Beer, onions, and barley bread

A number of years ago I co-wrote a textbook for undergraduates on life and society in Antiquity and the Middle Ages.  In some ways my book Positively Medieval (see below!) is a continuation of that idea.  The publishers' idea was to make a book of social history in two volumes available for classroom use, to complement the more common kings-and-battles political history textbook.  My volume covered the West before 1500, and the second volume covered life and society after around 1500.  I used a photo of mine of a medieval castle's stairs for the cover of my book (as I did again for Positively Medieval, though a different castle, I guess I like medieval staircases), so my co-author had to come up with a photo of a modern staircase for his volume.

I seriously considered calling my textbook "Beer, Onions, and Barley Bread," because those were the constants of the diet from early civilization through the Renaissance.  I was talked out of this title, because it could make the unwary think it was a cookbook, rather than an overview of ancient and medieval social history.  But these are still important topics in their own right.

Beer was the basic medieval drink, as I've discussed earlier, drunk by children and adults alike.  It was a lot lower proof than modern beer, though not "lite," because it was supposed to be thick and crunchy.  Onions will grow almost everywhere and keep well without refrigeration—an important consideration in all societies before the twentieth century.  It was one of the most important vegetables in the medieval diet.

Barley was used not only to make beer but to make bread, because barley will grow well both in hot and cold climates.  Unlike winter wheat, it would be planted in the spring.  This meant that both the planting and the harvesting would be done at different times; because the labor was spread out, it was at least theoretically possible to harvest more grain during the fairly short window when it was planting-time or harvest-time (spring planted barley would be harvested after the winter wheat).  Barley bread was nice and thick and crunchy (starting to see a trend? fortunately medieval teeth were pretty good, without sugar in the diet to cause cavities).

No spaghetti with tomato sauce? No chocolate?  No coffee? No French fries (or any other kind of potato)?  No corn chips or corn on the cob?  Not even much in the way of salt or spice?  Suddenly the Middle Ages seems much less exciting and romantic.

But here's a medieval recipe to show that things weren't entirely bleak.  It comes from a late medieval Italian cookbook.

Onion salad
Cook onions (one per person) in the embers of the fire, until the outside is well blackened.  Peel as soon as they can be handled (the dish should be served with the onions still warm).  Cut into thin slices.  Mix with olive oil, wine vinegar, and a little salt and spice.  (The spice might include cloves, pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, or saffron.  Be creative.)

© C. Dale Brittain 2020

For more on medieval social history, see my new ebook, Positively Medieval: Life and Society in the Middle Ages.