<P> The common method of grinding and mashing ingredients into pastes and the many potages and sauces has been used as an argument that most adults within the medieval nobility lost their teeth at an early age, and hence were forced to eat nothing but porridge, soup and ground - up meat . The image of nobles gumming their way through multi-course meals of nothing but mush has lived side by side with the contradictory apparition of the "mob of uncouth louts (disguised as noble lords) who, when not actually hurling huge joints of greasy meat at one another across the banquet hall, are engaged in tearing at them with a perfectly healthy complement of incisors, canines, bicuspids and molars". </P> <P> The numerous descriptions of banquets from the later Middle Ages concentrated on the pageantry of the event rather than the minutiae of the food, which was not the same for most banqueters as those choice mets served at the high table . Banquet dishes were apart from mainstream of cuisine, and have been described as "the outcome of grand banquets serving political ambition rather than gastronomy; today as yesterday" by historian Maguelonne Toussant - Samat . </P> <P> Cookbooks, or more specifically, recipe collections, compiled in the Middle Ages are among the most important historical sources for medieval cuisine . The first cookbooks began to appear towards the end of the 13th century . The Liber de coquina, perhaps originating near Naples, and the Tractatus de modo preparandi have found a modern editor in Marianne Mulon, and a cookbook from Assisi found at Châlons - sur - Marne has been edited by Maguelonne Toussaint - Samat . Though it is assumed that they describe real dishes, food scholars do not believe they were used as cookbooks might be today, as a step - by - step guide through the cooking procedure that could be kept at hand while preparing a dish . Few in a kitchen, at those times, would have been able to read, and working texts have a low survival rate . </P> <P> The recipes were often brief and did not give precise quantities . Cooking times and temperatures were seldom specified since accurate portable clocks were not available and since all cooking was done with fire . At best, cooking times could be specified as the time it took to say a certain number of prayers or how long it took to walk around a certain field . Professional cooks were taught their trade through apprenticeship and practical training, working their way up in the highly defined kitchen hierarchy . A medieval cook employed in a large household would most likely have been able to plan and produce a meal without the help of recipes or written instruction . Due to the generally good condition of surviving manuscripts it has been proposed by food historian Terence Scully that they were records of household practices intended for the wealthy and literate master of a household, such as the Ménagier de Paris from the late 14th century . Over 70 collections of medieval recipes survive today, written in several major European languages . </P>

How did they cook meat in medieval times