The Medieval Pantry: Hildegard-Inspired Recipes for Preserving the Harvest

The Medieval Pantry: Hildegard-Inspired Recipes for Preserving the Harvest | Fire Over Water

Hildegard's Kitchen · The Medieval Pantry

The Medieval Pantry: Hildegard-Inspired Recipes for Preserving the Harvest

Seven ways to carry summer through the dark months, made exactly as a twelfth-century kitchen could have: honey, sun, salt, souring, the hearth and a cool cellar.

Keeping the green through winter

In Hildegard of Bingen's Rhineland, the year turned on a single question: what will we eat when nothing grows? There were no freezers, no refrigerators and no tins. A convent like hers at Rupertsberg survived the winter on what its sisters dried in the sun, packed in salt, sealed in honey, soured in crocks and brewed in barrels through the autumn.

Hildegard (1098–1179) wrote about all of it. Her healing book, the Physica, is full of practical kitchen wisdom: which fruits are healthier dried or cooked than raw, why salt is better roasted, how much vinegar belongs in a dish, and why bitter hops help a drink keep. Underneath it all runs her favourite idea, viriditas, the “greening” life-force. Preserving food, in her world, was a way of carrying the summer's greenness into the dark months.

This post gathers seven recipes, one for each of the great medieval preserving methods, each rooted in what Hildegard actually wrote. Every one uses only the ingredients, tools and storage a twelfth-century Rhineland kitchen would have had: a hearth and a bread oven, crocks and casks, linen and beeswax, sun and a cool cellar. No refrigerator required.

Hildegard's rules for the pantry

A few principles from the Physica guide every recipe below:

  • Sun, not fire, for drying. In her entry on sanicle, Hildegard explains that drying an herb slowly in the sun keeps its powers intact, while drying it over a fire drives them out. Gentle heat was her rule for anything you want to keep.
  • Cook what is harsh. She thought raw pears and quinces were heavy on the body, but cooked or dried, they became good for everyone. Many of her preserves begin with cooking.
  • Salt in moderation, and roasted. Food without salt, she said, leaves a person lukewarm inside; too much dries the lungs. Salt roasted over a fire was, to her, more wholesome than raw.
  • Vinegar as a whisper. Wine vinegar improves any food, she wrote, as long as you can only just taste it. When the vinegar overpowers the dish, it becomes harmful. She also judged vinegar made from beer weak and inferior to wine vinegar.
  • Bitterness keeps. Hildegard was not a fan of hops as medicine (she thought they made people melancholy), but she noted that their bitterness holds back spoilage in drinks so they last much longer. It is often cited as one of the earliest written observations of hops as a preservative.

Recipe 1: Hildegard's Spiced Pear Honey

Method: preserving in honey

This is one of the most famous remedies in the whole Physica, from her entry on the pear tree. Hildegard warns that raw pears are hard on the body, but boiled pears, mixed with warming spices and honey, make an electuary she called “more precious than gold.” She recommended a spoonful before breakfast, two with a meal and three at bedtime, especially for migraines.

Honey was the medieval kitchen's great sealant. The secret to making this keep without cold storage is to cook the pears down until thick, so there is little water left for spoilage, and then bind them with plenty of honey.

Spiced Pear Honey

Makes: about 2 cups Prep: 20 min Cook: about 1 hour

Ingredients

  • 2 lb (900 g) ripe pears, about 4 medium
  • 2 tsp fennel seed (Hildegard names hog's fennel first, and fennel as her own substitute)
  • 1½ tsp dried galangal root
  • 1 tsp dried licorice root
  • ¾ tsp dried savory
  • Raw honey, equal in weight to the cooked-down pears (about 1 cup / 340 g)

Equipment: an earthenware or iron pot for the hearth, a mortar and pestle, a wooden spoon, and a glazed earthenware crock or small jar with parchment, linen and twine to cover it.

Method

  1. Pound the fennel seed, galangal, licorice and savory together in the mortar to a fine powder. Hildegard gives the proportions as a falling scale: the most fennel, a little less galangal, less licorice than galangal, and less savory than licorice.
  2. Peel, quarter and core the pears, as she instructs. Set them in the pot, cover with water, and boil briskly over the fire until very soft.
  3. Pour off the water and mash the pears with the spoon.
  4. Return the pulp to a gentler part of the fire and cook it down, stirring constantly so it does not catch, until it is thick enough that the spoon leaves a trail across the bottom of the pot.
  5. Warm the honey beside the fire until it runs freely, but do not let it boil. Stir in the spice powder.
  6. Fold the pear pulp into the spiced honey until evenly mixed.
  7. Spoon into a scalded, completely dry crock. Let it cool, then cover the mouth with parchment and a square of linen, tie it tight with twine, and seal the edge with a little melted beeswax.

