Seigiau, gwirodau gwridog,
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FoodThe provision of food was very important to the poets. Foods of all kinds are mentioned, including bread, different cuts of meat, various vegetables and fruits, as well as spices and herbs.
The poets also highlight how much food is served at a feast. There would be several different meals or courses, as shown on the table at Cochwillan (see Recreating Cochwillan). A word frequently used in the poetry for a plateful of food or a course within the feast is saig or seigiau. The word ansodd or ansawdd is also used in the same way, sometimes meaning ‘feast’, generally, or sometimes, more specifically, the delicacies of the feast.[1] Guto’r Glyn received amryw fodd ar ansoddau ‘various kinds of delicacies’ (poem 97.39) at the feast of Sieffrai Cyffin at Oswestry castle and he describes Valle Crucis abbey as Llys rydd ym y sydd, ansoddau ‘Mine is an open court, delicacies for a great multitude’ (poem 113.1). He also had many different dishes at Penrhyn:
Saith gwrs a welais i’th gog.
dishes, red liquors,
I saw seven courses by your cook. Bibliography[1]: For a more detailed discussion, see A.M. Edwards, ‘“Food and Wine for all the World”: Food and Drink in Fifteenth-century Poetry’, in D.F. Evans, B.J. Lewis and A. Parry Owen (eds), ‘Gwalch Cywyddau Gwŷr’: Essays on Guto’r Glyn and Fifteenth-Century Wales (Aberystwyth, 2013). |
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