Medieval banquet recipes - not for those faint of heart or weak of stomach

[DetlefK]

http://www.salon.com/2015/11/26/thanksgiving_medieval_style_give_thanks_that_red_deer_testicles_and_living_eels_in_roasted_pig_arent_on_the_menu_today/

First the disappointing stuff: The author mentions Red Deer Testicles and Roasted Pig stuffed with Living Eels, but sadly does not provide recipes.

But there sure are some goodies in the article:

- “four and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie”
(The Renaissance artist Jan van Eyck designed a pie with a cavity in it, where a living pigeon would be stuffed later. When the pie would be cut open, the pigeon would fly outwards, much to the audience's delight.)

- “To Cook a Live Goose”
A living goose is de-feathered and kept near fires (be careful to neither suffocate her with the smoke nor to burn her) until it faints in a heat-stroke.
Take her up, set her before the guests; she will cry as you cut off any part and will be almost eaten before she is dead … It is mighty pleasant to behold.

- A roasted peacock that looks alive.
The peacock is very carefully skinned, its head and legs removed with the skin. The torso is roasted, then stuffed back into the skin and arranged in a life-like posture with wires.

- “Purpays yn galanteyn” (porpoise in gelatin)
Chop the porpoise into very small pieces, boil with the rest of the ingredients to receive a strong broth that will turn into aspic when cooling.

- "Jungen hirs horn" (translated from medieval german: "young deer horn&quot
Take the antlers of a young deer, singe them clean with fire and boil them with the rest of the ingredients to a broth.

- “Libro de Cozina” (Roasted Cat)
If you ever want to serve your guests a nice, grilled cat, basted with a garlic-marinade, you can find the recipe in this article.
(If your neighbor's cat is too fast, a rabbit will also do. Cut off the head and the feet and you can't tell a cat from a rabbit. I have an anecdote from my great-grandfather, who was a butcher, to back that up. You can also store the body in the fridge instead of wrapping it in linen and keeping it in the cold earth.)

- "To Make a Chicken Sing When It is Dead and Roasted"
Sadly, the author doesn't provide the recipe in the article. Maybe because it contains mercury...

[Warpy]

1. Ah, yes, party food for the jaded gentry

Meanwhile, the description of the diet for everybody else was "bread and pottage" day in and day out, with at least 8 pints of weak ale during the day. It wasn't quite as dull as it sounds, the "pottage" varied widely according to season and was supplemented by things like pigeon pies and the occasional roast mutton from a sheep beyond wool production. Things only got really thin during Lent, a time of no garden production, declining food stores, and the animals pregnant and so off limits. It was the "hunger gap" and the church was wise to turn it into something nominally voluntary that would take time off paying for your sins when you died.

I know listening to the shrieks of an animal being tortured to death would have put me off my feed, even in a time when animals weren't considered to be sentient enough to suffer. I'd always hope that the roast cat was bunny rabbit, and since that bit was included in the description, I'm sure most of the time, it was. Good thing, too, bunny rabbit would taste a lot better.