Storage: Keep in the coolest corner of the cellar or storeroom. At Hildegard's dose of six spoonfuls a day, a crock like this was meant to be eaten over a few weeks, not kept for a year, so make it in small batches through the pear season.

Recipe 2: Sun-Dried Apple Rings

Method: drying

Hildegard wrote that raw apples are fine for the healthy but a little hard on the sick, while cooked or dried apples are good for everyone. She also noticed that apples kept through winter, once their skins had wrinkled, became gentle enough for anyone to eat raw. Dried apple rings, strung on a cord or laid on racks, were a classic way to carry the autumn harvest into spring.

Sun-Dried Apple Rings

Makes: about 2 cups dried Prep: 20 min Dry: 2–4 days

Ingredients

  • 6 firm, sweet apples

Equipment: a knife, linen thread or a clean cord, and woven willow or reed trays, or a cloth stretched on a frame.

Method

  1. Core the apples and slice them into thin rings, about the thickness of a finger's width or a little less. Peeling is optional.
  2. In the sun (Hildegard's preferred way): Thread the rings on linen thread, leaving space between them so air can pass, or lay them in a single layer on trays covered with a fine cloth against flies. Hang or set them in full sun on hot, dry days, and bring them in at dusk before the dew falls. This takes 2–3 days of good weather.
  3. In the cooling bread oven: On a baking day, once the loaves are out and the oven has cooled until you can hold your hand inside for a slow count of ten, slide the trays in and leave them overnight with the door ajar. Repeat after the next bake if needed. Gentle heat is the key, in keeping with Hildegard's teaching that fierce fire drives out a food's virtue.
  4. By the hearth: In wet weather, hang the strings high in a warm, airy room near the hearth, out of the smoke, for 3–4 days.
  5. The rings are ready when leathery and supple, with no wetness when you tear one in half.
  6. Before storing, keep them loosely in a basket for a week and check them daily. Any that feel damp go back to dry longer.

Storage: In linen bags or a tightly closed wooden box, hung or kept in a dry, airy loft or storeroom. They will last well into the following spring.

Recipe 3: Roasted Herb Salt

Method: salting

Salt preserved the medieval world's meat, fish, butter and cheese. Hildegard praised it as strengthening in moderation, and specifically recommended salt roasted over a fire as more healthful than raw, because the fire dries out its moisture. This roasted salt, blended with three of her favourite herbs, is a small batch to keep by the hearth all winter.

Roasted Herb Salt

Makes: about ½ cup Time: 15 min

Ingredients

  • ½ cup (140 g) coarse sea salt or rock salt
  • 2 tsp fennel seeds
  • 1 tbsp dried savory (Hildegard wrote that savory makes a sad mind joyful)
  • ½ tsp dried galangal root
  • ¼ tsp whole black peppercorns

Equipment: an iron pan or a flat clay tile heated in the embers, a wooden spatula, and a mortar and pestle.

Method

  1. Heat the iron pan over the fire, or set a clean clay tile among the embers until it is hot. Hildegard herself often dried herbs on a hot tile.
  2. Spread the salt on the hot surface and keep turning it with the spatula for a few minutes, until it is bone-dry, no longer clumps, and smells faintly toasty. Tip it into a bowl to cool.
  3. Toast the fennel seeds briefly in the same pan until fragrant.
  4. Pound the fennel, galangal and peppercorns to a coarse powder in the mortar. Crumble in the savory.
  5. When the salt is cold, mix in the herbs and spices.
  6. Use a pinch on bread, broths, pottage, spelt and roasted roots.

Storage: In a lidded wooden salt box or a stoppered crock, kept near (but not over) the hearth, where it stays dry. It keeps for a year or more.

Recipe 4: Wine Vinegar from the Mother

Method: souring

Hildegard valued wine vinegar highly and judged beer vinegar a poor substitute. She even describes the “mother of vinegar,” the jelly-like skin that floats on top of a living vinegar, and used it in her remedies. In a medieval household, a vinegar crock was never truly finished: wine was added as vinegar was drawn off, and the mother was passed from kitchen to kitchen.

