King Alfred Comes To Tea

Anglo-Saxon kings probably didn’t do much cooking and one of the best-known stories about Alfred the Great (849 – 899AD) recounts a disaster in the kitchen.  Never mind the fact that he successfully defended his kingdom, Wessex, against Viking invasion, that he united the English and that he is the only English monarch to have ever been given the epithet, “the Great”; no, what everyone knows about Alfred is that he burnt the cakes!  Continue reading “King Alfred Comes To Tea”

An Anglo-Saxon Banquet: Tucking in with Beowulf

Anglo-Saxon literature provides little material for the interested cook.  Emphasising, as it does, the heroic deeds of men, little space is devoted to the lives of women or to the domestic sphere.  

Continue reading “An Anglo-Saxon Banquet: Tucking in with Beowulf”