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The term "dessert" comes from the Old French desservir, 'to clear a table', literally 'to un-serve', and originated during the Middle Ages. It would typically consist of dragées and mulled wine accompanied by aged cheese, and by the Late Middle Ages could also include fresh fruit covered in honey, sugar, or syrup and boiled-down fruit pastes.
The dish, described as 'furmity' and served with fruit and a slug of rum added under the counter, plays a role in the plot of Thomas Hardy's novel The Mayor of Casterbridge. It is also mentioned in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass as a food that snapdragon flies live on. Snapdragon was a popular game at Christmas, and Carroll's mention ...
As early as the Middle Ages, the cheeses, in particular, appear to have been highly specialized, from a fresh Tuscan to an aged Milanese from Tadesca, wrapped and shipped in tree bark. Medieval Italians also used eggs to a higher degree than many other regions, and the recipe collections describe herb omelettes (herboletos) and frittatas ...
Roman plebeians "ate the staple gruel of classical times, supplemented by oil, the humbler vegetables, and salt fish" [5] for gruel could be prepared without access to the communal ovens in which bread was baked. In the Middle Ages, the peasant could avoid the tithe exacted by paying in grain ground by the miller of the landowner's
The Middle Ages diet of the upper class and nobility included manchet bread, a variety of meats like venison, pork, and lamb, fish and shellfish, spices, cheese, fruits, and a limited number of vegetables. Among people of all social classes spices were common, with lower class people enjoying more local and home-grown spices while the wealthier ...
The Stratford feast in the 15th century took place on a meat day, but based on expenditures it appears that some persons chose to eat fish. Wheat was purchased, sometimes in amounts over five quarters (perhaps 60 kg), to bake (sometimes very large) loaves of bread, though by the second half of the 15th century the bread was baked by local bakers instead of at the guild's bakehouse.
The rich had more of a variety with sturgeon, seal, crab, lobster, and shrimp. The poor ate whatever meat they could find, such as rabbits, blackbirds, pheasants, partridges, hens, ducks, and pigeons. Meanwhile, the rich people also ate more costly varieties of meat, such as swan, peafowl, geese, boar, and deer . [2]
Fruitcake or fruit cake is a cake made with candied or dried fruit, nuts, and spices, and optionally soaked in spirits. In the United Kingdom , certain rich versions may be iced and decorated . Fruitcakes are usually served in celebration of weddings and Christmas .