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What ingredients did medieval people in Denmark have to cook with? What method did they have to cook with and how did they preserve their food?

A while back I did a post on what the vikings ate, which I found really helpful my self when constructing new viking age recipes. I thought I would make one for the medieval period as well. This post is focused on what people in Denmark ate pre-Columbus. I am not an expert so I build this on what other people have written about the period. This is not a complete list of course but is meant as a basis to work from.

The heavy basis of Danish medieval food was bread, porridge and gruel. Much of the population did survive on this and little else – especially in early spring when the stocks might be empty. That said many people did eat more interesting things than that and large portions of the population served in richer homes where they would be fed. The nobility also hosted lavish feasts where left overs were given to beggars after the feast. That means that a bigger proportion than you would think actually got to taste the lavish noble food that you find in the medieval cookbook.

Fish and water animals were very important during lend and fast periods when the Catholic church subscribed not to eat meat. 180 days a year were non-meat days – every Wednesday and every Friday.

Beef, in Denmark it was common for a farm to have 2-3 cows. The biggest producers had about 50 cattle for meat production.

Pork, they looked more like boars than domestic pigs.

Goat: meat and milk

Sheep: mutton, lamp and milk

Chickens: For meat and for eggs

Game meat: By the nobility

game birds

Geese: For meat

Pigeon/squab

Herring, fresh, salted or salted and smoked was really imported during lending and other fasting periods. A huge export from Denmark via the Hanseatic League and the Nederlands.

ell

Stockfish and dried fish – primarily made of cod

Pike

Salmon

All manner of other salt and fresh water fish: e.g. carp, garfish, redfish, bream, perch, lamprey, etc.

Mussels and oysters, although they do not seem to have been high status food

Crayfish and lobster

You could do a long blog post or really a book about the history of bread and the bread in the middle ages – for now I will just put a few remarks next to each item. A few grains were used as filler – that is to say that you put it in the bread to stretch the flour if you were short.

Wheat, expensive and sparely used in everyday cooking. Wheat wasn't grown much in Denmark in much of the medieval period, so most it often had to be imported, which of course pushed up the price. Primarily used by the nobles and rich people or for feasts. It was also used in religious contexts. The price of wheat was about twice that of rye.

Rye, most bread was rye-bread sometimes mixed in with other grains. The most commonly grown grain in Denmark.

Barley, used in porridge, as filler in bread and for brewing beer of course. Malt: Both used in beer production and as a sweeter.

Oats, were primarily used as animal feed or as filler in bread or porridge.

almonds

Hazelnut

Walnut

Rice: Imported and used both for porridge and as rice flour.

Peas: Dried and used in porridge and milled to flour in bread.

Chickpea

Buckwheat