Renart at the table

In the Middle Ages, meals were not served as starter, main course, and dessert. The meal advanced by 'services' (or 'dishes') brought in successive waves: first pottages and broths, then 'rostz' (roasted meats) with piquant sauces, next entremets and pies, and finally the 'issue de table' (fruits, spices, spiced wines) that closed the feast and aided digestion. Renart the fox, for his part, scurries from one service to the next by cunning rather than by invitation.

No tomato or lemon in the Middle Ages: acidity came from verjuice, the pressed juice of unripe grapes, present in almost every sauce. It was combined with 'fine spices' (cinnamon, ginger, grains of paradise, cloves) and crushed toasted bread that thickened sauces without flour. This is the grammar of medieval taste, the cuisine that Renart plunders from farm to castle.