At the table of a 12th-century Queen of France, the meal was not divided into starter-main-dessert but unfolded in several "courses" (services) where broths, roasts, and fish were brought together on the white cloth. Everyone helped themselves from the communal dishes with their fingers and knife, using wheat bread as a plate (the trencher). A distinction was made between "meat days" (meat) and "lean days" (fish, required on Fridays and during Lent), and the meal ended with chamber spices and spiced wine, said to aid digestion.

A native of Troyes, Adèle came from the county where the greatest fairs of the West were held. Pepper, cinnamon, ginger, grains of paradise, and saffron arrived there from the Orient before illuminating the royal table. These precious powders, weighed like gold, were the true hallmark of her cuisine: they signaled rank as much as they perfumed.