Morning Puls of the Household

Wheat Porridge with Milk and Honey

Name: Wheat Porridge with Milk and Honey
Total time: 35 min
Ingredients: Cracked wheat (coarse bulgur or spelt groats) — 150 g; Whole milk — 750 ml; Multifloral honey — 3 tbsp; Fennel seeds — 1/2 tsp; Salt — 1 pinch; Crushed hazelnuts — 1 handful (optional)

EverydayReconstruction🍯facile35 min

A porridge of cracked wheat cooked long in milk, sweetened with honey from the estate's hives and scented with a little fennel—the sweet, nourishing breakfast of the entire Carolingian household.

Why this dish? Wheat, milk, and honey were the pillars of the imperial estates described in the Capitulary de Villis. Charles, frugal at table according to Einhard, began his day with this simple food shared even by the humblest in his palace.

Before governing men, one must fill his belly without excess: that is common sense. At dawn, I am served this wheat porridge melted in milk from my cows, sweetened with honey from my bees, stirred until it coats the spoon. I have them throw in a hint of fennel, for this herb grows by my order throughout the Empire. This is the meal of the poor as of the prince: God did not make good grain only for the powerful.
— Charlemagne

Ingredients

•Cracked wheat — two handfuls (staple grain)
•Milk — as needed (cooking liquid)
•Honey — to taste (sweetness)
•Fennel seeds — a pinch (Capitulary herb, fragrance)
•Salt — a grain (balance)

How it was made : Cereal porridges—puls—were the daily staple from Antiquity through the early Middle Ages. They were cooked in a cast-iron cauldron hung from a hook over the fire for hours, and honey replaced sugar, which the West did not yet know.

Sources : Capitulare de villis (c. 795), estate products: wheat, honey, fennel · Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, chap. 24 (Charles's frugality at table)