No. 15. Anglo-Saxons at Dinner.
It will be observed that in these pictures, the tables are tolerably well covered with vessels of different kinds, with the exception of plates. There are one or two dishes of different sizes in [fig. 14], intended, no doubt, for holding bread and other articles; it was probably an utensil borrowed from the Romans, as the Saxon name disc was evidently taken from the Latin discus. It is not easy to identify the forms of vessels given in these pictures with the words which are found in the Anglo-Saxon language, in which the general term for a vessel is fæt, a vat; crocca, a pot or pitcher, no doubt of earthenware, is preserved in the modern English word crockery; and bolla, a bowl, orc, a basin, bledu and mele, each answering to the Latin patera, læfel and ceac, a pitcher or urn, hnæp, a cup (identical in name with the hanap of a later period), flaxe, a flask, are all pure Anglo-Saxon words. Many of the forms represented in the manuscripts are recognised at once as identical with those which are found in the earlier Anglo-Saxon graves. In the vocabularies, the Latin word amphora is translated by crocca, a crock; and lagena by æscen, which means a vessel made of ash wood, and was, in all probability, identical with the small wooden buckets so often found in the early Saxon graves. In a document preserved in Heming’s chartulary of Canterbury, mention is made of “an æscen, which is otherwise called a back-bucket” (æscen the is othre namon hrygilebuc gecleopad, Heming, p. 393), which strongly confirms the opinion I have adopted as to the purpose of the bucket found in the graves.
No. 16. A Supper Party.
The food of the Anglo-Saxons appears to have been in general rather simple in character, although we hear now and then of great feasts, probably consisting more in the quantity of provisions than in any great variety or refinement in gastronomy. Bread formed the staple, which the Anglo-Saxons appear to have eaten in great quantities, with milk, and butter, and cheese. A domestic was termed a man’s hlaf-ætan, or loaf-eater. There is a curious passage in one of Alfric’s homilies, that on the life of St. Benedict, where, speaking of the use of oil in Italy, the Anglo-Saxon writer observes, “they eat oil in that country with their food as we do butter.” Vegetables (wyrtan) formed a considerable portion of the food of our forefathers at this period; beans (beana) are mentioned as articles of food, but I remember no mention of the eating of peas (pisan) in Anglo-Saxon writers. A variety of circumstances show that there was a great consumption of fish, as well as of poultry. Of flesh meat, bacon (spic) was the most abundant, for the extensive oak forests nourished innumerable droves of swine. Much of their other meat was salted, and the place in which the salt meat was kept was called, on account of the great preponderance of the bacon, a spic-hus, or bacon-house; in latter times, for the same reason, named the larder. The practice of eating so much salt meat explains why boiling seems to have been the prevailing mode of cooking it. In the manuscript of Alfric’s translation of Genesis, already mentioned, we have a figure of a boiling vessel ([No. 17]), which is placed over the fire on a tripod. This vessel was called a pan (panna—one Saxon writer mentions isen panna, an iron pan) or a kettle (cytel). It is very curious to observe how many of our trivial expressions at the present day are derived from very ancient customs; thus, for example, we speak of “a kettle of fish,” though what we now term a kettle would hardly serve for this branch of cookery. In another picture ([No. 18]) we have a similar boiling vessel, placed similarly on a tripod, while the cook is using a very singular utensil to stir the contents. Bede speaks of a goose being taken down from a wall to be boiled. It seems probable that in earlier times among the Anglo-Saxons, and perhaps at a later period, in the case of large feasts, the cooking was done out of doors. The only words in the Anglo-Saxon language for cook and kitchen, are cóc and cycene, taken from the Latin coquus and coquina, which seems to show that they only improved their rude manner of living in this respect after they had become acquainted with the Romans. Besides boiled meats, they certainly had roast, or broiled, which they called bræde, meat which had been spread or displayed to the fire. The vocabularies explain the Latin coctus by “boiled or baked” (gesoden, gebacen). They also fried meat, which was then called hyrstyng, and the vessel in which it was fried was called hyrsting-panne, a frying-pan. Broth, also (broth), was much in use.
No. 17. A Saxon Kettle. | No. 18. A Saxon Cook. |
In the curious colloquy of Alfric (a dialogue made to teach the Anglo-Saxon youth the Latin names for different articles), three professions are mentioned as requisite to furnish the table: first, the salter, who stored the store-rooms (cleafan) and cellars (hedderne), and without whom they could not have butter (butere)—they always used salt butter—or cheese (cyse); next, the baker, without whose handiwork, we are told, every table would seem empty; and lastly, the cook. The work of the latter appears not at this time to have been very elaborate. “If you expel me from your society,” he says, “you will be obliged to eat your vegetables green, and your flesh-meat raw, nor can you have any fat broth.” “We care not,” is the reply, “for we can ourselves cook our provisions, and spread them on the table.” Instead of grounding his defence on the difficulties of his profession, the cook represents that in this case, instead of having anybody to wait upon them, they would be obliged to be their own servants. It may be observed, as indicating the general prevalence of boiling food, that in the above account of the cook, the Latin word coquere is rendered by the Anglo-Saxon seothan, to boil.[4] Our words cook and kitchen are the Anglo-Saxon cóc and cycene, and have no connection with the French cuisine.
We may form some idea of the proportions in the consumption of different kinds of provisions among our Saxon forefathers, by the quantities given on certain occasions to the monasteries. Thus, according to the Saxon Chronicle, the occupier of an estate belonging to the abbey of Medeshamstede (Peterborough) in 852, was to furnish yearly sixty loads of wood for firing, twelve of coal (græfa), six of fagots, two tuns of pure ale, two beasts fit for slaughter, six hundred loaves, and ten measures of Welsh ale.
