Early modern European cuisine
The cuisine of early modern Europe (c. 1500–1800) was a mix of dishes inherited from medieval cuisine combined with innovations that would persist in the modern era. Though there was a great influx of new
Early modern European cuisine
The cuisine of early modern Europe (c. 1500–1800) was a mix of dishes inherited from medieval cuisine combined with innovations that would persist in the modern era. Though there was a great influx of new ideas, an increase in foreign trade and a scientific revolution, preservation of foods remained traditional: preserved by drying, salting and smoking or pickling in vinegar. Fare was naturally dependent on the season: a cookbook by Domenico Romoli called "Panunto" made a virtue of necessity by including a recipe for each day of the year. The discovery of the New World, the establishment of new trade routes with Asia and increased foreign influences from sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East meant that Europeans became familiarized with a multitude of new foodstuffs. Spices that previously had been prohibitively expensive luxuries, such as pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger, soon became available to the majority population, and the introduction of new plants coming from the New World and India like maize, potato, sweet potato, chili pepper, cocoa, vanilla, tomato, coffee and tea transformed European cuisine forever.
There was a very great increase in prosperity in Europe during this period, which gradually reached all classes and all areas, and considerably changed the patterns of eating. Everywhere both doctors and chefs continued to characterize foodstuffs by their effects on the four humours: they were considered to be heating or cooling to the constitution, moistening or drying. Nationalism was first conceived in the early modern period, but it was not until the 19th century that the notion of a national cuisine emerged. Class differences were far more important dividing lines, and it was almost always upper-class food that was described in recipe collections and cookbooks.
In most parts of Europe two meals per day were eaten, one in the early morning to noon and one in the late afternoon later at night. The exact times varied both by period and region. In Spain and in parts of Italy such as Genoa and Venice the early meal was the lighter one while supper was heavier. In the rest of Europe, the first meal of the day was the more substantial. Throughout the period, there was a gradual shift of mealtimes. The first meal, then called dinner in English, moved from before noon to around 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon by the 17th century. By the end of the 18th century, it could be held as late as 5:00 or 6:00. This necessitated a midday meal, luncheon, later shortened to lunch, which was established by the late 18th century. Breakfast does not receive much attention in any sources. Breakfast, when it began to be fashionable, was usually just a coffee, tea or chocolate, and did not become a more substantial meal in many parts of Europe until the 19th century. In the south, where supper was the largest meal, there was less need for breakfast, and it therefore remained unimportant, something that can still be seen today in the traditionally light breakfasts of southern Europe, which usually consists of coffee or tea with bread or pastry. There is no doubt that working people since medieval times ate some sort of morning meal, but it is unclear exactly at what time and what it consisted of. The three-meal-regimen so common today did not become a standard until well into the modern era.
As in the Middle Ages, breakfast in the sense of an early morning meal, is largely absent from the sources. It's unclear if this meant it was universally avoided or that it simply was not fashionable enough to be mentioned, as most sources were written by, for and about the upper class.
For most of Europe, the many varieties of grain were the most important crop and formed the daily staple for segments of society. The differentiation was in the varieties, its quality and how it was prepared. The lower classes ate bread that was coarse and of considerably higher bran content while the upper classes enjoyed the finely ground, white wheat flower flour that most modern Europeans are used to. Wheat was considerably more expensive than other grains, and rarely eaten by many. Most bread was made with a mixture of wheat and other grains.
Grain remained the undisputed main staple of early modern Europe until the 17th century. By this time the skepticism towards New World imports such as potatoes and maize had softened among the general populace, and the potato in particular found new appreciation in northern Europe, where it was a much more productive and flexible crop than wheat. In Ireland, this would later have disastrous results. In the early 19th century, when much of the country depended almost exclusively on potato, the potato blight, a fungus that rotted the edible tubers of the potato plant while still in the ground, caused a massive famine that killed over a million people and forced another two million to emigrate. In regions of Europe such as Scotland, Scandinavia and northern Russia, the climate and soil types were less suited for wheat cultivation and rye and barley were far more important. Rye was used to bake the dense, dark bread that is still common in countries like Sweden, Russia and Finland. Ba