Onions

We take onions for granted.  There they are, at the farmers' market or at the grocery store, maybe in a mesh bag for $2.99.  We cut them up and cook them in oil or butter as Step One of a multitude of dishes, from spaghetti to chili to soup to turkey stuffing.

Medieval people had onions too, and they appreciated them ("not like kids today").  Onions are fairly easy to grow, and once dried, they will keep well, without refrigeration or smoking or salting.  They added a nice touch to a medieval diet which was always threatening to become bland.  They could be a dish all by themselves (think onion soup).  In the spring, as onions were just starting to grow, you could have green onions, where you eat the whole thing, including the leaves.

(Green onions are good in the spring when mixed with cottage cheese, which would be made from the milk when the cow had her calf.)

The above picture is a sixteenth-century image of an onion.

Medieval people also ate other onion relatives as well.  Leeks are not now common in the US, but they were a regular addition to the medieval diet, often stewed (leeks, like green onions, can be eaten leaves and all).

Then there was garlic.  Garlic then, like now, really could perk up a bland dish.  Medieval people would also have dishes made up almost entirely of garlic.  When you don't have a lot of different kinds of food to choose from, you make the best of what you've got.

But wouldn't they all have garlic breath? you ask.  Well yes, probably, and they didn't have little pocket tins of mints to suck on.  But if everybody has been eating garlic, it's much less of an issue.  And besides, they did try to keep their mouths clean.

© C. Dale Brittain 2018

For more on food in the Middle Ages, see my ebook, Positively Medieval:  Life and Society in the Middle Ages, available from Amazon and other ebook platforms.