, 156.
14. Willan, The Cookbook Library, 58.
15. Scully, The Art of Cookery, 88.
16. Ibid., 95–96.
17. Dale Kent, “‘The Lodging House of Memories’: An Accountant’s Home in Renaissance Florence,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 66, no. 4 (December 2007): 451–54.
18. Iris Origo, The Merchant of Prato, Francesco di Marco Datini (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955), 253–54.
19. Ibid., 203, 317, 321.
20. Ibid., 317.
21. Scully, The Art of Cookery, 119–20, 122; Claudio Benporat, Feste e banchetti, convivialita Italiana fra tre e quattrocento (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 2001), 98; Bridget Ann Henisch, Fast and Feast in Medieval Society (College Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1976), 32. 22. Scully, The Art of Cookery, 240.
23. Willan, The Cookbook Library, 24.
24. Henisch, The Medieval Cook, 135–36.
25. Benporat, Feste e banchetti, 135–40.
26. Henisch, The Medieval Cook, 143–44.
27. Benporat, Feste e banchetti, 71, 141–45.
28. Origo, The Merchant of Prato, 316, 317.
29. Ibid., 317–18.

By Katherine A. McIver in "Cooking and Eating in Renaissance Italy - From Kitchen to Table", Rowman & Littlefield, USA, 2015, excerpts pp.21-29. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.