What would a medieval adventurer EAT?

Comments · 4.7K

• TA

  @TastingHistory · 4 years ago

  SHAD! Thanks for the shoutout! Been a fan for years!

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• JA

  @Javawocky92 · 3 years ago

  i had a dnd game where the wizard constantly prepared the sleep spell not for use in combat but to put a large game animal to sleep so they could kill it without risk. it was a lovely little rp action that they took in order to provide some reality to the game. any time he had to use it in combat he would say something along of the lines of "god damn it i was going to use this for dinner!" which got a good chuckkle.

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• LI

  @littlekong7685 · 4 years ago

  Shad, don&apos;t forget pastries. Medieval people loved their baked pastries, sweet honey cakes, various fried dough&apos;s, and of course the infamous pies. <br>These were not modern pies, but more like self canned meals. You would bake a fancy, thick, deep crust bowl with lid. Then make a filling (usually meat and veggies), then bake that in your already baked crust. You would then open the lid and eat what you wanted, then close the lid and keep it for the next day, and the next, and the next. If you ran out of filling, use the crust to bake more! Then when the crust was finally worn, you could eat it as it was still technically food, or feed it to the animals, or throw it in a stew as thickener/crunch. Apparently popular out in the rural communities.

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• TH

  @thedmdidit9842 · 4 years ago

  Lembas bread, how could you miss the historical best ration that is definitely based in reality. One cake will feed a full grown man for a day, and a Pippin for an hour.

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• DR

  @Dr_V · 4 years ago (edited)

  Here&apos;s a few related medieval traditions of Eastern Europe that you may not be aware of (some are still carried out today in rural areas):<br>- Clean water wells were considered community assets and often dug outside or inline with the property fence (on the road side) to be easily accessible for everyone. Isolated communities also used to dig wells way out of the village near the main access roads as a way to support traveling to and from neighboring settlements. Also it was considered extremely rude (or even a sin) to refuse access to clean water to travelers. By the way, drinking wells were maintained both by cleaning debris and by dumping lime into the water once a year (it&apos;s a much more effective antiseptic than modern people think and not harmful in low dose water dilution). <br>- People who had orchards planted at least one fruit tree outside the property perimeter (usually alongside the closest road or path) for travelers to pick fruits freely if they wanted. <br>- Giving a free meal to a hungry traveler was quite common in Christian communities. This could vary from a small takeaway offering to actually inviting the man to sit at a table and sharing whatever you&apos;ve got prepared for your family.

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• DW

  @dwavenminer · 4 years ago

  Just a note on the Hawthorn berries, they are one of the easily foraged foods that you would easily turn into a long life ration by turning it into a fruit leather.<br>Simply:<br>-pulp the berries<br>-boil<br>-pour on a surface <br>-let it dry (usually by the fire)<br>(All can very easily be done in the evening at a campsite)<br><br>And now you have a tasty fruit leather that will keep from weeks to months...

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• AN

  @AndrewHalliwell · 4 years ago

  Many plants considered to be weeds these days would&apos;ve been part of the staple diet,too. Not just fruit. Dandelions for example. Every part is edible. The roots can be roasted and ground into a coffee substitute (dandelion is in the same family as chicory), gors flowers steeped in water could make a wine or cordial, even the roots of bull rushes could add to a meal.

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• SO

  @sonipitts · 4 years ago

  FYI, &nbsp;as far as &quot;drinking vinegar&quot; goes, our modern vinegars are far more acidic than homemade vinegars tend to get (especially ultra-processed types like distilled white vinegar). I&apos;ve made fruit-based vinegars of the sort that could be easily be made in any Medieval kitchen and they can actually be quite pleasant and refreshing to sip even straight from the bottle, and are downright delicious when watered down a bit to make a tangy &quot;soft drink.&quot; <br><br>The thing about homemade vinegars is that you can customize the types and amount of fruit or wine you use for flavor and complexity, and stop them at any level of fermentation and sourness that you want. And considering the average Medieval homemaker would be more likely to be using honey than sugar as a fermentation nutrient (if they used one at all), it would basically an acidic type of fruited mead. I once made a pineapple vinegar that was so delicate and complex it was basically like sipping a tangy yet still slightly sweet picnic-type sparkling wine (it still had a bit of fizz in it when first sampled). 10/10 would recommend making your own fruit vinegars at home. It&apos;s super simple and the results are so delicious (and infinitely interesting to tweak and play with).

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• VA

  @varengrey7221 · 4 years ago

  That&apos;s the joke, the adventuring party might try to eat anything that doesn&apos;t successfully eat them first.

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• KO

  @koosh138 · 4 years ago

  If you&apos;ve ever visited Nuremberg for its Christmas market, you&apos;d see these huge things of gingerbread. I am told these can last a long time, and was sold as the sweeter option to hardtack-like foods.

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• NU

  @nuyabuisness7526 · 4 years ago

  Probably one of my favorite lines injecting realism into a book was in the first Wheel of Time book where the group is traveling and eating the same cold rations over and over again since they can&apos;t stop to make a proper camp. <br>&quot;I used to like cheese.&quot;

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• JA

  @Javawocky92 · 3 years ago

  Also on the note of hard tac that&apos;s more of a ship-based food, not a traveler&apos;s food. Travelers typically used Manchet Bread made of flour, salt, yeast, water, eggs, and milk. Unlike modern fluffy loafs Manchet Bread is dense and has very little yeast used in its making; think of the density of a heavy cake but the flavor profile of bread.

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