I live in a medieval town called Xativa in the region of Valencia Spain. There is a fortress here and the local restaurants cook food called "Xativi" the local food, one of the most popular medieval recipies they make, which you can have every day here, and once a year there is a competition and we build fires in the middle of the town and everyone gets a chance to make their own "Arros al Forn" it's called baked rice and it's cooked over coals on a terracotta dish, that almost anyone who's travelled to spain has seen here.
You make meatballs out of minced pork, with lemon rind and cinnamon, egg and bread crumbs. Then you add diced fresh thick pancetta and diced pork ribs.
You fry a whole head of garlic in the terracotta pan with olive oil then you add sweet paprica and the meat, when the meat is golden you remove it and add the rice (round bomba rice, it's typical of Spain, they grow it here in Valencia) you fry the rice until it's soaked the paprika and the oil then you add sweed and turnips cut in thin french fries shape and the meat plus you add black pudding in 2 inch cuts, you cover it all in stock where you've prviously cooked chick peas and other veg in too, but you only add the chick peas. Leave it to cook over the coals without moving it till all the liquid has simmered and the rice is dry, the trick it to not burn the bottom. The last 2 minutes of the process you add slices of tomato on top, which steams a little with the rice and it makes a lovely mix of flavours from the spicy meat balls to the garlic to the black pudding which is very tasty.
Tradition has it that all the family eats in the same dish the rice is cooked in and then the head of garlic which is left whole and almost always in the centre of the dish gets eaten by the man of the household. http://www.arrosalforn.com/

Hi Jamie,

For sure Medievil cooking is the bomb. It's not something you do everyday but when you do it grab all your mates and make it count.

Our usual gig is to get a pig or lamb on a spit and let it go all day til it is glisening with fat and crunchy all over. Then we grab our potatoes out of the coals and chow down....Yummy!!

All is good in country Australia.

Moni

Whoopee! 

I did a degree in medieval history and spent some time as a post-grad on Anglo-Saxon/Anglo-Norman food and drink, very interesting subject. 

If you want some slightly dry but very informative reading, get your hands on Ann Hagen's academic works, A Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food: Processing and Consumption and the second volume, Production and Distribution.  Both are available through Amazon.  I'll post some stuff later when I have time. 

Great topic Jamie, thanks muchly.   

There is a great book called Culinaria Italy, which is available from Amazon.com.  It gives the history of the region, and explains how what was grown locally in ancient times (back to the Etruscans sometimes), and going forward, greatly influenced the diets in the respective areas.  In addition, it has gorgeous photographs, and also recipes with detailed instructions.  There is a whole series of these books, France, Spain, Germany, etc.