Balance

I have a balance I use at home for cooking.

1 meat, 2 veg (if I can) and a starch. Am I perfect? No.

I keep this same balance in mind when planning feasts as well. My aim is to provide variety in tastes as well as color and consistency.

While bread was a large part of the medieval diet I do not, in general, like to serve it at feasts. Especially as an opening course. I find that at events one gets to feast hungry and fills up on bread before being able to enjoy what is the main part of the meal. I have served it alongside some courses as the starch component as well as some recipes calling directly for it to be served alongside or under the main part of the dish.

My idea of balance is definitely not what they were serving in the Renaissance. Their menus are heavy with meats, quite heavy. We can only assume bread was a constant offering but I have not seen it directly mentioned, I would think too that more vegetables were served but I suppose that doesn't need to be true. Meat was wealth and that is what you were showing off. Though close to all of an animal was used in one way or another, something that doesn't seem to appeal to us in the modern age ( at least not to me), several of the meat dishes would include the offal of the animals.

This is what is always at the heart of the matter for a cook. Balancing the modern with the medieval. We have changed, our way of seasoning has changed, the way we view certain foods have changed, and what we expect to find on a dinner table has changed. I do have the desire to someday serve a feast from a period menu, either as a whole or in part, for now I work on balancing the variety of aspects to make something pleasing to the palate, nutritionally and to the eye.