Wine Vinegar from the Mother

Makes: about 4 cups Prep: 10 min Sours: 1–2 months

Ingredients

  • 1 bottle (750 ml) red or white wine
  • 1 cup (240 ml) water
  • A piece of vinegar mother with a cup of its vinegar, taken from a living vinegar crock

Equipment: a wide-mouthed earthenware crock or small wooden cask, a square of linen and twine, and a wooden ladle.

Method

  1. Scald the crock with boiling water and let it dry.
  2. Pour in the wine, water, mother and its vinegar. Leave the crock no more than two-thirds full, so the liquid has a wide surface open to the air.
  3. Tie the linen over the mouth to keep out flies, but never seal it; the souring needs air.
  4. Set the crock in a warm, dark corner near the hearth, and leave it undisturbed.
  5. After a few weeks, a new pale, rubbery skin will form on top. Begin tasting after a month by slipping the ladle down the side, beneath the mother. It is ready when it is sharply sour, with no taste of wine left.
  6. Draw off what you need into a stoppered jug. To keep the crock going, top it up with fresh wine as you use the vinegar, never more than a third at a time, and always leave the mother behind.

Use it Hildegard's way: a few drops in a dish, just enough to taste.

Recipe 5: Soured Turnips with Fennel and Savory

Method: souring in salt

Long before cold storage, northern Europeans kept root vegetables through the winter by shredding them, salting them, and letting them sour in crocks. Soured turnips, known in German as Sauerrüben, are one of the oldest of these traditions. Hildegard wrote that turnips are heavy but easy to digest, and that anyone eating them raw should remove the whole outer rind. We follow her advice here, and season the turnips with fennel and savory.

Soured Turnips

Makes: about 1 quart (1 L) Prep: 30 min Sours: 2–4 weeks

Ingredients

  • 2 lb (900 g) turnips, rind removed
  • Salt, one part to fifty parts turnip by weight (18 g, about 1 tbsp, for 2 lb of turnips)
  • 1 tsp fennel seeds
  • 1 tsp dried savory

Equipment: a knife or grater, a balance for weighing the salt, a wide bowl, a small earthenware crock, a wooden board or plate that fits just inside the crock, a clean, scalded stone to weigh it down, and a linen cloth.

Method

  1. Scald the crock, board and stone with boiling water and let them dry.
  2. Cut the turnips into thin strips or grate them coarsely. Weigh them and measure the salt: one part salt to every fifty parts turnip. The amount matters; too little salt and the turnips will rot instead of souring.
  3. In the bowl, toss the turnips with the salt and work them firmly with your hands for several minutes, until they soften and give up their juice.
  4. Mix in the fennel seeds and savory.
  5. Pack the turnips into the crock a handful at a time, pressing each layer down hard with your fist, until the juice rises above them. Leave a hand's width of space at the top.
  6. Lay the board on top and set the stone on it so every strip stays below the brine. If the juice does not cover the turnips after a day, dissolve a little salt in boiled and cooled water (a small spoonful to a cup) and pour it over.
  7. Cover the crock with the linen cloth and leave it in a cool room or cellar.
  8. Check every few days. Skim off any white film from the surface and rinse the board and stone. Begin tasting after two weeks. When pleasantly sour, move the crock to the coldest part of the cellar.

Storage: In a cold cellar, kept under brine and checked regularly, the turnips will last through the winter.

Recipe 6: Honey Quince Paste

Method: cooking down and drying

Hildegard was unusually warm about quince. She wrote that the fruit has a good balance in it, and that cooked or roasted it is very useful for anyone, sick or well. Raw quinces are hard and astringent, but long cooking turns them rosy and fragrant. Thick fruit pastes like this were prized across medieval Europe because, cooked down with plenty of honey and dried, they keep for months.

Honey Quince Paste

Makes: one slab about 8 inches (20 cm) square Cook: about 2½ hours Dry: 2–4 days

Ingredients

  • 2 lb (900 g) quinces, about 3 large
  • Water, to cover
  • Honey, equal in weight to the quince pulp (about 2 cups / 680 g)
  • A pinch of powdered cinnamon or galangal (optional)

Equipment: an earthenware or iron pot, a small linen bag and twine, a sieve, a long wooden spoon, a balance, a shallow wooden box or earthenware dish, and parchment.

