The cuisine of early modern Europe (c. 1500–1800) was a mix of dishes inherited from medieval cuisine combined with innovations that would persist in the modern era.
The discovery of the New World, the establishment of new trade routes with Asia and increased foreign influences from sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East meant that Europeans became familiarized with a multitude of new foodstuffs. Spices that previously had been prohibitively expensive luxuries, such as pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger, soon became available to the majority population, and the introduction of new plants coming from the New World and India like maize, potato, sweet potato, chili pepper, cocoa, vanilla, tomato, coffee, and tea transformed European cuisine forever.
Though there was a great influx of new ideas, an increase in foreign trade and a Scientific Revolution, preservation of foods remained traditional: preserved by drying, salting, and smoking or pickling in vinegar. Fare was naturally dependent on the season: a cookbook by Domenico Romoli called "Panunto" made a virtue of necessity by including a recipe for each day of the year.Romoli, La singolar dottrina, Venice, 1560. Everywhere both doctors and chefs continued to characterize foodstuffs by their effects on the four humours: they were considered to be heating or cooling to the constitution, moistening or drying.
There was a very great increase in prosperity in Europe during this period, which gradually reached all classes and all areas, and considerably changed the patterns of eating. Nationalism was first conceived in the early modern period, but it was not until the 19th century that the notion of a national cuisine emerged. Class differences were far more important dividing lines, and it was almost always upper-class food that was described in recipe collections and cookbooks.
Background
The culinary fashion of European elites changed considerably in this period. Typically medieval spices like galangal and grains of paradise were no longer seen in recipes. Updated recipes still had the strong acidic flavors of earlier centuries, but by the 1650s new innovative recipes blending subtle savory flavors like herbs and mushrooms could be found in Parisian cookbooks.
Meals
The three-meal-regimen so common today did not become a standard until well into the modern era.Albala (2002), pp. 231–232
In most parts of Europe, two meals per day were eaten, one in the early morning to noon and one in the late afternoon or later at night. The exact times varied both by period and region. In Spain and in parts of Italy such as Genoa and Venice the early meal was the lighter one while supper was heavier. In the rest of Europe, the first meal of the day was the more substantial. Throughout the period, there was a gradual shift in mealtimes. The shift was mainly influenced by cultural norms. Still, to the circumstances of an earlier age: people got up earlier in the agricultural society without electrical lighting. Since most people were working in the fields they needed a lot of energy throughout the day, which meant that they needed to eat a large meal in the middle of the day to keep their energy up. The first meal, then called dinner in English, moved from before noon to around 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon by the 17th century. The word supper came from the French but it is also slightly related to the Scandinavian and German words for soup, suppe, and suppa. These dinner times began to change for the European upper class especially when there were wars in the 1600s and power was strengthened through kings and other sorts of government. These people in power noticed that since they could very easily afford entertainment and the new expensive lights for their time this would allow them to party way longer than ever before. Therefore, pushed their dinner times to a few hours. In the middle of the 18th century, it could be held as late as 5:00 or 6:00. This necessitated a midday meal, luncheon, later shortened to lunch, which was established by the late century. Lunch became a standard for everyday life at the end of the 18th century. The word luncheon directly means a light repast between mealtimes which now relates to the modern English “tea” times. Now this is a light snack between lunch and dinner but in the early modern times, it was lunch that was a light snack between breakfast and dinner. It was only in the nineteenth century that the full three meals a day became quite popular. This was mostly popular among the more wealthy but it did gain some popularity in the less wealthy as well.
BreakfastThe word "breakfast" is a calque of Medieval Latin disjejunare, literally "to un-fast", and rendered disnare or disner in Old French. The word was later borrowed into Old English as "dinner" and referred to the first (accepted) meal of the day. does not receive much attention in any sources. As in the Middle Ages, breakfast in the sense of an early morning meal, is largely absent from the sources. It's unclear if this meant it was universally avoided or that it simply was not fashionable enough to be mentioned, as most sources were written by, for, and about the upper class. There is no doubt that working people since medieval times ate some sort of morning meal, but it is unclear exactly at what time and what it consisted of. Peasants in the early modern world commonly ate a diet that consisted of "gruels, pottages, and ... grains". Breakfast, when it began to be fashionable, was usually just a coffee, tea or chocolate, and did not become a more substantial meal in many parts of Europe until the 19th century. In the south, where supper was the largest meal, there was less need for breakfast, and it therefore remained unimportant, something that can still be seen today in the traditionally light breakfasts of southern Europe, which usually consists of coffee or tea with bread or pastry.
