History Cooking over fire
All cooking was done over open fire. Cooks hung iron pots on chains or hooks over the flames, roasted meat on long spits that someone had to turn by hand, and baked in brick or stone ovens.
For most families, the everyday meal was bread and pottage: a thick soup of grains, beans, peas and vegetables like leeks and cabbage, with a little meat or fish when they could get it.
History Kitchens apart
In castles, manors and abbeys, the kitchen was often a separate building or stood at the end of the hall, so that if it caught fire the rest would be safe. The Abbot's Kitchen at Glastonbury Abbey in England, built in the 1300s, is a stone building with a fireplace in each corner and a tall roof that let out the heat and smoke.
Art In this artwork
This open-sided shelter with a stone fireplace, benches and cooking pot is the artist's design.
Look closer
- Find the cooking pot.
- Where would the smoke go?
Think about it
- Why build a kitchen away from the main house?
- What could you cook with only a fire and one pot?
- What do you think pottage tasted like?
Key words
- Pottage
- A thick soup of grains and vegetables.
- Spit
- A long rod for roasting meat over a fire.
- Hearth
- The floor of a fireplace.
Sources
The history on this page is a short summary based on these sources:
- Glastonbury Abbey, "The Abbot's Kitchen"
- The Forme of Cury (about 1390), the recipe book of the cooks of King Richard II
