But, What Can I Eat?!

Gluten-Free Breads in the Middle Ages

We, as modern humans, love to think we are unique and special and that our health issues are modern problems caused by, well, modern problems. Having been diagnosed in 2010 with a gluten sensitivity/celiacs disease (not the same thing, but that is personal medical history I do not wish to divulge at this time), all of the available material at that time denied the existence of one (gluten-sensitivity) and expressed that celiacs disease was a modern ailment caused by a lack of crop rotation combined with genetically modifying the grains to produce more yield with a better gluten content [source: all of my doctors and friends at that time].

In the years since, science learned that Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity (NCGS)—originally a diagnosis for those who did not test positive for celiacs disease, but still had the same symptoms—is a real and serious condition.[1] Often masking as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), among other conditions, NCGS is greatly misunderstood, underdiagnosed, but more prevalent than celiac disease.[2]

The charity organization Beyond Celiac[3] provides a timeline of celiac disease which dates to 1-100CE (which is also supported by Losowsky, 2008[4]). Gasbarrini et. al[5] discussed the first documented presence of a human leukocyte antigen haplotype in some female remains from an archaeological site in Cosa, Italy. According to Gasbarrini et. al,[6] this woman was approximately 18-20 years old with signs of malnutrition, shorter than average stature for her age, clear signs of bone fragility, and osteoporosis. The indications listed are well-documented as signs and symptoms of celiac disease.

But, what is celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity? How does it impact people who have been diagnosed with it? What can we in the SCA do to embrace and assist those so afflicted? And, maybe more importantly, how can we make it period?! Worry not! This documentation will serve as a starting point for in-period substitutions and provide examples of where and how to make changes. Before running deep into the world of gluten-free feast planning, let’s start with the basics of what celiac disease is.

Celiac and Non-celiac gluten senstitivy

During the 2nd Century CE, Aretaeus of Cappadocia led a revival of Hippocrates’ teachings in Greece.[7] Naturally, Aretaeus was a Pneumatist, or a follower of the belief that health was maintained by vital air (pneuma), and that maintenance depended upon the balance of the four humors. Though he adhered to the teachings of the pneumatic school of medicine, Aretaeus, in practice, was quite eclectic, choosing to use various medicinal methods from many different schools.[8] Beyond generating what modern medicine considers the model descriptions of diseases such as pleurisy, tetanus, epilespsy, and diphtheria, Aretaeus also differentiated between spinal and cerebral paralyses, gave diabetes its name,[9] and defined and named celiac disease.[10]

Koiliakos is the name Aretaeus gave to celiac disease. It comes from the Greek word for abdomen, koelia, and was described as follows:

If the stomach be irretentive of the food and if it pass through undigested and crude, and nothing ascends into the body, we call such persons coeliacs[11].

The ancient definition of celiac disease is grand, if you can piece everything together. It was not until around 1888 that Samuel Gee provided a clearer description of the disease[12] and suggested dietary treatment for it. Wim Dicke’s doctoral thesis in 1950 suggested that an afflicted person remove wheat, rye, and oats from the diet and noted that the removal of the gluten proteins found in those grains led to a dramatic and significant improvement in the health of the individuals[13].

But, what is celiac disease? “Celiac disease is a serious autoimmune disease that occurs in genetically predisposed people where the ingestion of gluten leads to damage in the small intestine. It is estimated to affect 1 in 100 people worldwide, but only about 30% are properly diagnosed.”[14]

So, what is non-celiac gluten sensitivity? “People with non-celiac gluten/wheat sensitivity experience symptoms similar to those of celiac disease, which resolve when gluten is removed from the diet. However, they do not test positive for celiac disease.”[15]

…and what is gluten? Simply, gluten is a protein that is found in wheat, barley, rye, and triticale—a cross of rye and barley—that works as a binding agent and provides a light and fluffy texture to breads and bread products[16]. Gluten is the reason you knead dough and let it rise when you use yeast.

In modern times, when a recipe calls for flour, we assume white, all-purpose flour, unless it specifically says otherwise in the instructions. However, in medieval times, there was no such beast as “all-purpose flour,” and there were also many different types of bread!

