How did they cook it in middle ages?

Answer 1

People of the middle ages did not have modern chimneys until the 12th century, and after that few could afford them. So the fires were basically open. Indoor fires for most people were on hearths or braziers in the middle of the floor, with the smoke going out through a hole in the roof, or high in the walls under the roof peaks. Cooking was done outdoors, unless the weather was really bad and a fire was needed inside.

Castles, monasteries, and manor houses had separate kitchen buildings with large open windows.

Bread was baked in ovens, which were outdoors and sometimes shared by a community.

People who lived in towns and cities had to be relatively wealthy to afford a kitchen, so most townsfolk did not cook, but bought prepared meals instead.

Answer 2

AnswerThe food and beverages in Medieval England were some what similar to our food but they had their fair share of differences also. The majority of people made their own food, only the wealthy had that advantage of others cooking for them. The peasants of Medieval England mostly ate bread. It was fulfilling, cheap and if made correctly, nutritious. The village's main source of meat were pigs, they were also cheap to maintain. The peasants rarely had meat, so there main dinner consisted of plenty of homegrown vegetables. They mainly cooked there food on a fire with a stick to stir with. AnswerCooking was different in those days, and different from what people might imagine. We often think of people of earlier times cooking at fireplaces; the trouble is, they did not have fireplaces because chimneys were not invented until the twelfth century, and for many years were only available in new construction for wealthy people. So cooking was done over open fires, without fireplaces, on hearths that looked a bit like fireplaces, but were not, or in ovens that had smoke vented through a hole in the wall.

Most cooking was done outdoors unless the weather was cold or inclement. In cold weather, peasants cooked inside, over a fire in the middle of the cottage, on the dirt floor. Town houses that had wooden or stone floors usually had braziers for cooking, and the smoke rose up through the building, warming the space, and hopefully killing insects, as it passed through to a hole in the roof or under the roof peaks.

Large kitchens for large inns, castles, large manor houses, and so on, were either outdoors or in large rooms with open walls. Cooking could also be done inside over braziers.

The pots, spits, and methods of cooking were often as you might see today at camps. Baking was done in ovens that had openings or chimney like tubes to conduct smoke away.

Serfs cooked their own food. Laborers in cities probably bought prepaired food, because very few had the ability to cook at home; inventories of possessions left to heirs show practically nothing in the way of cooking implements. Inns, monasteries, and castles had large kitchens that employed a range of cooks and helpers.

Answer 3

People of the Middle Ages ate a lot of bread, which was cooked in ovens. Very few people could afford ovens, so bread was usually baked by a miller who also baked as a sideline, a professional baker, or peasants who had access to ovens they could rent.

Other food was prepared over open fires. These were outdoors when weather permitted, or indoors when it did not. Indoor fires were on hearths in the middles of rooms, unless the walls were stone. There were few medieval buildings with fireplaces, and those only appeared after the 11th century.

Roasts of meat required big fires, which was one important reason peasants usually did not eat roasts (the other being it was often illegal). Soups, stews, and gruel were prepared in pots over open fires.

Rural peasants prepared their own food, aside from bread. Wealthy people had cooks. People who lived in town and were not wealthy seldom had access to cooking facilities, and bought prepared meals.

There is a link below to an article on medieval cuisine, which gives a lot more detail on cooking of medieval times.
Medieval food were pepared by stewing food in big pots and pans .They also would cook spit roasts on large open fires.This would have all been done in the kitchen or courtyard.

Answer 4

It depends on when and were in the Middle Ages you're talking about, since the Middle Ages covers the period from about 600-1600 CE.

Just as today, different cultures had their own recipes and cooking techniques. The one constant, though was that all cooking used fire for heat. In Europe, until late in the Middle Ages, most people lived in huts or houses which didn't have fireplaces, so the hearth (cooking area) was in the middle of the floor - where it could also be used to keep warm. Later, richer people had fireplaces for cooking, which made cooking a bit more efficient and easier. Professional bakers and very rich people had their own ovens, which were heated using wood fires.

People who lived in cities might not have cooked at all. Instead, they would have gotten their food from bakeries and taverns. It was common practice to buy fresh food at a market and have it cooked for you in a tavern.

Food was mostly produced locally, things like spices were expensive imports that only wealthier people could afford. Meat was expensive, so most people ate mostly grains and vegetables.

Most food was boiled in a pot or fried on a griddle or in a pan. Since pots and cooking utensils were expensive, poorer households might just have a stew pot, a knife and a couple of spoons. Richer people could afford different sorts of pots and pans. Cooking pans and tools had longer handles so that the cook didn't have to get too close to the fire. Some foods could also be roasted over a fire on a spit, but that was mostly for roasting birds. Roasting whole animal carcasses on a spit wasn't as common as Hollywood would have you believe.

In poorer families, cooking was part of a housewife's duties. Richer families had servants to cook for them, although the housewife might supervise and assist her servants. Some very rich people had huge kitchens with dozens of cooks and helpers, who produced meals for hundreds of people each day. In those cases, the head cooks were always men.

Many medieval recipe books and kitchens survive, along with some medieval kitchen tools, so we have a pretty good idea of what cooking was like back then.

Answer 5

The men cooked and if needed stole the meat but the women helped out cooking and they did all the washing up.

Answer 6

Food was cooked over flames. In the kitchens of a castle a huge fireplace was made with a boy turning a spit of meat all day. The peasant had a small fireplace in his wattle and daub house.