A Different Kind Of Feast: Cornwell’s Latest Book Features Recipes His Saxon Characters Might Have Cooked

Most of us give thanks for the abundant food we feast on this Thanksgiving holiday. Had we lived a century ago in Medieval Saxon England, however, would we have been as thankful?

Had we been Uhtred of Beddanburg, the warrior hero of Bernard Cornwell’s Last Kingdom novels, the answer may quite possibly be yes. As an aristocrat, Uhtred would have had access to better food — more meat and spices — than the average soldier or peasant. Much of the ingredients would have been familiar to us, although it’s arguable how often we get to enjoy smoked pig’s head today.

That is one of the recipes in “Uhtred’s Feast,” a collaboration between Chatham residents and New York Times bestselling author Cornwell and Suzanne Pollak, a chef, cookbook author and development director of the Charleston Literary Festival in Charleston, S.C. The recently released book alternates between authentic Middle Ages recipes and three new short stories featuring Uhtred.

Pollak and Cornwell met in Charleston, where the author has a home and has participated in the annual literary festival. Pollak has written several cookbooks, including one with author Pat Conroy.

“I guess I like matching cookbooks to things,” she said in a telephone interview.

She noticed that in Cornwell’s Last Kingdom books, there was very little about food, and the only thing the warrior seemed to eat was bread and cheese. She began researching what else people would have eaten at that time.

“There was no roadmap,” she said. “There’s no cookbook from that time, no written recipes from that time.” She had to figure out what would have been available locally and how it would have been prepared by examining records of archaeological sites. Saxons would have had fire, of course, but no refrigeration; salting, curing and fermenting would have been the only preservation techniques.

“Today we have the same tools that they had — a knife, a pan, fire, salt and herbs,” she said. She imagined how things would have been cooked, deep inside a fire or slow cooked outside of it, and what techniques would have been used. She credited her friend Jordan Enzor with helping her with historical research.

At the same time the recipes had to be enticing to modern palates. “There’s no point in a cookbook if what you’re cooking is unappetizing,” she said. “I want people to actually use this cookbook.”

Pollak said she tested 100 recipes over a six-year period, eventually settling on about 50. The recipes are divided into three parts: home; land and water; and storage. Some are familiar -— pork belly, trout, turnips, horseradish — others less so, like dandelion salad, foraged mushrooms, and eel pie. Her favorites are mushrooms on toast and oyster stew. “The quail recipes are fantastic,” she added.

Cornwell’s favorite is pease pudding, a type of hummus that he said “kept the European peasantry alive for 2,000 years.”

This is also the first time Cornwell has collaborated with another author; in this case, he said he sees his co-author as deserving most of the credit. “I felt her name should be bigger than mine on the cover, since she did more work than I did,” he said.

For fans of the Last Kingdom series, which was also a hit Netflix series, the highlight of the book is likely to be the three short stories that cover three periods in Uhtred’s life. Not a fan of writing short stories, Cornwell said his favorite of the three new tales is the middle one, “Gift of God,” which reunited his hero with Alfred, the British king who first had the vision of a united England.

“Uhtred is at his best with Alfred,” Cornwell said. “He doesn’t really like the man much, but he admires him.”

This year’s Charleston Literary Festival, held in early November, featured a literary feast featuring Anglo-Saxon recipes from the book. About 127 people attended, Cornwell said.

“And very good it was, too,” he said.

Cornwell’s has no plans for further Uhtred books, but said, “I can see myself a year from now saying let’s do another Uhtred. I’m sure there are gaps in his life. It’s much easier to write a book when you’ve got all the characters set up.” If that happens, “I’d definitely take him back to Alfred’s era.”

His next book, “Sharpe’s Command,” featuring his British rifleman hero Richard Sharpe, comes out in April. The MGM-plus streaming service recently launched “The Winter King,” a 10-episode series based on Cornwell’s series about King Arthur.

Along with continuing to appear in the summer Cape Cod Shakespeare Festival in Chatham, he’s also working on another installment in his Thomas of Hookton series, set to be released in England next October. The 79-year-old author of more than 60 books obviously shows no sign of slowing down, and said he plans to keep going “until God decides I’ve done enough. I can’t think of a better way to make a living than telling stories.”

“I can’t believe I get away with it,” he added, “and Chatham is a great place to do it.”