Frumenty (sometimes furmity, fromity, or fermenty) was a popular dish in Western European medieval cuisine. Western Europe at its most general meaning means 'all the countries in the West of Europe ' Medieval Cuisine includes the Foods eating habits and Cooking methods of various European cultures during the Middle Ages, a period It was made primarily from boiled, cracked wheat. Wheat ( Triticum spp is a worldwide cultivated grass from the Levant area of the Middle East. Different recipes added milk, eggs or broth. Other recipes include almonds, currants, rum, sugar, saffron and orange flower water. The Almond ( Prunus dulcis, syn Prunus amygdalus Batsch Amygdalus communis L The Zante currant ( Vitis vinifera) or currant is a variety of Small, Sweet, seedless Grape named after Corinth (currant and Rum is a Distilled beverage made from Sugarcane by-products such as Molasses and sugarcane Juice by a process of fermentation Sugar is a class of edible Crystalline substances mainly Sucrose, Lactose, and Fructose. Saffron ( Kurdish/Persian زَعْفَرَان is a Spice derived from the dried Stigma of the Flower of the saffron crocus ( Crocus sativus Frumenty was served with meat as a pottage, traditionally with venison or occasionally porpoise. Pottage is a Stew of Meat or Fish with Grains Herbs and /or Vegetables It was the staple food of people living in Venison is the Culinary name for Meat from the family Cervidae. Porpoises are Small Cetaceans of the Family Phocoenidae; they are related to Whales and Dolphins They are distinct from dolphins
For several centuries, frumenty was part of the traditional Celtic Christmas meal. In England it was often eaten on Mothering Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent. See also Father's Day Homecoming Laetare Sunday (cf Gaudete Sunday) Lent Lent, in some Christian denominations, is the forty-day-long liturgical season of fasting and prayer before Easter. On that day many servants were allowed to visit their mothers and were often served frumenty to celebrate and give them a wholesome meal to prepare them for their return journey. The use of eggs would have been a brief respite from the Lenten fast.
The dish, described as 'furmity' and served with fruit and a slug of rum added under the counter, plays a major role in the plot of Thomas Hardy's novel The Mayor of Casterbridge. Thomas Hardy OM (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928 was an English novelist Short story writer and poet of the naturalist movement though he saw The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886 is a tragic novel by English Author Thomas Hardy subtitled "The Life and Death of a Man of Character" It is also mentioned in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass as a food that snap-dragon flies live on. Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There ( 1871) is a work of Children's literature by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
References
- Black, William (2005) The Land that Thyme Forgot Bantam. ISBN 0593 053621; p. 346
- Adamson, Melitta Weiss (2004) Food in Medieval Times ISBN 0-313-32147-7
- Middle Ages recipes
See also
- Kutia, Eastern European dish of a similar recipe
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