Foods for a Medieval party?

I've been a long-time member of the SCA, a medieval recreation organization, for 20 years in varying degrees of participation and have seen a few medieval feasts At the end of this I'll throw in a few really good website URLs that provide recipes that may prove useful. A bit of advice, however, the taste buds of today are not quite the same as they were back then and European foods, in general, weren't as sweet as Americans like it (though if you're from across the pond, that may be a moot point). Also, I'm used to cooking feasts for 60-200 so my portions may be a bit on the large size and need to be scaled down.

If you want to do a full-on feast, there are an infinite number of menus but here's one suggestion...

First Course:

* Sliced bread - a mix of rye, wheat, white. Variety is good, homemade is best
* Cheeses - a mix of white & yellow but be aware that cheese squares have quite a fine trajectory in a tiny, tabletop catapult (um...not that I'd know from first hand experience or anything...)
* Thin broth or soup - either meat based to complement your main course or veggie based.

Second Course:

* You've chosen roasted chicken, which is good. Chicken is always good in my world.
* Alternate entree - often a smaller meat based entree is included, such as meat balls in a light sauce (again, remember I cooked for large numbers)
* starch veggie or rice
* Salad - yup, just your basic salad though, if you wanted to be strictly correct, you could limit your veggies to what was known, grown, and eaten back then. They used fruit in their salads so it makes up for the lack of things like tomatoes
* A desert. This one( http://www.godecookery.com/goderec/grec26.htm ) is absolutely to die for!! I have an alternate recipe that uses canned pears and no alcohol as we served lots of kids as well.

Third Course:

* Another entree! Generally a different type of meat; venison was popular.
* Starch veggie or rice. Sometimes done up as a broth or even herb fritters. Turnips were used in place of potatoes, generally.
* Another dessert!

Fourth Course:

* Subtlety. Generally, another desert, sometime alcoholic in nature.


Yeah, a lot of food, but feel free to cut it down to 2 courses or 3 and remove the dessert from each course and serve it last. Another trick if you serve more than one course is to keep the breads/cheeses available as they're meant to cleanse the palate between each course (I think, it's been a while).

http://www.godecookery.com/latest/latest.htm - Great site with wonderful, authentic recipes translated for modern cooks.
http://www.godecookery.com/scafeast/scafeast.htm - Lists some actual feasts served within the medieval group. Most have links to their recipes.

Hope that helps!

That helps a ton! I can't thank you enough! I'll probably stick to 2-3 courses with desserts. I'm super-excited!

this might not be right but what about normal food and making it look like something like body parts or other gruesome items?

It's not a Vlad the Impaler party

I'm glad you're finding it helpful I've always liked that site for recipes since they've done all the redacting for you! Medieval English is just a pain to understand.

Yeah, it is. I've seen Medieval English writing before and it's a mess to comprehend. Haha.

Just avoid Haggis! lol. No, I have helped to organize Medieval style weddings, and you might make a cake that looks like a boar with an apple in his mouth, just a wacked idea. Roasted potatoes work good, and spit roasted rabbit! JK...