Hi lovelies, 

in March we attended a medieval dinner in Vienna held by Kochkulturmuseum and it was delicious. Going to medieval markets and seeing all the potato dishes marketed as medieval always makes me wince a bit but this was a complete dinner without potatoes and we even got the information on how, when and where the dishes were eaten. 

So buckle up while I tell you the story of the medieval dinner in Vienna.

On a cold March day we had to leave our cuddly cats and our not-so warm flat to go and taste some real medieval food. 

Medieval food is characterized by a lot of spices, seasonal availability, and religious restrictions. Did you know that during Lent it was okay to eat otters as they were considered "neither fish nor flesh"? Luckily for our meal, we did not receive any otter meat though. 

To get our humours going (see humorism on wikipedia) we received a small dish with lemon and pomegranate. I took one bite and almost spit it out because it was too sour. I was unable to eat it. 

The first course was a (vegan) renaissance mushroom soup with morels from a 1570 recipe by Bartolomeo Scappi. The morels were fresh and it was delicious. We tried to figure out the spices and only tasted a hint of cinnamon. We later learned there was also saffron, verjuice, and pepper in the soup.

"Verjuice is a highly acidic juice made by pressing unripe grapes, crab-apples or other sour fruit." - Wikipedia

Afterwards we got torte des menagiers, a type of quiche filled with various leafy vegetables and sour cherry compote. Hias got a vegan beans in soup, which was mashed beans with onion and apple confit. The quiche was really juicy and actually my favourite dish. I tasted spinach but I'm not too sure about the rest of the leafy vegetables.

The third and main course was a pork ragout and a chickpea ragout for vegans. 

"It [Chickpea] is one of the earliest cultivated legumes, the oldest archaeological evidence of which was found in Syria." - Wikipedia

The ragout came with cheese gnocchi (there were no potato gnocchi, remember?), onions, ginger, pepper and cloves. It was really good too. We could eat as much as we wanted and could also get second helpings with every dish. Don't mind if I do. 

And finally the dessert, we got pears in syrup, Torta di Marzapane, and candied walnuts. 

At the end of the meal I was truly stuffed and could not imagine how Romans could have dozens of varied dishes.

Look out for more food events from Kochkulturmuseum here!  

And here is my look for that day in my Kaneko knight dress.  

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Thank you so much! 

All the best, 

Auris Lothol