Originally served at Ceilidh XVI on March 29, 2003. Updated and expanded with additional historical research in 2026.
Caules Wyrtmete: Reconstructing an Anglo-Saxon Cabbage Salad from Medical Texts
When I reconstructed the menu for Ceilidh XVI in 2003, one of the simplest dishes on the table was a cabbage salad called Caules Wyrtmete. Made with cabbage, peas, leeks, vinegar, oil, and cheese, it seemed a practical addition to an Anglo-Saxon feast. Yet revisiting the sources revealed something far more interesting: the strongest evidence for this dish was not a cookbook, but a medical manuscript.
Rather than a direct copy of a surviving Anglo-Saxon recipe, Caules Wyrtmete explores the space where food, medicine, garden produce, and feast reconstruction meet. The result is a dish that asks one of the most interesting questions in historical cookery: can a feast dish be responsibly reconstructed from a remedy?
What began as a simple cabbage salad eventually led through Anglo-Saxon medicine, Roman dietary theory, and a remedy for dysentery preserved in one of England's most important medical manuscripts. The deeper the investigation went, the less the dish resembled a salad at all.
