While none of us would like to travel back in time to the Middle Ages, there is one life hack we can borrow from our medieval counterparts. Since the first “true” fridges were made in the early 20th century, medieval people didn’t have many ways to preserve food. Common food preservation practices included using salt to dry out meat or to dunk things in vinegar and syrup to stop them from spoiling.
Another common practice was soup. When vegetables, bread, and meat were going off, these folk boiled them in water to save them before they went completely rancid. As weird as it sounds, everything that could spoil could go into a pot, meaning there were plenty of interesting recipes around but probably few we’d dare taste.
When it Rained it Reeked
Since the first municipal sewage systems were not built until the 1840s, waste removal of human and animal excrement in medieval towns was abysmal. As we’ve said, it was nonexistent. Of course, castles had moats, others had the Thames, but peasants in fields dumped their chamber pots out in the pathways.
As disgusting as that was, the rain made it worse. Dirt and cobblestone streets became rivers of sludge and urine, washing the filthy stench through town. It really was as bad as it sounds. And we don't mean it took light flooding to cause this; any amount of moisture on the ground exacerbated the issue.
The Stench of the Thames
In all of Medieval England, few places were as rancid and smelly as the banks of the Thames near “Butcher’s Bridge.” Butchers of the day would take bundles of refuge and carcasses to the bridge and dump it in the river. Animal entrails, stinky, diseased animal parts and blood littered the bridge. For 500 years this practice continued.
Complaints in 1369 had little effect, a law against it changed nothing. And the stench of rotting flesh made it so that no one could live there. However, not only butchers fouled the waters of the Thames, every Englishman in proximity would dump sewage and waste into the river.
Unappetizing Love Potions
In the 21st century, we have dating apps and aromatic fragrances to combat the single blues. In the Middle Ages, they had love potions, sweaty cakes, and an obvious lack of personal hygiene by today’s standards. Of course, there was not just one love potion recipe back then, but a common one was sweaty cakes.
As unromantic as it sounds, if a person back then were vying to capture the attention of their one true love, it wouldn’t be uncommon to see them baking a cake using ingredients like blood, sweat, and other bodily fluids. The rationale behind these “sweaty cakes” was that once the intended sweetheart munched on these “bodily” ingredients, they’d fall madly in love with the owner of the ingredients. It’s probably safer to skip these.
Soap
A lot of us think of the Dark Ages as not only being “dark” but also dirty – and with their personal hygiene practices, we’re not wrong. Though interestingly, our medieval ancestors did use soap. Of course, it’s not the same as what modern people call soap. Typical ingredients for soap were wood ash and animal fat.
Like modern soap, they were also fragranced with different sweet-smelling herbs like sage and thyme. The use of soap goes back right to the 9th century in Europe, so once people exited the darkest of the Dark Ages (Early Medieval Period), they came up with a basic form of soap and started practicing the most fundamental forms of personal hygiene.