I think someone else mentioned this but I will double up anyway... a couple of years ago I was on holiday in New Zealand and while in Rotorua I had some traditional Maori food that was cooked in a thermal spring (the spring looked like a naturally formed giant cauldron in the ground bubbling away!). I believe that Maori people have been cooking food that way for many hundreds of years! It tasted great! No gas/power/burning wood required .

I love New Zealand, great place! 

Dear Jamie,
I was a volunteer in a dutch archeological theme park (archeon) for a couple of years. Here they have made reconstructions of certain ages: from hunters/gatherers huts trough medieval town and monastery. The park is "inhabited" by re-anactors, people (like me) who try to really show the way of living, including cookery. I used to be in de bronze-age farm so I have not a lot of experience with medieval cookery. We exchanged recipes and thougts between the ages though. Bread baking was still quite the same allthough grinding the flower is much harder in de bronze age (by hand) In medieval times they closed the wood-oven doors with dough, did you know that? it makes is possible to check the baking proces in the oven from the outside: if the bread on the door (that also prevends leaking of hot air) is ready, the bread on the inside is too! In my bronze age, the flower was so hard-worked for, that we rather closed our oven with clay.
I found you some links to interesting websites with medieval recipes ( in Dutch and/or English) I'm not sure if it is allowed to post them here?

what I still use regularly in my kitchen is smoking (but i do have a modern smoker-pan), making lentill soup, and my special way to prepare trout. Take fresh trouts, cleaned (or clean them first) put herbs that you find (I usually make this recipe when camping) in the cavitiy (thyme, cut sorrelleaves, rosemary, some "daslook"(a herb that smells like garlic but looks like lily of the valley, i don't know the english word for it,javascript:emoticon('') sorry.) combine it with pieces of bacon (lardons). Roll the trouts in sorrelleaves and put them on the (coles of the) fire or barbeque. It tastes so very good!

W. [Visitor]
Thu 17 Jul 2008 @ 15:27
Hello, i love food and all the fantastic pictures never fail each time to make my mouth water      I have a home economics project (We have to cook a dish and within one hour) and i would really love it if you could share some recipes and ideas with me? I was thinking perhaps prawns or chicken because i can get fresh prawns and thats the best!                

Loving your ideas, jamie! 

P.S Please reply as soon as possible please because the recipe is due next week! But i'll understand if you really cant because you are busy 

Hi Jamie!

Last Year I completed a 2 year Culinary Course and I have just started my own Catering Business. I have not used the medievil cooking methods you discribe however I love the flavour of food that has been cooked over an open flame. Also do you have any tips you could give me about  large catering? I am just doing  maximum 50 people right now, but I want to get into hundreds and was wondering how you cook all that food at once for that many people and not have it go cold on ya?

SueJohnson wrote:

marciacrg wrote:

Hi dear Jamie

I finaly made my own pasta. It was great but it´s long so much because was the first time. I were thinking if pasta was possible in medieval time... What are you think?

I'm sure it was.  I vaguely remember from my research years ago that pasta/noodles of some sort were eaten in 13th century Italy.  If only I could remember where all my medieval books were (somewhere in a box in the attic...)

Tanks for this information....