Monday 16 November 2015

Preparing for a Medieval Feast

As part of the children's study of the Middle Ages, it seemed appropriate to include a Medieval Feast. I must say that this has been received with great enthusiasm and the children have thrown themselves into preparations and have really made this their own.

We have used ideas from Angellicscalliwags' amazing Medieval Banquet , the BBC download on Medieval Feasting and the Story of the World Activity Book 2 as well as from our own searches on the internet.

We started with reading a book about feasts in the Middle Ages, a Medieval Feast by Aliki.


The children concocted a menu. 

Menu

 Pottage
 Stuffed roast chicken
 Pears in red grape juice
Marzipan subtlety

The children made the marzipan subtletys in advance. We used shop made marzipan and painted them using Wilton's cake colouring. 


These represent the Roses of York and Lancaster and at the top, the Tudor Rose.



Shield

Orb

In terms of decoration, we made a stained glass window. This was made from a large sheet of paper. When we researched stained glass windows, on the internet, Younger Daughter preferred the stained glass found in the Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona. The topic of stained glass led to a discussion about how and where we should worship and where we find our authority.
This "stained glass" is based on a theme from the stained glass in Sagrada Familia.

This is the almost complete version. If anyone else should be tempted to try this, please note, that using oil pastel is much, much quicker than using felt tip pen.

Other preparation has included 
finding music
making crowns
finding out about which foods would and would not have been available
finding out about Medieval table customs. This trencher recipe seemed relatively authentic sounding and is the one we plan to use.

This has been one of our most enjoyable projects. Perhaps, we should have a meal for each period in history that we study!

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13 comments:

  1. This sounds like it was fun to put together. The kids did a great job with the marzipan. The dinner sounds fantastic and I love the glass window.

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    1. Thank you, Stacie, this has been fun and I think that we have all learned from this. I'm fascinated that the children love the Medieval music.

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    2. My children have been keen to have pottage in bread bowls ever since we watched Tudor Monastery Farm, so this is the reminder I need, thank you!

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    3. Gwen, I wasn't brave enough to serve the pottage in trenchers just the roast. I think that the bread would taste great with the soup soaking into it though. We used the BBC leek, pea and ham soup recipe for pottage and were pleased with the result.

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  2. This brought back some memories. We had a mediaevel feast with 2 other families about 10 years ago & used lebanese bread for the trenchers. Aliki's book is lovely.

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    1. Lebanese bread sounds a great idea. My trenchers were very solid! Yes, we loved Aliki's book. Have you seen others by this author?

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    2. Mummies Made in Egypt & William Shakespeare & the Globe are a couple of others we have. Both well done.

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  3. I LOVE this!! What fantastic activities! Everything turned out beautifully :) (thank you for the mention)

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    1. Thank you, Claire, Your posts were a great inspiration.

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  4. Sounds like a really fun project and one that they will remember forever!

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  5. Oh, we had a medieval feast once and it was wonderful. So much roast chicken! I forget what else we had for food, but the children had wonderful sword-fights and we dressed up. It was surprising what we couldn't have: spices, potatoes, modern wheat, many different fruits....

    Enjoy and be sure to take a lot of photos of the even itself!

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    1. Sword fights sound fun. One of mine would have loved that!

      Yes, the food was quite different even though superficially the same. The pottage turned out to be one of the most popular foods and I've been asked to make it again.

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