"Keeping nutmeg in your pocket during New Year's Eve will protect you throughout the next year- so says one old medieval belief. I discovered this nugget whilst browsing a blog devoted to medieval recipes, herbs and plant lore. Nutmeg would protect you if you happened to fall from a roof, cliff, ladders or other high places. It was, of course, a highly expensive spice during the middle ages. Reading about spices has sent me on a search for medieval Christmastide recipes fit for a monarch which I thought might also interest historical fiction readers as we approach the New Year.
In most medieval households cooking was done on an open hearth in the middle of the main living area. For most of the medieval period, for most households, the kitchen was connected with the dining hall. It was towards the end of this period that the kitchen generally became separated, though change is a slow process. Often, separate kitchens did exist in castle baileys as they could be a fire risk. By the late middle ages, however, a separate building or wing that contained a kitchen area was created from the main building by a covered walkway. Here, one would find frying pans, pots, kettles, waffle irons, spits skewers of all sizes, pots and cauldrons, ladles and graters, just to name but a few of the utensils they had then and which we use to this day.
Importantly, there would also be mortars, pestles and sieve cloths because fine textured food was deemed good for you. The body could more easily absorb nourishment. Skilled cooks could shape the results. Farcing, for instance, was to skin and dress an animal, grind up the meat, mix with spices and other ingredients and return it to its own skin or mould it into the shape of a completely different animal…"
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