Preliminary study of food residues and cooking practices in the Medieval Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena (Central Italy)

Pecci, Alessandra; Grassi, Francesca

doi:10.21630/maa.2016.67.08

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…The presence of methyl dehydroabietic acid indicates that the resin has been heated with wood, likely through the production of pitch or tar [ 101 , 102 ]. Pitch or pine tar may have been stored and prepared in the cooking pots for use as a sealant, adhesive or to waterproof boats as observed in other medieval contexts [ 89 , 90 , 103 ]. There are also accounts of dipping the stem of fruits in pitch (grapes and pears) to preserve them [ 42 , 104 ].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, analytical procedures for the identification of small organic acids provided crucial evidence that fruits were incorporated in everyday culinary practices. A multifaceted analytical approach, including the identification of fruit products in domestic containers, has had its beginning in small corpus analysis of medieval ceramics [89,90,103,114]. This research has for the first time applied these methods systematically to a large corpus of samples.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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New insights into early medieval Islamic cuisine: Organic residue analysis of pottery from rural and urban Sicily

et al. 2021

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Sicily, during the 9th-12th century AD, thrived politically, economically, and culturally under Islamic political rule and the capital of Palermo stood as a cultural and political centre in the Mediterranean Islamic world. However, to what extent the lifeways of the people that experienced these regimes were impacted during this time is not well understood, particularly those from lesser studied rural contexts. This paper presents the first organic residue analysis of 134 cooking pots and other domestic containers dating to the 9th -12th century in order to gain new insights into the culinary practices during this significant period. Ceramics from three sites in the urban capital of Palermo and from the rural town of Casale San Pietro were analysed and compared. The multi-faceted organic residue analysis identified a range of commodities including animal products, vegetables, beeswax, pine and fruit products in the ceramics, with a complex mixing of resources observed in many cases, across all four sites and ceramic forms. Alongside the identification of commodities and how they were combined, new light has been shed on the patterning of resource use between these sites. The identification of dairy products in calcite wares from the rural site of Casale San Pietro and the absence of dairy in ceramics from the urban centre of Palermo presents interesting questions regarding the role of rural sites in food consumption and production in Islamic Sicily. This is the first time organic residue analysis of ceramics has been used to explore foodways in a medieval multi-faith society and offers new pathways to the understanding of pottery use and resources that were prepared, consumed and combined, reflecting cuisine in different socio-economic environments within the pluralistic population of medieval Sicily.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New insights into early medieval Islamic cuisine: Organic residue analysis of pottery from rural and urban Sicily

et al. 2021

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“…A recent study of Islamic cooking pots and other domestic containers from 9th-12th century contexts in Sicily has shown that a wide range of animal products, fruits and vegetables were processed, and has yielded important insight into the use of resources in both urban and rural contexts under the same regimes [2]. Previously, residue analysis has been undertaken on pottery from Italian 12th-13th century contexts [3][4][5][6][7], and this approach has also been used to examine the impact of the Norman conquest of England on culinary habits, with particular focus on lesser represented rural populations [8]. However, to date, no study has assessed the use of pottery vessels in post-Islamic contexts in Sicily.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cuisine in transition? Organic residue analysis of domestic containers from 9th-14th century Sicily

et al. 2023

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From the 9th to 14th centuries AD, Sicily experienced a series of rapid and quite radical changes in political regime, but the impact of these regime changes on the lives of the people that experienced them remains largely elusive within the historical narrative. We use a multi-faceted lipid residue approach to give direct chemical evidence of the use of 248 everyday domestic ceramic containers from Islamic and post-Islamic contexts in western Sicily to aid our understanding of daily habits throughout this period of political change. A range of commodities was successfully identified, including animal fats, vegetable products, fruit products (potentially including wine) and plant resins. The study highlights the complexity of residues in early medieval Mediterranean society as, in many cases, mixtures of commodities were observed reflecting sequential cooking events and/or the complex mixtures reflective of medieval recipes. However, overall, there were no clear changes in the composition of the residues following the imposition of Norman control over the island and through subsequent periods, despite some differences between urban centres and rural sites. Thus, lending to the idea that post-Islamic populations largely flourished and benefited from the agricultural systems, resources and recipes left by their predecessors.

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Multiproxy approach to the study of Medieval food habits in Tuscany (central Italy)

Buonincontri

Pecci

Pasquale

et al. 2016

Archaeol Anthropol Sci

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A multiproxy approach based on archaeobotanical, organic residue and isotopic analyses was carried out on materials from 12 Medieval archaeological sites in Tuscany (central Italy), in order to provide a diachronic overview of local diet in rural and urban sites from the mid-eighth to the fourteenth centuries AD. Archaeobotanical analyses were applied to 130,578 seeds/fruits, residue analyses involved 87 samples from cooking and storing vessels, whereas analyses of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes included 63 human bone samples and 26 animal specimens. The results indicate that from the mid-eighth century AD, crop production was of high quality similar, to that of the Roman Age. The main cultivations were naked wheats, barley and horse bean, a diversity that attests the technological skills reached by Tuscan peasants during the whole Middle Ages. Different cereals and pulse abundantly supplemented the diet. This strategy not only ensured peasants’ subsistence in the mid-eighth century AD, minimizing the risks of environmental adversities, but it also increased crop production – from the mid-ninth century AD on, for the revived markets and trade. Between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries AD, C4 plants had a dominant role in the peasants’ diet, when the wheat production was strictly collected first by the landlords and then by the cities for their own needs. Crop production was integrated by swine farming; animal meat consumption is well documented in rural and urban populations from the ninth century AD. Wine and olive oil, considered important elements of diet in Medieval Tuscany, have a very scarce presence, but they are recorded for later periods, mainly in urban areas and in higher social classes, such as the religious and aristocratic ones. In fact, only between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries AD was the great expansion of olive groves and vineyards recorded, when cities and urban populations claim to have access to these luxury foods

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Preliminary study of food residues and cooking practices in the Medieval Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena (Central Italy)

Cited by 4 publications

References 3 publications

New insights into early medieval Islamic cuisine: Organic residue analysis of pottery from rural and urban Sicily

New insights into early medieval Islamic cuisine: Organic residue analysis of pottery from rural and urban Sicily

Cuisine in transition? Organic residue analysis of domestic containers from 9th-14th century Sicily

Multiproxy approach to the study of Medieval food habits in Tuscany (central Italy)

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