Medieval Breads & bread making

Not all grains are created equal, nor were all grains available to all areas. In fact, it was during the Roman era when wheat was primarily the source of flour for breads on the tables of peasants; however, during the 4th to 8th centuries CE, there was a notable shift from wheat crops to rye crops.[17]

As is wont to do with many areas of medieval life, the whitest of breads indicated purity and wealth as it meant the flour was not mixed, or adulterated—something only the rich could afford. Black bread—breads made with pure rye or a mix of rye and wheat flours—were the breads of the peasants.[18] Even in food, we can see evidence of both classism and racism within the peoples of medieval Europe!

I feel, personally, that it is important to note that wheat has not now nor ever been the only grain used in the baking of bread. Millet, sorghum, amaranth, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, and more have been documented in various cookery books from various time periods as the flours of choice.

Breads came in many different forms. It was a primary food for the poor and a sign of status for the rich. The ultra white bread the rich sought provided little to no nutritional value, unlike the heartier breads of the poor.[19] Grains, too, were dependent upon not only climate and soil quality, but also the socioeconomic situations of the area and time.[20][21][22] Wheat, rye, and barley—distinctly not gluten-free—were the predominant grains available throughout most of Europe. Grains such as millet, sorghum, amaranth, and buckwheat were also available during the latter part of the 8th to 10th centuries, CE, and beyond.[23] [24]

As is true with many dishes, breads varied from household to household, status to status, and region to region. Medieval Recipes[25] offers several types of breads available during the middle-middle ages, including pandemain, wastel, cocket, cheat, tourte, horse bread, and clapbread.

Pandemain was considered the best of the best—the whitest of white breads, the purest of pure—because the flour was made of a singular grain (in this case, wheat) and sifted 2 to 3 times.

Wastel was a high quality bread, made from very fine flour and had a consistency more like cake than bread.

Cocket was more like a cracker.

Cheat was a whole wheat bread with the bran removed from it.

Tourte, or brown bread, contained the husk as well as the flour.

Horse bread was made with beans, peas, and any grain that was available in the moment.

Clapbread was made with barley, also known as oatcakes.

Of course, these were breads that were primarily in central Europe. There is a case to be made for breads from other parts of Europe, Northern Africa, Central and Eastern Asia, as well as Asia Minor and the Middle East. Grains were different throughout, so what a person in 14th Century Germany ate could have been different from what a person in 14th Century Rus’ ate.

Podpłomyk – Traditional Slavic flatbread

The breads that are used as examples in the display are traditional Slavic loaves since my persona is of primarily Slavic descent. Podpłomyk [Polish] is one of the earliest forms of Slavic breads. It is a flatbread traditionally baked on an open fire.[26] The basic recipe consists of flour, water, and salt, then buttered or smeared with słonina, a type of medieval lard. In the recipe prepared for the control group, I used 1 cup of all-purpose flour, 1/3 cup of water, a small pinch of salt, and a small pinch of caraway seeds. Traditionally, podpłomyk would be served with honey or konfitury, a dry jam popular in Kyivan-Rus’ and other Slavic regions.[27] Of course, in the Novgorod region of Kyvan-Rus’, rye was the primary grain of the winter and barley the grain of the spring.[28]

Buckwheat, a gluten-free grain, has become popular in Russia, with Russia being one of the leading producers of Buckwheat for the world (along with China and Kazakhstan). Buckwheat was first domesticated and cultivated in inland Southeast Asia around 6000 BCE. If Wikipedia is to be trusted, the oldest remains of buckwheat cultivation found in China, so far, date back to about 2600BCE and pollen found in Japan dates back as early as 4000BCE.[29] According to Rosenberg with BBC News, “Legend has it that, 1,000 years ago, when Greek monks spread Christianity to Russia, they brought with them more than just the Bible…they brought buckwheat.”[30]

Buckwheat reached the European continent in approximately the 15th Century, CE; however, given the Mongol invasion in the 13th Century—and the fact that the Mongol empire grew from the Chinese peoples—it is entirely possible that the Mongols, not the Greeks brought the grain to the area known as Kyvan-Rus’. The Christianization of the tribes of Kyvan-Rus’ began almost as soon as they were united under the Finnic King, Rurik[31] around 860CE. The Mongol invasion began around 1232CE, finally falling in 1242CE.

Other gluten-free grains that could have been available in the Kyvan-Rus’ area during the early parts of the Federation include millet, though I have been strongly advised not to make bread with millet flour alone (something about the taste being bitter, I’m not sure). To that end, I chose to do a blend of buckwheat and millet flours in a 2:1 ratio for 1 cup of flour, 1/3 cup of water, a small pinch of salt, and a small pinch of caraway seeds.

