Cooking Vegetarian for Medieval Feasts

I have not been the cook for a feast in a long while, but one thing that always irked me was the meat-heavy planning that went into most feasts at that time. One of my proudest moments was the day a vegetarian couple came to me and said, "Oh, thank you so much, this was the first feast at which I have ever had enough to eat and had a variety of things to choose. And it was all good."

(That would be Stone Lion II, many years ago, and the last feast I planned. I've offered a few times since, but there are always others who are hungry for the position, and I let them have it.)

When I started expanding my website to include interests beyond illuminated manuscripts, I put up a small page of recipes that I had prepared as primary vegan proteins at feasts. Very simple legume dishes. It's rarely been accessed, according to the site statistics, but it nonetheless deserves saving, and it is here. I had a good time writing the recipes as if I was writing in period, and I think I may continue that tradition with original recipes meant for period cookery--another good reason to developed this blog's voice here. In any event, I cook these recipes all the time, and will move them here for safekeeping. Where they still won't be accessed much. ;-)

I recently found a link to another page that considers vegans and vegetarians in feast planning, Katherine Rowberd's Medieval food for vegetarians. I like this article, in that she has the same attitude I have: if you pay attention and plan, you can stuff everyone and no one will notice. She has a reasonable essay on planning and a selection of recipes to choose from for cooks who are not interested in researching. I'd eat feasts more often if more Head Cooks followed this advice.

Danial Meyers has listed out a whole swathe of piscetarian & vegetarian recipes on his site, here. Note that this is a site that considers fish as a vegetarian alternative (a la the use of pesco-vegetarian as a vegetarian dietary style). :-)


Gode Cookery has one wild mashed up table of contents for all recipes, here. Sift through them for recipes that support the more restrictive dietary styles. Some are completely medieval, others are not.