Give it Forth: Eat Like a King: Anglo-Saxon

The Steward’s Table

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Weekend Spotlight

Weekend Spotlight: Revisiting an Anglo-Saxon Feast

This week on Give It Forth, we’re returning to one of the earliest feast recreations in the archive: Ceilidh XVI (March 29, 2003), an Anglo-Saxon-inspired feast originally influenced by Tastes of Anglo-Saxon England by Mary Savelli.

After years of cooking, researching, and revisiting medieval foodways, it feels like the right time to return to this menu with fresh eyes. Expect updated research, modern redactions, feast notes, and perhaps a few surprises as we revisit these early recipes.

Mearh Smeamete – Sausage Casserole
Hlaf – Bread
Æppla Syfling – Apple Butter
Caules Wyrtmete – Cabbage Salad
Hriðer Smeamete – Stewed Beef
Beren Briw – Barley Polenta
Hunigbæe Moran – Honeyed Carrots
Sciellfisc – Shellfish*
Brǣdan Fisc – Fish Baked with Coriander (Apicius)
Pisan – Peas with Salt and Oil*
Sumerlio Mearhgehæcc – Summer Pudding***
Hunigæppel – Honey Nut Cakes

Some dishes may remain faithful to the original feast, while others may evolve as new sources and better historical understanding reshape the menu. Follow along as we revisit one of the oldest corners of the Give It Forth kitchen.

→ Explore the original feast post

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🏰 A Living Historical Kitchen
Give it Forth is continually updated as older recipes are retested, translated, reorganized, and expanded with historical context. You may occasionally notice new labels, revised categories, or updated pages as the archive grows.

Welcome to Give it Forth — a project devoted to reviving historical recipes and making them practical, accessible, and enjoyable for the modern kitchen.

Whether you're a reenactor, educator, feast cook, food historian, gardener, or simply curious about historic foodways, here are a few places to begin:

🍽 Feast Menus & Dayboards – Explore historical feast menus, event food, and dayboards.
📜 Harl. MS 279 – Dive into one of medieval England’s most fascinating recipe manuscripts.
🌿 Historical Herbal & Culinary Resources – Explore herbs, stillroom traditions, flower cookery, historical gardening, and culinary research sources.
🧂 Cooking Basics – Learn historical ingredients, spices, kitchen tools, and methods.

🍽 Browse the Feast Courses

Learn how historical meals were structured and explore dishes by course.

✨ Special Topics & Historic Curiosities

Comfits – Sugar-coated spices served as digestive aids and banquet sweets
Gilding – Adding shimmer, gold, and spectacle to historic food
Edible Art & Subtleties – Illusion foods, sugarwork, and feast theatrics
Jellies & Gelatin – Molded dishes, aspics, and Renaissance showpieces

🔎 Browse Recipes by Labels

Looking for something specific? Browse recipes by feast course, dish type, ingredient, era, use, and dietary notes.

👉 Visit the full Browse Recipes by Labels page.

Appetizers Pottage & Soups Main Dishes Sweets Drinks Anglo-Saxon Medieval Tudor