The Most Disgusting Junk Food In History

Whether you’ve got a taste for fried chicken or bags of mini powdered donuts, everyone loves junk food. But did you know lots of modern junk foods have their roots all the way back in the medieval period? And back then, they weren’t always so appetising. From proto pizzas to eel pies, let’s travel back in time and explore what medieval junk food was really like.

Meat Pies

The idea of wrapping meat in a bready crust has existed since Ancient Egypt, but the popularity of the hot treat reached a golden age during the medieval European period. As cities developed and streets started bustling, demand grew for quick, tasty food to grab on the go. And because many people didn’t have a very good hearth or kitchen of their own, they couldn’t make everything themselves. Hence, the medieval equivalent of a fast-food joint was born: the cookshop.

These street-facing eateries sold a variety of ready-made meals, but one of their most popular items was undoubtedly the meat pie. They were cheap, versatile, and portable meaning they appealed to all classes. Your average peasant didn’t eat much meat but might be able to get their hands on pork, beef or rabbit pies. A royal on the other hand could afford more exotic options like suckling pig, swan, beaver and even porpoise.

Strange meats weren’t the only difference between modern and medieval meat pies though. Unlike our fluffy pastry crusts, theirs were much thicker and served as a kind of bowl from which to eat the contents. Peasants were more inclined to eat that makeshift bowl, while the wealthy would only eat the innards.

But without modern methods of food preservation, what’s to say half the meat sold wasn’t rotten? Well, there’s a common misconception that it was, and cookshop owners simply disguised the taste of bad meat in their pies by adding a load of spices to them.

The thing is, in the Middle Ages spices weren’t nearly as easy to acquire as they are today. That meant they were way more expensive, making it more cost efficient to just buy fresh meat. Plus, people weren’t stupid. Do you really think it’d be that easy to cover up the smell and taste of rancid meat? If you've smelt gone off chicken before, you'll know it’s horrendous.

Waffles

There’s nothing better than waking up to the smell of fluffy waffles dripping with butter and syrup. Back in the Middle Ages, however, the sweet treats bore little resemblance to what we know today.

For starters, they weren’t called waffles, they had the much cuter name “oublies”. They were also much thinner and bigger, but despite containing largely the same ingredients eggs, flour, milk there was one huge difference. They had no sugar. Due to that, those early waffles were more akin to large crackers. And they were just as dry no maple syrup in sight!

But what they might’ve lacked in texture and flavor, they certainly made up for in style. Rather than the boring grid-like patterns of today, oublie irons in medieval Europe were much snazzier and often featured religious symbols, heraldic crests, and depictions of nature. Cooks would hold the irons over a fire with tongs until the batter sandwiched between them was cooked.

The Catholic Church were the ones that first introduced oublies to medieval Europe. Originally, they were served after meals as a symbolic final blessing. After the Church allowed people to make oublies at home though, the visual designs branched out to incorporate less biblical imagery. Oublies eventually became known as waffles by the 13th century, and a couple of centuries later the familiar grid pattern was developed.

Not all waffles were created equally though. Just like England’s infamous fish waffles, and those utterly abhorrent snacks were even worse than they first sound. A fifteenth century recipe book describes the instructions as follows: take the womb of a pike and boil it well. Afterwards, mash it in a mortar, add tender cheese, and grind them together.

Then take flour and egg whites and beat together. Following that, add sugar and ginger, and mix it all together to make your wafer batter. Finally, cook it into wafers and serve. The thought of waking up to the smell of fish womb and sugary cheese waffles sounds like a waking nightmare.

Pizza

Pizza is one of the most universally loved junk foods in existence. But has everyone’s favorite cheesy treat always been so good? Well it’s a difficult one. The first recorded use of the word “pizza” can be found in a contract from Italy all the way back in 997AD. In it, a local bishop grants access to lands on the stipulation of certain payments, including that the tenant provide 12 pizzas to him each Christmas and Easter.

While we know roughly when pizza became a term though, what exactly that 10th century treat looked like is less clear. It certainly wouldn’t have been anything like a Domino’s, it’s more likely to have been a simple flatbread with a few ingredients like olive oil and herbs.

