Garden salad à la Muiderslot

Whereas the medieval nobility enjoyed fish, meat, breads and cheeses, the simple farmers and commoners had to make do with tubers, bulbs, roots and cabbages. They depended largely on the vegetables they dug out of the ground with their bare hands, such as radishes, fennel, turnips and kale. These vegetables can still be found in the gardens of the Muiderslot today. They grow in the so-called “Warmoeshoef. The word “warmoes” is a combination of “warm” and “muss. The various vegetables, roots, bulbs, cabbages and tubers were eaten hot and literally cooked into mush.

New eating habits from Italy

The average medieval person was not keen on eating raw vegetables. But during the 16th and 17th centuries, this perception changed. This was probably due to the influence of eating habits from Italy, where they were less suspicious when it came to eating uncooked vegetables. So-called “garden salads” with raw vegetables and garden herbs were after a while unavoidable at dinner. Even the famous 17th century castle lord P.C. Hooft will have delighted his guests at dinner with salads of native and exotic vegetables, as well as fruits and herbs from his own garden. The gardens and orchard, created in the 17th century by writer and poet P.C.Hooft, can still be admired at the Muiderslot.