TROY, Ala. (TROJANVISION) — Smith Hall smelled of spices as students in Dr. Richard Scott Nokes’ medieval literature class gathered for a feast.
Students brought meatballs that tasted like gingerbread, savory tarts, candied orange peels, and spiced soups and stews, all recreated recipes from the 14th century French cookbook “The Good Wives’ Guide (Le Ménagier de Paris).” One student shared what medieval dish she made.
“Cinnamon broth, from what I researched, is all about making what you have in your home into a kind of quick and easy dish,” said sophomore English Literature major Shae Martin, “You boil the chicken, you fry it in either butter or lard, and then you boil it again in all the different spices with some wine.”
“From the options we had in the book, cinnamon broth seems the least pain[ful]. All of the ingredients sounded familiar as well, so I lessened the risk of giving my classmates food poisoning”
Nokes assigns this project when his class explores medieval domestic life, giving students the opportunity to experience a part of everyday medieval life.
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“When students are reading literature, as they are reading about fantastical things, especially with medieval literature, they know about the knights in shining armor, but not about the daily life and understanding what the context is,” said Noakes, “This 14th century cookbook allows them to experience the kind of cooking, the kind of thing that would be part of daily life for someone living in the middle ages.”
“It connects them with a lot of other information about what is it like to garden in the middle ages, how did you source the food, how did you deal with troublesome servants, how did you do your laundry, these kinds of things.”
Although learning and understand is the project’s overall goal, eating ranks high on the priority list, too.
“I mostly look forward to the tasting, I’ve maybe had one student who made a dish that I thought was so terrible I can’t eat it, and it wasn’t this year. Students always get into it. It’s a thing they are very intimidated to do at first, and then when they do it and they try it, it turns out to be on of their most interesting projects.”
Aside from providing recipes and looks into medieval life, domestic texts such as “The Good Wives Guide” give insight into the thought and ideas of people in the middle ages, and challenge the modern understanding of them.
“I think that our idea of how women were treated during that time is very misconstrued,” said Martin, ‘The Good Wives Guide,’ when I first saw that title, I immediately thought that’s not gonna be something I am gonna vibe with, but then you read what the guy is saying in the book, and its almost a feminist take from a man in that time.”
Nokes’ medieval literature class has different themes every year, with this year’s theme being “sex, love, and marriage,” which explores domestic life. Past themes have included “war and violence,” and “religious faith.”