Fast forward a few hundred years to the 15th century, and we get a much better idea of what the term had come to mean. Italian recipes from the time describe a dough made from flour, warm water and pork fat. Once that was baked, you could add fennel seeds, almonds, walnuts, sugar or honey.

Pretty far removed from what we might call pizza, right? What you definitely wouldn’t find, was tomatoes, that new world fruit wouldn’t be available in Europe until Spanish sailors brought it back in 1521. And cheese wouldn’t be popularized until 1889!

Cookies

Back in the 12th century though, they were actually prescribed to cure illnesses! A recipe from that time written by the esteemed German nun, Hildegard of Bingen, is called “Cookies of Joy”. She claimed the cookies dispelled evil and melancholy from the soul. Cookies tend to dispel melancholy from my soul anyway, but Hildegard was a renowned healer.

By adding spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, and clove she believed the fiery combination would “free the senses” and create a happy disposition. The type of wheat she used was also a key ingredient called spelt, which we now know is very healthy. Considering Hildegard ended up living until the grand age of 82, she was probably onto something. Is that an excuse to eat as many chocolate chip cookies as you like? Probably not. Cookies of Joy didn’t contain any sugar, butter, eggs, or livener, making them bitter and healthier than modern cookies.

Perpetual Stew

It’s 1389 and you’ve just sat down at the local inn. The owner walks up and you order some grub. What do you get? While today you might grab a burger and fries, back then you’d have been much more likely to enjoy a hardy stew. One that’s probably been cooking for weeks if not months.

A single pot of continually cooking soup, or Perpetual Stew, was a popular meal across Medieval Europe. Although the idea of eating potentially days old food might be frightening, it’s actually far safer than it sounds. Bacteria can’t survive in temperatures above 170 degrees Fahrenheit, meaning so long as the stew is kept at a steady simmer, nothing nasty will be able to grow.

Of course, you couldn’t keep the same ingredients stewing for days without them going off. But with food constantly being poured in and taken out for serving, it’s almost impossible for anything to sit in the pot long enough to expire. That constant adding of new ingredients also helps to enhance the flavor, making for a richer, more complex stew.

While back in medieval times a pot would usually be drained and cleaned for Lent, modern cooks have managed to keep stews going for decades. So long as its contents are regularly swapped out and topped up with fluids, a single pot could hypothetically continue forever. Imagine calling room service today and getting a soup that’s older than you are!

Pancakes

Throughout the Middle Ages, Christians fasted during Lent, the 40-day period before Easter. That meant they couldn’t eat meat or other animal products like butter and eggs, for the whole duration. So, the day before Lent Shrove Tuesday people indulged in the soon to be forbidden goodies. One of the most popular indulgences was a steaming pile of pancakes.

In many ways those old school goodies weren’t much different from today. Eggs, flour, butter and milk were mixed into a batter and cooked in a pan of hot oil. Rather than lashings of syrup and bacon though, people might add wine, herbs, or meatballs. However, one popular addition would come with unknowingly deadly consequences, tansies. Tansies are a fern-like herbaceous plant that were believed to have medicinal properties. A

As such, people would grind up a handful of the flowers and add their juice to the batter. There was just one tiny problem Tansy stems are poisonous. And it's not only tummy ache poisonous, it's like liver damage, brain damage. There are even stories of people losing their lives from as little as 10 drops of tansy oil. Even wilder, people didn’t even realize until relatively recently that tansy was still being added to pancakes right up until the early 20th century!

Custard

To anyone except the richest and most influential of the Medieval period, something as decadent as a custard tart would be a pipe dream. That’s because, unlike today, sugar was a much more expensive commodity in Europe, and the precise nature of cooking custard didn’t lend itself to a peasant’s kitchen.

But let’s say you’ve been invited to dine with the king, what could you expect before your first bite of the egg and milk concoction? Well, you might notice a slightly odd flavor. Don’t worry that’ll just be the bone marrow. Bone marrow was added into some recipes to provide extra fat to the dish, melting into it like butter.

It’s actually a tasty addition! While we’re used to seeing yellow and white custard though, the decadent rich of the Middle Ages enjoyed it in red and black too and instead of artificial colorings, they used sandalwood and boiled blood respectively. If the sound of bony, bloody custard gets your tastebuds tingling you’d have loved being in the medieval elite, with many a custard pie served at royal parties.

