Before Forks E-mail and Web Information Detail of a 1549 Italian woodcut shows the interior of a kitchen with a large decorated brazier in the center. One scullion blows the flames while two turn spits and the chief cook attends to the viands on top. Another cook rolls out pastry.
Food touches every life, every day.
We compare materials and shapes of utensils, or physical properties of tools like the quern-a primitive handmill that's basically two rocks. Medieval French cooking centered around the fireplace. Other foods were cooked in the ashes- oeufs perdus , for example, involved cracking eggs and dropping them into embers, then brushing them off to be eaten. Forks, alas, were rare. In medieval times, gluttony was taken very seriously.