Medieval European food was not coarse and crude, nor was it gorged by gluttons. Great varieties of food and drink were available in western Europe from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries. Local harvests, meats, fish, and fowl, as well as imported spices, sauces, and wines were obtainable, augmenting domestic produce and appealing to commoner and nobleman alike. In fourteenth-century London, for instance, it was possible to purchase fifty-six types of French wine as well as thirty varieties of Italian, Spanish, and Canarian. The quality and price of all beverages and foods were carefully controlled by civil laws that were enforced in courts such as the assize of bread and the assize of ale.

Artistically prepared food was served with ceremony, satisfying political as well as social purpose. A royal entertainment, a guild festival, or a town holiday feast followed a pattern as elaborate as tradition, wealth, or whimsy allowed.

Ecclesiastical feasts often rivaled the secular in splendor. However, Christian concern for the spirituality of eating--ranging from the bread and wine of the Eucharist to moral disquisitions on gluttony as deadly sin--made the culinary calendar an alternation between feast and fast. Certain sects such as the Albigensians completely abjured meat. Some monastic communities were vegetarian, while others alternated flesh with vegetable diets, usually allowing their members to accept food gifts called pittances for holidays of particular sanctity. Since most Christians avoided meat at least one day a week (or as many as four), the required or desired abstinence inspired vegetarian variations on many dishes, substituting cheese, nuts, or grains for proscribed ingredients. Humorous clerical discourses distinguished animals classifiable as fish from prohibited mammals and birds; the beaver, which culminates in an edible tail, was considered fish.

Medicine imposed important strictures on what should be eaten or avoided for good hygiene and how it should best be served for proper digestion. Diet, believed to help or hinder health, was not only used as therapy for disease but also was adjuvant to medication and surgery. Foods of love, sensual stimulants and depressants, were thought to regulate sexuality, as requisite to mental health as to spiritual well-being. Menus of medieval feasts were often guided as much by physicians and philosophers as by cooks and personal taste.

While details varied according to time, place, and purpose of celebration, a typical feast began with music, with the surveyor of ceremonies directing musicians to play until all guests were seated. The most honored guest was seated at the high table raised on a dais; all others were arranged in descending social rank at long tables called sideboards....