French Toast

This might be a shock to many of you, but the iconic breakfast snack French Toast is not, in fact, French. Indeed, the idea of taking bread dipped in egg and frying it in butter or oil has been around since as far back as ancient Rome. However, it really took off throughout medieval Europe, probably due to the cheapness and simplicity of the treat.

Not that all the recipes sound as delicious as the one you’re familiar with. One from the 14th century English cookbook, The Forme of Cury, involved soaking the bread in wine, frying it in grease, and serving it with candied coriander seeds. Is it just me or does that sound disgusting?

Over in France, things were more recognizable, with one version from the 1300s nearly identical to its modern equivalent aside from being fried in pork lard. Rosewater was also added to some recipes, which sounds strange to us now, but was fairly prevalent at the time. More oddly, that perfumed French Toast may have been served with sugar alongside savory dishes like game meat.

Gingerbread

Nothing warms the soul more than the comforting taste of a gingerbread, something that apparently medieval Europeans agreed with. According to a popular story, an Armenian monk called Gregory was responsible for first bringing the delectable sweet to the West. Apparently, he travelled from his homeland and settled in France in 991AD, as a hermit.

While there, he lived in a cave and became a popular holy man, offering hospitality to locals and making a special cake for them comprised of honey and spices. That is what we’ve come to know as gingerbread. How true the tale is, we can’t be sure. But we do know that early form of gingerbread would’ve been a far cry from the hardy people shaped pieces we’re used to.

It’s likely that Gregory’s gingerbread was more akin to “lebkuchen”, an early German form created by Franconian monks in the 13th century. Rather than hard and crisp, lebkuchen is soft, dense, and nutty with no ginger in sight! One of the earliest English recipes that does go by “Gyngerbrede” is from the 15th century, yet it still doesn’t contain ginger!

It does have honey, saffron, pepper, grated bread, and cinnamon though making it something only the wealthy were able to afford. That strange concoction was left to set without baking until it became stiff. By that time, it seems gingerbread was regularly served at the end of a feast, during what’s called the “void”.

It was thought to both aid digestion and sweeten people’s breath. None of those variations came in people form though. In fact, the first documented “gingerbread men” didn’t arise until the 16th century, where they were served at extravagant dinners thrown by Queen Elizabeth the First. Nowadays, gingerbread men aren’t quite so opulent.

Lamprey Pie

Junk food has never exactly been known for its health benefits. But few foods are so decadent that they might’ve killed a king. For example, lamprey pie. If you’re unfamiliar, lampreys are jawless parasitic fish that look like they’d be more appropriate in your nightmares than on your dinner table. Yet, that gruesome dish was enjoyed by everyone from the peasantry to the royals of medieval England.

A couple of reasons for its popularity was its inexpensiveness compared to meat, and the fact it could be eaten during Lent. Best of all, despite looking horrific, lamprey actually tastes much closer to beef short rib than fish. In fact, the pie became so popular with the English monarchy that it became a tradition for a Lamprey Pie to be presented to every new King and Queen.

Apparently not if your name was King Henry I. Multiple people including Charles Dickens have documented that the monarch died of indigestion and fever brought on by gobbling up too many of the blood-sucking fish. It’s true, lamprey can be poisonous if not prepared properly. But many kings are known to have over-indulged in the fish without issue.

Indeed, recent research suggests that Henry is more likely to have died from a sudden infection than lamprey pie addiction. If that good news has motivated you to go out and get some, you’re out of luck. Due to habitat degradation, sadly lampreys have become increasingly scarce across Europe. Maybe the next coronation could start with gifting the king a bucket of fried chicken.

Sausage

Just like how a modern New Yorker might stop by their local food cart to grab a dirty water dog, people were buying sausages as far back as the Middle Ages. The idea of preserving dried or smoked meat inside intestinal casings wasn’t new even then, with records of the process dating all the way back to Ancient Greece.

But by medieval times, hundreds of sausage varieties had been developed depending on where in Europe you lived. Indeed, anything from pork to porpoise could’ve been stuffed inside the intestines. Although that particular delicacy was reserved for nobles, with one English recipe describing porpoise blood and oatmeal being mixed together to make black pudding.

