Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 5, 2007

Medieval cuisine was the variety of foods eaten by the various European cultures during the Middle Ages. During this period, diets and cooking changed across Europe, and many of these changes laid the foundations for contemporary regional and folk cuisines. Transportation and communication were slow and prevented the export of many foods, especially fresh fruit and meat, which today are commonplace in all industrialized nations. Imported ingredients such as spices were expensive and mainly the preserve of the wealthy nobility, making their foods more prone to foreign influence than the foods of lower strata of society. The single most important foodstuff was bread, and to a lesser extent other foods made from cereals such as porridge and pasta. Meat was more prestigious but more expensive and therefore less cost-efficient than grain or vegetables. The most common dishes were potages and stews, and common ingredients used in cooking were verjuice, wine and vinegar. These, combined with the widespread usage of sugar (among those who could afford it), gave many dishes a distinctly sweet-sour flavor. The most popular types of meat were pork and chicken, while beef required greater investment in land and grazing and therefore was less common. (more...)

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