ABSTRACT
Until recently the culinary elite, those who can afford to spend money on gratifying their appetites, have tried to overcome the seasons in order to consume food unavailable to ordinary people. Medieval haute cuisine was extraordinarily exuberant, featuring brilliant color, lots of spices, trompe l'oeil effects and an immense number of animal and fish species either neglected or endangered. The medical treatises attributed to Hippocrates and their refinement and classification by Galen form the basis of a classical medical tradition handed over to medieval European physicians along with the elaborations and theories of Arab medical observers. The end of Lent was often celebrated with a ceremony involving the expulsion of herring. The Church made few rules about acceptable foods, but elaborated a system of restricting diet according to times of the year: time rather than content being the constraining factor.