[notes on texture here]

Medieval Peasant bread – generic, rustic loaf

Google is a wonderful thing and, generally speaking, you can find just about anything on the internet. I have been wanting to make an artisan loaf of bread that was gluten-free to enjoy at SCA events and such, but I just hadn’t taken the time to actually sit down and work with the recipes. Well, enter The Last-Minute Apprentice (this is an actual website that will have a lot of my A&S documentation available as I do my projects and such)! Nothing screams “Arts & Sciences Project Time” like having your Laurel ask you a bunch of questions about gluten-free flours a week and a half before Spring Coronet! So, a quick search for recipes landed me with a recipe from AlexandraCooks.com.[32] Of course, this recipe calls for modern, gluten-free AP flour (and is also the gluten-free loaves I provided for Feast); however, I am trying to demonstrate how this bread could have been made in Central or Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages.

The actual, gluten-free recipe is as follows:

4 cups (500 g) gluten-free flour

2 teaspoons (10 g) kosher salt

2 1/4 teaspoons (8 g) instant yeast

2 cups (455 g) lukewarm water

2 tablespoons (42 g) honey

2 eggs lightly beaten

2 tablespoons (28 g) olive oil or grapeseed or other neutral oil

1 teaspoon (4 g) white wine or cider vinegar

softened unsalted butter for greasing

There is a rise time of 30-45 minutes (and up to 2 hours, if necessary). You will bake it at 425F for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 375F and bake 17-20 minutes more.

I chose to make this recipe with regular AP flour for the display (it will be made with GF AP flour for the Feast) and, again, a blend of flours that would have been available to the Central and Eastern Europeans of the Middle Ages.

[recipe]

[textural differences]

Conclusion

[1] Barbaro MR, Cremon C, Stanghellini V, Barbara G. Recent advances in understanding non-celiac gluten sensitivity. F1000Res. 2018 Oct 11;7:F1000 Faculty Rev-1631. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.15849.1. PMID: 30363819; PMCID: PMC6182669.

[2] Ibid.

[3] https://www.beyondceliac.org/celiac-disease/celiac-history/

[4] Losowsky MS. A history of coeliac disease. Dig Dis. 2008;26(2):112-20. doi: 10.1159/000116768. Epub 2008 Apr 21. PMID: 18431060.

[5] Gasbarrini G, Rickards O, Martínez-Labarga C, Pacciani E, Chilleri F, Laterza L, Marangi G, Scaldaferri F, Gasbarrini A. Origin of celiac disease: how old are predisposing haplotypes? World J Gastroenterol. 2012 Oct 7;18(37):5300-4. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v18.i37.5300. PMID: 23066327; PMCID: PMC3468865.

[6] Ibid.

[7] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aretaeus-of-Cappadocia

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] https://www.beyondceliac.org/celiac-disease/celiac-history/

[11] Ibid.

[12] Losowsky, 2008.

[13] Ibid.

[14] https://celiac.org/about-celiac-disease/what-is-celiac-disease/

[15] https://celiac.org/about-celiac-disease/related-conditions/non-celiac-wheat-gluten-sensitivity/

[16] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/what-is-gluten-and-what-does-it-do

[17] https://www.medieval.eu/from-wheat-to-rye-agriculture-and-climate-in-europe-during-late-antiquity/

[18] https://www.engr.psu.edu/mtah/articles/flower_of_wheat.htm

[19] Ibid.

[20] https://www.medieval-recipes.com/medieval-food/bread/

[21] https://thorngrove.wordpress.com/2007/02/21/a_quick_comment/

[22] https://www.medieval.eu/from-wheat-to-rye-agriculture-and-climate-in-europe-during-late-antiquity/

[23] https://www.medieval-recipes.com/medieval-food/bread/

[24] https://thorngrove.wordpress.com/2007/02/21/a_quick_comment/

[25] https://www.medieval-recipes.com/medieval-food/bread/

[26] https://polishfoodies.com/podplomyki-polish-flat-bread-recipe/

[27] https://seedsandroots.net/suhi-konfitury-kyyivskym-sposobom-suche-konfitury-sposobem-kijowskim/

[28] https://www.oocities.org/medievalnovgorod/nov05.html

[29] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckwheat

[30] https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30248999

[31] https://www.worldhistory.org/Kievan_Rus/ - note there is debate on whether Rus’ was founded by Norsemen or by Slavs.

[32] https://alexandracooks.com/2014/03/21/gluten-free-peasant-bread/