Saturday, December 11, 2021

The Royal Christmas of 1377


  From katherineswynford:

One reason for Christmas feasting and merriment was that it followed Advent, a period during which no animal products were to be consumed, with the exception of fish (which one simply did NOT serve during Christmas as people were sick of it and the host thought the more poorly for it serving), goose (as long as one claimed in good conscience that it was the mythical barnacle goose) and tail of beaver (it was declared sufficiently fish-like as it lived in the water). The hours of daylight were shorter and the cold could be bitterly so. The feasts on Christmas day, however, served to mitigate some measure of all that. Eggs, cheese, milk and meats could be eaten (the boar's head presentation was fairly common throughout the land and even in those areas where there were no boars to eat, it was still traditional to serve up some foodstuff resembling a boar's head). Goose, ox, all manner of other birds, pigs and venison were artfully served at the aristocrat's table, basted and baked with butter and saffron to give a golden hue. (Read more.)

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