The Maryland Renaissance Festival is always a fantastic day spent in the woods of a town in the year 1514. This will be my eighth visit, and each time I’m amazed at the historical accuracy of the costumes, characters and presentations. This year I’m here to see if the food is just as accurate.
The comedian Steven Wright said, “I saw a restaurant with a sign that said Breakfast Anytime. I ordered French Toast during the revolution”. With equal levity and in a tongue-in-cheek curiosity, I’m wondering how many of the concession stands here could be offering food that MIGHT have been available in King Henry’s day.
The fictional town is “Revel Grove” but the buildings, concert stages and plays are all real. Over 36 years of the mythical arrival of the King to their hamlet, they’ve experienced some urban sprawl! This isn’t your basic parking lot get together. The professional sets and high level of performance make this a day I always look forward to.
Lo! King Henry VIII and his Queen, Katherine of Aragon, along with their Royal Court are arriving presently. The village is a buzz with activities, celebrations, song and dance in anticipation of the King’s arrival.
I’m honored to be able to address the King directly when he solicits questions from the commoners. “I’m a humble cook,” I approach bowing, “what is on the royal feast this evening?” After his hand-maiden explains the extravagant menu, King Henry wishes me to “enjoy my macaroni and cheese on a stick”.
Would they have served macaroni and cheese on a stick in 1514? Probably not. Mostly, the King only put heretics on sticks. While pasta dates back thousands of years to a Roman dish of wide flat noodles called “lagne”, it wouldn’t be for another 35 years that Catherine de’ Medici would bring her Italian chef to the French court, introducing pasta to Europe.
I stroll past jugglers, harpists and jesters to arrive at the pizza concession. The year is 1514 and Revel Grove is celebrating the new Queen who is Castilian. She’s Spanish. They’d be more likely to have empanadas than pizza.
The joust is about to begin, so I need another goblet of mead and a snack. What would be the perfect “fast-food” to bring to a sporting event? I need something that I can eat with one hand and cheer on my knight as he knocks the other tin-clad horseman to the ground.
Roast turkey legs are the perfect tailgate food for 1514, and the most authentic consumable I’ve found yet, unless you count the mead. There were no stoves in that time so most items were roasted on an open fire or simmered in a heavy cauldron. Roasting entire parts of animals, like a turkey leg, is exactly how they’d be cooking in medieval times.
Did I really expect to find authentic medieval food at the Maryland Renaissance Festival? I just needed an excuse to bring the video camera, have a good time and joust with you a bit.