Method

  1. Rub the grey fuzz off the quinces with a cloth. Peel, quarter and core them, keeping the peels and cores.
  2. Tie the peels and cores in the linen bag. They help the paste set firm.
  3. Put the quince pieces and the bag in the pot, cover with water, and simmer at the edge of the fire until the fruit is very tender, about an hour. Lift out the bag, pressing it against the side of the pot.
  4. Drain the fruit and press it through the sieve with the back of the spoon. Weigh the pulp and measure out the same weight of honey. The generous honey is what lets the paste keep.
  5. Return the pulp to the pot with the honey and spice. Cook over a low fire, stirring constantly with the long spoon (it spits), for 1–1½ hours, until it turns deep amber and is so thick that the spoon leaves a clear trail across the bottom of the pot.
  6. Line the box or dish with parchment and spread the paste in it, about the thickness of a finger.
  7. Set it to dry in a warm, airy place near the hearth, covered loosely with linen against dust, turning the slab over once it is firm enough. Or dry it in the cooling bread oven after a bake. It is ready when it is firm enough to slice cleanly, 2–4 days.
  8. Cut into squares and serve with cheese, or on its own.

Storage: Wrapped in parchment and packed in a lidded wooden box, in a cool, dry storeroom, it will keep for several months.

Recipe 7: Hopped Mead

Method: brewing

Honey-and-water drinks, which Hildegard called hydromel, appear again and again in her remedies, and fermented honey wine, or mead, was one of the oldest drinks in Europe. This small batch adds a touch of hops, the herb whose bitterness she noted helps a drink last longer. (Given her warning that hops can bring on melancholy, we keep them light.)

Medieval brewers had no packaged yeast. They used barm, the living foam skimmed from a vat of fermenting ale, or the dregs from their last brew, to start the next.

Hopped Mead

Makes: about 1 gallon (4 L) Prep: 1 hour Ferments & ages: 2–4 months

Ingredients

  • 2½ lb (1.1 kg) raw honey (one part honey to about four parts water)
  • About 1 gallon (3.8 L) spring water
  • A small handful (¼ oz / 7 g) of dried hops
  • 2–3 tbsp barm from actively fermenting ale, or the dregs from a previous batch of mead (a local brewery or home brewer can spare some)

Equipment: a large pot for the fire, a skimmer, a linen cloth for straining, a stoneware crock or small wooden cask, a wooden bung or stopper, beeswax, and a stoneware jug for drawing off.

Method

  1. Scald the crock or cask, the jug, the spoon and the cloth with boiling water.
  2. Bring the water to a boil, stir in the honey, and add the hops.
  3. Boil gently for about half an hour, skimming off the grey scum as it rises until the liquid runs clear. Medieval brewers judged the boil finished when no more scum appeared.
  4. Strain through the linen cloth into the scalded crock, leaving the hops behind.
  5. Let it cool until it feels only as warm as fresh milk when you dip a clean finger in. If it is too hot, it will kill the barm.
  6. Stir in the barm. Cover the crock with linen and leave it in a cool, dark place.
  7. Within a day or two it will foam and hiss. Let it work under the cloth for the first week. Then, once the foam has settled, fit the bung loosely so gas can still escape.
  8. After 3–6 weeks, when you can hear no more hissing with your ear to the crock and the liquid has begun to clear, carefully pour or draw it off into the scalded jug, leaving the cloudy dregs behind. Save a little of the dregs to start your next batch.
  9. Stopper the jug loosely for another week or two. If it shows no more signs of working, press the stopper in firmly and seal it with beeswax.
  10. Keep it in the cellar and drink it within the next few months.

The mead is drinkable once clear, and it softens and improves with a few more months of age.

A preserving calendar for the year

  • Late summer: sun-dry apples and herbs while the days are hot and dry.
  • Autumn: cook pear honey, make quince paste, and start a crock of turnips as the root harvest comes in.
  • Early winter: start mead and vinegar, which are happy to work slowly in a dark corner through the cold months.
  • All year: keep a box of roasted herb salt by the hearth.

Sources

  • Hildegard of Bingen, Physica, trans. Priscilla Throop (Healing Arts Press, 1998): apple and pear trees, including the spiced pear electuary, and quince (Book III); spelt and oats (Book I); salt, vinegar, honey and hops (Book I); sanicle on sun-drying.
  • Hildegard of Bingen, Hildegard's Healing Plants, trans. Bruce W. Hozeski (Beacon Press, 2001): hops, wine vinegar and salt.
  • Jany Fournier-Rosset, From Saint Hildegard's Kitchen (Liguori, 2010): turnips, savory, and Hildegard's kitchen syrups and preserves.

Looking for more from Hildegard's kitchen? Explore our seasonal recipes, our All Souls Day table, and Hildegard's remedies for spirit disturbances here on the Fire Over Water blog.

SpiritualChristine PalmaHildegardComment