Medieval Feast

My favorite part of my Medieval History class is the family Medieval Feast. We have an entire lesson on food during class and that evening the students and their families come to our church for a 3-course feast. The families are our guests and the students are the serfs. They sit off at the "servants' table" and bring out new dishes and clear out the empty ones. I serve as the head cook (even though I'm a woman) and Chris is the scullion (medieval dishwasher), and there are lots of dishes to wash.

The serfs' table

Thankfully I don't have to do all the cooking because the families bring some of the dishes on the menu. There was tons of great food tonight and no one went home hungry.

Our guests

MENU

bread
butter

apple butter

grape juice

FIRST COURSE

venison

white rice

dates, figs and nuts

custard with fresh raspberries

SECOND COURSE

turkey

hard boiled eggs

assorted cheeses

gingered bread

THIRD COURSE

fruit-stuffed trout

fresh apples and pears

pickled herring

salad

sweet rolls with peach preserves

I explained the list of similarities and differences between eating then vs. now. Basically, besides the fact that we both eat food there are many similarities. For instance, we all had our own plate and cup, we didn't heavily spice the food to disguise the fact that the meat had gone bad about 2 days ago, I didn't stuff my turkey full of smaller birds or leave the feathers on, we didn't guild any of the food with gold, we ate meat even though it was a Friday, we didn't dump all the leftovers into a big pot to make pottage, and we didn't release a small flock of live birds from a large pie as a grand finale.

But despite the fact that we weren't exactly authentic, everybody had lots of fun. The kids' favorite part was eating at the "leftovers buffet" from all the serving plates that came off the tables. (Don't worry the food was still good)

Even clearing tables is fun!