Food Fit for a King: Middle Ages Food for a King

Do you know what Kings eat when they have a Royal Feast? The historian of French cookery, Legrand d'Aussy, describes a great feast given in 1455 by the Count of Anjou, third son of King Louis II of Sicily. This description illustrates the theatrical representation of the banquet:

• On the table was placed a centre-piece, which represented a green lawn, surrounded with large peacocks' feathers and green branches, to which were tied violets and other sweet-smelling flowers
• In the middle of this lawn a fortress was placed, covered with silver
• The fortress was hollow, and formed a sort of cage, in which several live birds were shut up, their tufts and feet being gilt
• On its tower, which was gilt, three banners were placed
• The first course consisted of a civet or hare, a quarter of stag which had been a night in salt, a stuffed chicken, and a loin of veal
• The two last dishes were covered with a German sauce, with gilt sugar-plums, and pomegranate seeds
• At each end, outside the green lawn, was an enormous pie, stacked with smaller pies, which formed a crown
• The crust of the large pies were silvered all round and gilt at the top
• Each pie contained a whole roe-deer, a gosling, three capons, six chickens, ten pigeons, one young rabbit, and, no doubt to serve as seasoning or stuffing, a minced loin of veal, two pounds of fat, and twenty-six hard-boiled eggs, covered with saffron and flavoured with cloves
• For the three following courses, there was a roe-deer, a pig, a sturgeon cooked in parsley and vinegar, and covered with powdered ginger
• A kid goat, two goslings, twelve chickens, as many pigeons, six young rabbits, two herons, a leveret, a fat capon stuffed, four chickens covered with yolks of eggs and sprinkled with spice, a wild boar, some wafers and stars
• A jelly, part white and part red, representing the crests of the honored guests
• Cream covered with fennel seeds and preserved in sugar
• A white cream, cheese in slices, and strawberries
• And, lastly, plums stewed in rose-water
• Besides these four courses, there was a fifth, entirely composed of the prepared wines then popular, and of preserves. These consisted of fruits and various sweet pastries

Can you imagine how grand a Royal Feast was? Can you draw a picture of what you would see if you were there?