Most people did not have ovens. Bread was cooked communally in a shared bread oven or made by a baker. Covered iron pots on short legs served as roasting pots, placed near the fire. (Today these are called Dutch ovens.) Meat was also grilled or fried, but the most ubiquitous method of cooking was by stewing in iron pots. Porridge was also cooked in such a pot. Large hooks for holding pots with a handle extended into fireplaces, usually pivoting over the fire and back into the room. Toasting and grilling irons clamped bread, fish, vegetables, or meat inside a flat cage for holding it over the fire. Wealthier homes with larger fireplaces had a horizontal rod onto which meat or fowl could be inserted for rotisserie cooking. Salt was a staple of Renaissance cuisine, along with native herbs such as mustard, parsley, basil, and thyme. Although Europeans were quite fond of exotic spices, such as pepper, and sugar, only the upper classes could afford to cook with them on a regular basis.
During the 15th century food was often served in the medieval fashion, from a trencher in the middle of the table. For the lower class, the trencher might be a long wooden bowl or even a large loaf of bread, with the top sliced off for serving and stew or beans ladled
Daily Life
12.9 Kitchen still life. Pieter Aertsen, between 1557 and 1575. (Photograph courtesy of Sotheby’s Inc., © 2003) on the top. Pieces of bread were used to scoop and sop up the food, with scant attention to table manners as we know them; most people ate with their fingers. The trenchers in upper-class homes might be metal instead of wood but the manner of eating was very similar. The idea of each diner’s having an individual plate did not take hold until the mid-16th century, and the fork was not introduced until about the same time. Southern Europeans popularized the use of ceramic tableware, which was being used across Europe by the late 16th century. Even relatively poor households could afford a brightly painted pitcher or platter.
World History