The oldest known recipe for that German classic dates back to 1432, and interestingly, government guidelines from that year state that any sausage makers not using the purest meat would be fined a day’s wages! So there was some quality control even despite how long ago it was. With contemporary images of sausage making surviving from all over Europe, it’s clear it was a very popular convenience food. And in contrast to a lot of the junk food in this article, has remained relatively unchanged throughout history.

Cheesecake

Cheesecake has been around for zonks, it was even served to Greek athletes during the first Olympic games! But that creamy treat really came into its own in the Middle Ages. A popular sweet of King Richard II in the 14th century, the Sambocade is considered one of the oldest forms of cheesecake in England.

Unlike its Greek counterpart which used a type of goat’s cheese called Mizithra, the Sambocade uses cottage cheese. There’s also the addition of a crust, setting the standard for all cheesecakes moving forward. And because we’re talking about the Middle Ages here, chefs often threw in some rose water and dried elderflowers. Even more oddly though, one contemporary cookbook specifically recommends the dessert to, “women of the night”.

Mock Egg

We’ve touched upon dietary restrictions during Lent, but it’s hard to describe just how restrictive they’d have been for the average person in the Middle Ages. Sick of not being able to eat meat and dairy, some chefs resorted to imitating the forbidden foods as best they could.

Enter the bewilderingly popular mock egg. A 1430 recipe book instructs chefs to fill an empty eggshell with a mixture of almond milk based jelly around a crunchy almond center, then dye the middle yellow with saffron and ginger. I don’t know about you, but that really doesn’t sound like an egg to me. As far as texture went, it would’ve more closely resembled baby food. Yet, it was popular.

That’s because people were desperate during fast days for anything resembling their normal diet. Some chefs would take pink salmon and white pike roe and stripe the two together to create imitation bacon, whether it actually tasted anything like bacon I’m highly doubtful. Other chefs took it a step further and advocated cooking up dolphins despite them technically being mammals.

One poor 15th century school kid wrote this: “Thou will not believe how weary I am of fish… For I have eat none other than salt fish this Lent, and it has engendered so much phlegm within me that it stops my pipes that I can scarcely speak nor breathe.”

Pretzels

Whether you like your pretzels bite sized or big and drizzled with mustard, that salty snack has been a not so healthy staple of the German diet for centuries. In fact, many believe its origins go back to the start of the Middle Ages, around the 7th century.

According to legend, an Italian monk created pretzels to give to children as treats for learning their prayers. The iconic 3 holes are thought to represent the Christian symbol of the Holy Trinity, with each being the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Whether they originated in Italy or not, by the 12th century pretzels had become ingrained in German baking culture.

Part of the reason they became so widespread is how easy and inexpensive they are to make. Cooked using a simple mixture of water, flour and salt, they could be whipped up and eaten any time of the year, by anyone, even during Lent.

At their cultural apex pretzels were even used as good luck charms during wedding ceremonies and would be pulled apart by the bride and groom like we do now with wishbones. Indeed, it’s amazing how little those doughy delights have changed over the years, if you went to the bakery now and bought one, it’d be like looking back in time.

Mac And Cheese

Mac and cheese the gold standard in the world of junk food, at least in my humble opinion. But did that holy mac-rimony exist for our medieval ancestors? Pasta itself can be traced as far back as Ancient China and Greece, and we know it was eaten in Italy since at least the 4th century BC. It wasn’t until the Middle Ages however that it really picked up popularity across Europe and towards the tail end, we see our first taste of mac and cheese.

A 14th-century Italian recipe for “de lasanis” calls for squares of pasta to be layered with grated cheese. As the name suggests, that is more like lasagne than the mac ‘n’ cheese we know but it’s not far off! A little later, an altered version of the dish called Macrows made its way to England. That recipe uses strands of pasta instead of sheets, along with grated cheese and butter.

Simple, but you can’t deny that sounds good. And because of the cheapness of the ingredients, we can confidently assume that was a dish eaten by low and high class alike. Indeed, in the centuries after the 14th macaroni became an increasingly popular street food, especially in Naples. There, the poorest of society would stand and eat strands of the stuff by hand, often pulling quite a crowd to witness the oddity. They’d have lost their minds if they’d been told about Kraft.

I hope you were amazed at the most disgusting junk food in History! Thanks for reading.