Contrast the diets of the peasants and nobles in terms of our modern ideas about healthy eating.
The basic diet of the peasants consisteds of carbohydrates in the form of grain, mostly barley and oats, which were baked or brewed into bread and ale. Protein, in the form of meat and eggs, was in short supply. Some fruit and vegetables (ssuch as beans and onions), would have been included in the diet. Not all the food of the peasants was grown: some was bought, in most cases in the fairs and markets which were frequently held in towns.
In the thriteenth and fourteenth centuries most peasants were subsistence farmers, growing crops such as grain, peas and beans to feed themselves and their stock. Later, many of them were waged workers on a large farm owned by someone else. How far the majority were above mere subsistence level is unknown, but a holding of 20 acres (which many had), is generally accepted as being enough to raise the holder above that level.
There are several descriptions in contemporary poems of food eaten by peasants. There is a list of the food eaten by the shepherds in the Chester Mystery Cycle. This conssissted of bread, bacon, onions, garlic, leeks, butter and green (fresh) cheese. To this was added ale, hot meat (apparently supplied as part of their wages) a pudding (type unspeciifed) a ‘jannock’ (an oat cake), a sheep’s head soused in ale and sour milk (that is curds). another of the shepherds added to this fairly large amount of food a pig’s foot, and a third added smoked ham, other meat and another pudding.
Another list occurs in Piers Plowman as a description fo food given to the character ‘Hunger’ by the poor Piers and his neighbours. Piers first of all described the food he had in his cottage: two green cheeses, some curds and cream, an oat cake, and two loaves of bran and beans. He also has parssley, leeks and much cabbage, but no money with which to bu pullets, no eggs and no salt meat. His neighbours, however, managed to supply much more:
‘All the poor people then peascoddes brought,
Beans and baked apples
Onions and pot herbs and ripe cherries many.’
The large quantities of bacon eaten would have come from the pig that most country people (and many town people) would have kept. Apparently even the very poor ate bacon, at least occasionally, as described in Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s tale. Here the diet of the poor widow and her two daughters was said to include milk, brown bread, bacon and an occasional egg.
The nobility and gentry would also eat much bread, but it was likely to be made of finer white flour than the coarser brown types eaten by the poor. They ate a quantity of meat of many kinds: beef, mutton, pork, veal, lamb, and game like deer, rabbits, hare, etc. Hunting was a popular activity in medieval times not just for sport but to provide food for the table as well. Fish was eaten on fast days, which included Wednesday,s Fridays and Saturdays. Fish replaced meat completely during Lent. The variety of fish eaten was very wide indeed. Mackerel, hake, haddock, cod, whiting, ling, salmon, flounder, plaice, ray and conger eel were all eaten. Some fish and meat might be salted, some manors kept huge stocks of salt. Much shellfish was eaten, among which were mussels, whelks, cockles, crab and oysters. Meat and fish might be eaten boiled or roasted, with a variety of rich and spicy sauces, and might also be made into stews, pies, pasties and fritters.
In addition to roasting and stewing, meat might be pounded up to paste, mixed with other ingredients, and served as akind of custard. A dish of this kind was blankmanger, consisting of a paste of chicken blended with rice boiled in almond milk, seasoned with sugar, cooked until very thick, and garnished with fried almonds and anise. Another was a mortrews, of fish or meat that was pounded, mixed with breadcrumbs, stock, and eggs, and poached, porducing a kind of quenelle, or dumpling.
The most common vegetables, besides onions and garlic, were peas and beans. Staple of the diet of the poor, for the rich they might be served with onions and saffron. Honey, commonly used for sweetening, came from the castle or manor bees; fruit from the orchard – apples, pears, plums, and peaches – was supplemented by wild fruit and nuts from the lord’s woods. In addition to thsse local products, there was imported luxuries such as sugar, rice, almonds, figs, dates, raising, oranges, and pomegranates, purchased in town or at the fairs. Ordinary sugar was bought by the loaf and had to be pounded, powdered white sugar was more expensive.