Foods
Cereals
For most of Europe, the many varieties of grain were the most important crop and formed the daily staple for segments of society. The differentiation was in the varieties, its quality and how it was prepared. The lower classes ate bread that was coarse and of considerably higher bran content while the upper classes enjoyed the finely ground, white wheat flour that most modern Europeans are used to. Wheat was considerably more expensive than other grains, and rarely eaten by many. Most bread was made with a mixture of wheat and other grains.Braudel, pp. 105–129
Grain remained the undisputed main staple of early modern Europe until the 17th century. By this time the skepticism towards New World imports such as potatoes and maize had softened among the general populace, and the potato in particular found new appreciation in northern Europe, where it was a much more productive and flexible crop than wheat. In Ireland, this would later have disastrous results. In the early 19th century, when much of the country depended almost exclusively on potato, the potato blight, a fungus that rotted the edible tubers of the potato plant while still in the ground, caused a massive famine that killed over a million people and forced another two million to emigrate. In regions of Europe such as Scotland, Scandinavia, and northern Russia, the climate and soil types were less suited for wheat cultivation, and rye and barley were far more important. Rye was used to bake the dense, dark bread that is still common in countries like Sweden, Russia, and Finland. Barley was more common in the north, and was often used to make beer.
Oats made up a considerable minority of the produced grain but stood very low in status and was commonly used as animal feed, especially for horses. Millet, grown in much of Europe since prehistoric times was still used throughout much of the early period, but had largely disappeared by the 18th century although its exceptional storage period of up to twenty years meant it was used for emergency reserves.Braudel, p. 109 For example, the Italian dish polenta, previously made from millet, later was made with maize. Pasta had been a common food since the middle of the medieval period, and gained in popularity during the early modern period (notably in Naples, where it was not often seen until the late 18th century), but it was not yet usual to use the hard variety of durum wheat or semolina to make dried pasta until the Industrial era. Rice became established in many places, especially Italy and Spain, during the period, but was regarded as a low-status food; the well-off might occasionally have rice pudding but otherwise ignored it.Braudel, pp. 110–111
Peas and beans, which made up a very large part of the diet of the medieval poor, were still often treated as a staple food, but to a diminishing extent over the period, to be replaced by cereals and the potato.Braudel, pp. 112–114
Meats
European consumption of meat remained exceptional by world standards, and during the period high levels generally moved down the social scale. But the poor continued to rely mainly on eggs, dairy products, and pulses for protein, though wild game and fish were caught and eaten in less populated regions. The richer nations, especially England, ate considerably more meat than the poorer ones. In some areas, especially Germany and the Mediterranean counties, the meat consumption of ordinary people actually declined, beginning in about 1550, and continuing throughout the period. Increasing population seem to lie behind this trend.Braudel pp. 190-199
Fruits and vegetables Fruits and vegetables that were introduced to Europe during this time include the tomato, chili pepper, and pumpkin (from the Americas) and the artichoke (from the Mediterranean). Additionally, while wild strawberry had existed, the modern garden strawberry was domesticated in France in the late 18th century from varieties found in the Americas.
The innovation and popularization of the orangery, an early form of greenhouse, in the 17th century enabled the growing or wintering of fruiting plants that would otherwise be unable to survive the climate of more northerly locations in Europe. This enabled the wealthy to have access to fresh oranges, lemons, limes, and even pineapples prior to the advent of refrigerated transport.
Fats A map of Early Modern Europe could be drawn based on the characteristic fats that predominated: olive oil, butter and lard. These kitchen staples had not changed since Roman times, but the onset of the Little Ice Age that coincided with Early Modern Europe affected the northernmost regions where olives would flourish. Only olive oil was a subject of long-distance trade.
Sugar
Cane sugar, native to India, was already known in Europe in the Middle Ages, expensive and mainly regarded as a medicine. From the end of the 17th century, greatly increased New World production struggled to meet the increase in European demand, so that by the end of the period the maritime nations of England, France, the Low and Iberian Countries were consuming large quantities, but other parts of Europe used it far less.Braudel, pp. 224–227 At the same time, modern distinctions between sweet and savoury dishes were becoming general; meat dishes were much less likely to be sweetened than in the Middle Ages.
Drink