How did people store food in the medieval times?

Answer 1

AnswerMany families had a separate area for nonperishable items such as grain and breads. Anything perishable like milk had to be eaten that day due to the lack of refrigeration. AnswerVarious methods were used to keep vermin out of grains, including, for example, putting dried food into large clay pots kept in cool places and covered with lids, or into granary structures that were elevated off the ground to prevent rodents from getting in. Peas could be dried and stored the same way, as could nuts. Granaries did not always have such care given the grains, and there were scandals when rats got into food while a famine was going on.

Fermentation is an excellent way of preserving, and while it alters the food, unlike today's methods it does not simply destroy nutritive value. Vegetables pickled in brine in the old ways, like sauerkraut, have more nutritive value in some ways than the fresh vegetable does. Many vegetables were pickled in this way, and they were kept for months. The down side of this was that vitamin C was lost in the process, and people did not get enough during the winter. Today, pickles are pasteurized, and the nutrition is lost.

Fermentation was also used on milk products, making products like yogurt or cultured buttermilk and cheese. The cheeses could be kept for very long times, up to years in cool environments if they were covered by wax or had been put in brine before storage to produce a rind, as in the case of Swiss cheese. A cheese very like Swiss cheese predated the Middle Ages, and was made throughout.

And, of course, fermentation was used in the making of beer, wine, cider, and mead. In those days, when these are unpasteurized, they had more nutritive value than they usually do today.

Eggs could be preserved by covering with hot wax, if they had been left unwashed. The idea of washing eggs had not occurred to the people of that age, so waxing eggs was pretty easy. Of course, wax was usually not free, so waxing eggs was only done for special purposes. Without wax, they could be kept easily for quite a while in cold weather, or for a few days in hot weather by putting them in a jar in a hole in the ground.

Fruits were dried for the winter, though with a loss of vitamin C and other important nutrients.

Meats were often preserved by drying, salting, or smoking. Ham, smoked and hung up, could last for quite a while. Honestly, I do not know how long.

Fish was also salted, dried, or smoked. Fish was often caught far out to sea, in ships that would stay out for weeks at a time. The fish was salted and brought to port in that form. Salt fish was shipped quite far inland, either by boat, up rivers, on carts, or packed.

The fact that medieval people did not have refrigerators did not mean they did not use cold for food storage. They were able to store fresh foods longer in the winter, and took advantage of that. In some places, especially in the mountains, food was stored in caves that were particularly cold. On the north sides of mountains, these could maintain ice all year in some cases. Ice houses commonly existed in Italy by the 16th century, so it is possible they existed in the Middle Ages there. Indeed, there is record of "snow shops" in ancient Rome, where one could go and buy snow or ice that had been collected in the mountains.

One thing about medieval history is how much we do not know. To understand this, you might imagine what we know of ancient times, understanding that fewer than 600 complete books exist from the period, but there were the equivalent of about 100,000 modern books burned in the worst of the three fires that destroyed the Library at Alexandria. Ancient authors, of whose writings we have less than 1%, were far more prolific than those of the Middle Ages. There is a lot we do not know. We do not know, for example, why certain structures were built, and among these are room sized holes in the ground with small entrances. They might have been hiding places, but it has been suggested that these might have been root cellars for storing root vegetables and fruits such as apples.

Answer 2

Grain, peas, fava beans, nuts, seed for planting, and similar products could be simply dried and stored in pots with lids to keep vermin out. They were sometimes stored in bags or even by simply piling them up, but it was understood to be bad practice at the time and was only done in situations of oversupply or foolish hoarding. Flour was not stored for very long, normally, but was ground as needed by a miller.

Root crops, fruit, and such things as cabbages could be stored as they were until recently (and still are by some people) in root cellars.

Vegetables were pickled in brine, and the method used at that time actually increased the nutritional value of the food since it did not involve canning or packing in jars, which reduces the nutritional value.

Meats were smoked, salted, or cured by hanging with cultures in ancient times, and the practice continued in the middle ages. Sausage was known to the ancients and is mentioned in medieval texts.

Fish was salted or smoked. The salted fish caught in the Atlantic Ocean was carried long distances to inland markets.

Cheese and other fermented milk products were made in ancient times and continued to be made in the medieval. Yogurt was one of these. Swiss cheese was also already in production, as were some other cheeses we see today. Cheese was aged in cellars and caves, and could be kept for years.

Beer, wine, and cider were all commonly made, and mead was also made, though it was more expensive and less often used.

Herbs were dried, as were mushrooms, such fruit as raisins and Prunes, and a variety of other foods.