Salsamenta pictavensium: Gastronomy and Medicine in Twelfth-Century England

Abstract

This article presents a collection of culinary recipes from a manuscript produced in England from the later twelfth century. The suite of ten recipes for ‘Poitou sauces’ or ‘Poitou relishes’ (salsamenta pictavensium—literally ‘of the Poitevins’) to garnish various kinds of meat, fish and fowl are introduced and analysed, with an appended edition and translation. These are, to date, the oldest extant medieval recipes for such sauces, and in their role as gastronomic enhancements, the earliest surviving medieval culinary recipes. The historical and cultural contexts for the recipes at Durham Cathedral Priory are explored: the nature of the community for whom the recipes were written, its choices of library acquisition, its relationships with the bishopric, and attitudes within the community towards food and medicine in a monastic setting. The Poitevin designation of the sauces is also considered. Above all the article investigates the question of the relationship between gastronomy and medicine in the twelfth century, and seeks to demonstrate that any distinction between medical and culinary recipes suggests a false dichotomy, particularly in the case of salsamenta. The authors argue against the position that medieval cuisine is, in its origins and essence, applied dietetics, and suggest that in the twelfth century salsamenta belonged in the first instance to gastronomy, but were in the process of being appropriated as medicines by the authors of the new literature of therapeutics.