Fantasy Guide to Feasts, Food and Drink
Picture yourself at a banquet held at the local Lord's castle. The music is playing, the people are chatting and rustling about in their best clothes. You sit at a table and what sits before you? Not chicken nuggets, my friend.
Food is always one of the staples of any world you build. You can get a feel of class, society and morality just by looking at the spread before you on the table.
Food for lower classes (Peasants)
Most peasants lived off the land, rearing flocks, tilling fields and tending orchards. If they lived near the sea, lakes, rivers or streams, they would fish. But since they lived on land owned by churches or lords, they would only be allowed a portion of what they grew. In cities, the peasants would buy food from one another at the market.
Peasants would make bread out of rye grain, that would make the bread very dark. In some communities they would make sourdough, which involves using a piece of dough you made the day before to make that day's bread.
Eggs were a source of food that was easy to come by as farmers kept chickens on hand.
Cheese and butter would be sold and used in the farm.
Jam would also be made as it was easy to preserve and sell.
Peasants would not eat much meat. Chickens made money by laying eggs, pigs could be fattened and sold for profit and cows and goats would be used for milk. By killing any of these animals for food they would loose a portion of money. Poaching (hunting on private land owned by the lord) would come with severe penalties.
Pottage and stew were a favourite of peasants as they could throw any vegetables or bit of meat or fish in a pot to cook for a few hours. It wasn't a difficult dish to make and often inexpensive.
Pies, pasties and pastries would be a favourite at inns and taverns in towns and cities most containing gravy, meat and vegetables.
With most villages and farms set close to forests, many peasants could find berries at the edge of fields. Blueberries, blackberries, raspberries would have all grown wild.
Food for Nobility & Royalty
Nobility and Royalty could always afford better food than the poor. However it might be a patch more unhealthy than the poor's fare. Nobility and Royalty weren't fans of vegetables.
The rich would eat a lot of meat, much of which they would hunt down themselves on their own land. Deer, wild boar, rabbits, turkey and other wild creatures would all be on the table.
Nobility and Royalty would be fond of fish as well. Lamprey eels was a delicacy only preserved for special occasions.
They could afford salt which was important for preserving meat and fish. This would allow the castle/manor/palace to be stocked in times of winter or famine.
They could also afford pepper and other spices, all of which could cost a fortune, to flavour their food.
During a feast, they would eat off of platters made of precious metals but only if you were seated at the high table. Other less important guests would eat off a trencher, a piece of hollowed out stale bread.
Sugar would be the height of dessert. The sugar would be shaped into fantastical formations to impress the noble guests. Tudor chefs would create edible sugar plates for Henry VIII to eat off of.
Swans and peacocks would be served in their plumage. Swans would be more royal diners as in England the monarch owns all the swans. In Ireland, it is illegal to kill a swan mainly because they could be children trapped in swan-bodies. Long story.
Feasts
At certain events, the noble/monarch might throw a party. Most parties would begin with a dinner.
The high table would seat the family throwing the party and the honoured guests. All the food would come to them first to be distributed to their favourites. They would drink the best wine and have the finest bread.
The rest of the hall would be seated together at trestle tables, eating off trenchers. They would be sent food by the thrower of the feast on account of their personal importance or social standing. The closer you were to the salt cellar, placed at the head of the table the more important you were. The further away you were, the lower your status.
Servants called cupbearers would serve wine and drink and move about the hall to carry jugs of wine to water the guests.
Dogs would often be found in the hall, to be fed scraps by the diners.
Drink
No world or party is complete without the booze. Since much of the water in Mediaeval times was putrid or dirty, the classes would avoid it.
Beer: was both a favourite of peasants and the nobility. It would be brewed in castles or in taverns and inns, each site having a different recipe and taste. It would be stored in barrels. Beer was widely available across the world and could be brewed at home. So therefore it was inexpensive.
The two main types of beer would be:
Ale: Ale in the middle ages referred to beer brewed without hops (a kind of flowering plant that gives beer its bitter taste). It is sweeter and would typically have a fruity aftertaste.
Stout: is a darker beer sometimes brewed from roasted malt, coming in a sweet version and dry version, the most famous stout being Guinness.
Wine: Wine would be made on site of vineyards and stored in cellars of large houses or castles. They would be expensive as they would have to be imported from regions capable of growing vines.
Port: Port wine or fortified wine would be made with distilled grape spirits. It is a sweet red wine, and also would be expensive to import from the counties able to grow the correct vines.
Whiskey: is a spirit made from distilled fermented grain mash in a device called a still (which would always be made of copper). The age of whiskey is determined by the length of time it has been sitting in a cask from the time it is made to the time its put in bottles. Whiskey was a favourite drink in colder climates and could be made any where in the world.
Rum: Rum is made by fermenting and distilling sugarcane molasses/juice. It is aged in oak barrels and would have to be imported as it could only be made in lands able to grow sugarcane.
Poitín: (pronounced as pot-cheen) is made from cereals, grain, whey, sugar beet, molasses and potatoes. It is a Dangerous Drink (honestly i still don't know how I ended up in that field with a traffic cone and a Shetland pony) and technically illegal. Country folk in Ireland used to brew it in secrets in stills hidden on their land.
