The Medieval Cookbook by Maggie Black gives us an idea of recipes in earlier times and some are not much different than what we might cook today. Substitute a chicken for the roast pheasant in one recipe, and you’ll have what appears to be the same entrée that could be found on my table.

The Mushroom Pasties are pot pies made of mushrooms and cheese, plus an egg and a few seasonings. One recipe even calls for frying ground figs inside a pastry, then adding honey over the mixture. 

Pottage doesn’t sound that tasty—but when the reader discovers it can be ground cherries, sweetened, with bread and wine added, the appeal improves.

I’m sure the earlier cooks who had well-stocked larders even had quick meals—meals which could put in a pot earlier in the day to simmer as the fuel burned to ashes while everyone continued with other duties.

To have an interpretation of what people in the past ate, it’s possibly as easy as knowing the food sources available in the area, and then imagining how we would prepare them with the cookware available at the time. Taste buds probably haven't changed that much over the centuries.

And if Chaucer is any guide to go by, people are basically the same throughout the generations except hopefully, with a little less crust and a bit more refinement.


Reproducing art in the early 1800's was a lengthy process. An engraver took the picture, traced it onto a metal plate, and then deepened the lines with a burin. In a experienced hand, the burin removed the metal in thin, exact lines. If the youtube videos are correct, the craftsman often worked with the burin moving away from him, using controlled pressure, and causing thin slivers of metal to curl upward from the surface as the blade glided along.

Colors were hand done, lengthening the process even more.

I can imagine an artist shuddering at the sight of the engraving made from his work, or giving a pleased sigh, depending on the skill of the man with the burin. An engraver could add a personal touch. When reproducing John James Audubon's Trumpeter Swan, someone added a butterfly. On one level, I approve of the butterfly. It almost gives it a Disney-esque touch of a relationship between the subjects and evens out the composition. Or another level, I think it was unfair to the artist unless he asked for it, and unfair to the viewer who might want to see the most exact reproduction of Audubon's work possible.

The following video is a look at engraving, and is understandable. Don't let the fact it may not be in your native language discourage you from watching it. But, since the video is a bit long at around 8 minutes, you might enjoy it better by skipping through to watch the different aspects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR-PYbxPtaE

Burin photo credit: Fotolia
Bird pictures my own.

When movies have battles between sailing vessels, the ships usually seem far from land. But ambush was easier close to shore. Pre-radar, even with the vast horizon of the ocean to scan for other vessels, it wasn't as easy to catch a ship at sea.

To make their raiding easier, some smaller water crafts  worked in pairs close to land—one coming up behind the victim and chasing the prey into the path of vessel hidden ahead near the shoreline.

Based on the fact that pirates sometimes kept a ship they captured, I could see how they might have two vessels to use.