Read more about: Ancient History 5 Things the Romans gave usīack in Medieval times, Lent was a miserable affair where Christians ate stuff like lentils and dried fish for a month. Nowadays, isinglass is used in the brewing industry to speed up the sedimentation process, which might come as a bit of a shock to all those vegans and vegetarians out there who might have been blissfully aware they’ve been supping away at pints of delicious fish bladder ale for years. How someone looked at glue and thought, 'We could make jam out of this' is a mystery, but that’s exactly what happened and people merrily munched their way through gallons of fish bladder jam and confectionary until gelatin became a cheaper alternative. The gooey substance they squeezed out of the bladders of sturgeon fish was called ‘isinglass’, and it was a commonly used thickening agent back in the 19th Century, having first been used as one of the ingredients for making glue. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? The Victorians certainly thought so. Here we look back on ten of the weirdest foodstuffs from history and ask the question: What on earth were they thinking? Fish Bladder Jam From roasted dormice to what might as well be whale excrement for all intents and purposes, what our ancestors used to enthusiastically gobble up has to be seen to be believed. Hartley in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between, and it’s especially true of the food people used to eat. That is, unless you like disgusting food or you plan to bring your own picnic.'The past is a foreign country they do things differently there.' So the next time you’re daydreaming about life in the Middle Ages, you might want to re-think your desire to time travel. Only the nobility were “lucky” enough to eat this dish. This almost gave the appearance of cutting into a live bird. These would have to be reattached after cooking since they fell out. Unlike roasted chicken or goose, which is plucked clean before its cut into, the peacock was served in its feathers. It was probably served only because of its appearance. The meat of this colorful bird is said to be dry and to taste quite awful, but this did not stop high society from serving it at parties. One of the craziest dishes to grace the banquet table was peacock. It could even be coated with gold leaf if the diners were really important people. It was usually stuffed with rare spices and roasted. This involved cutting a pig and a chicken in half, then attaching the rear of the chicken to the front of the pig. They sewed together parts of several animals to make something called a cockentrice. This did not mean that new species were created, of course, but chefs did the next best thing. Apparently, the dish was favored so much by the Tudor royals that the common people were forbidden to eat porpoise meat.Īs if there weren’t enough strange and disgusting things available to eat in the real world, wealthy medieval people demanded fantastic beasts be “made” for them to consume. Back then, people thought porpoises were fish, so this soup-like dish was served during Lent, when meat was forbidden. If you like dolphins, you probably would not have been a fan of the porpoise pottage eaten by the wealthy during the Middle Ages. The fact that it was cooked in a tasty pastry probably didn’t make it any more appetizing than it sounds. Though it probably wasn’t served at dinner, it was often fed to people with certain medical conditions, such as leprosy and sore throat. If you were rich, however, you would have feasted on several items that might make a modern person gag. It seems rich people thought veggies were beneath them. Meat would have been a rare treat, but you would have eaten more vegetables than your wealthier compatriots. You would have largely subsisted off of grains, in the form of breads and porridges. If you were poor, your diet would have been meager but not too weird. Nowhere is this difference more evident than in the foods that were eaten in medieval times. From hygiene to medical care, the Middle Ages would feel like a completely different world to a modern person. Some even dream about going back in time to experience life during that time, and renaissance fairs and a popular dinner show have capitalized quite well on this obsession.īut many people never stop to think about what life was really like for the people who lived during that era. People often like to romanticize the Middle Ages, imagining it as a time of knights and princesses, all dressed in elaborate medieval garb.
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