Medieval Social Classes

Class constraint was strict in the food culture in Medieval England. From the lower class to the upper class, there was a big change in the content of their diets. Poor people were always thin and weak because they

While upper class, professions, prefer to eat food that are healthy, not fattening, and usually expensive like steak. The role of taste in this passage also suggests that there is a principle of the division of foods between the sexes. He claims

3. Peasants : They are poor individuals.They are the ones who do the labor work like farming. Some of the pesants own land and the others rent or lease small land. The live close to comunities with a strong society. They also made up most of the immigrants to Americas. More than 90 percent of the European population consisted of

4) I cannot answer this question with the information presented, but it should be pretty straightforward to say which foods

During the Middle Ages social class much different than modern day. In a feudal society “nobles were granted the use of land that legally belonged to the king,” (Doc. 1). The nobles, in return, would give the lord loyalty and military services (Doc. 1). As peasants or serfs worked for nobles and knights they received protection and a portion of the harvest to feed their families (Doc. 1).

Summary: This website tells the history of food at the time of the Elizabethan Era.Poor people had unvaried diets consisting largely of bread, fish, cheese and ale, but the rich of Elizabethan England ate well.All kinds of meats were served to the rich people of Elizabethan England.Vegetables and fruits were regarded with some suspicion and was far more common for roasted and boiled meat to be accompanied with bread.Tudors were fond of desserts.Sometimes wine glasses, dishes, playing cards and trenchers were made out of a crisp modeled sugar called sugar-plate which would be elaborately decorated.

A. The study of food classifications has served us as a helping hand in understanding how people view foods and how they consume them.

The common person usually ate “white meat” that contained precious little meat, made of things like, milk cheese, butter, eggs, bread, and pottages. These were sometimes derivative of fish, rabbit, or bird. Killing larger game in the forest was considered poaching and was very dangerous. Gentry and rich folks ate “brown meats” like: beef, venison, mutton, and pork. The poor also ate a lot more vegetables than the rich that insisted on eating only greens that were fancily prepared. Peasants had easy access to beef, pork, and other high-end meats, but they couldn’t afford to keep a lot of it for their personal meals. They could make it just fine without fancy dishes eaten by their richer social class. Nutritionists today would appreciate the peasant’s simple

During the Middle Ages a peasant’s life was, indeed, very rough, there were anywhere from ten to sixty families living in a single village; they lived in rough huts on dirt floors, with no chimneys, or windows. Usually one end of the hut was given over to storing livestock. Furnishings were quite sparse; three legged stools, a trestle table, beds softened with straw or leaves and placed on the floor; the peasant diet was mainly porridge, cheese, black bread, and a few homegrown vegetables. Peasants had a hard life, yet they did not work on Sundays, and they could travel to nearby fairs and markets. The basic diet of a lord consisted of meat, fish, pastries, cabbage, turnips, onions, carrots, beans, and peas, as well as fresh bread, cheese, and fruit. This is by no means equivalent to the meals the peasants ate, a lord might even feast on boar, swan, or peacock as well.

Food is a staple in life. Everyone needs it, but not everyone gets what they want from it. In England during the Elizabethan Era there was a variety of foods. There were many imported foods and spices but a great deal of people never had the chance to try those amazing foods, except for the rich people. In the Elizabethan time period, the food eaten by the different classes, at feasts, and the ingredients used, played a major role in the civilization of England.

Elizabethan Food During the Elizabethan Era, food was very different from nowadays in many ways. They still ate three meals like us but usually breakfast was not considered a important meal and was eaten early at six or seven a.m. The kinds eat by people depended very much on their social status and how wealthy they were. It wouldn’t be odd to see poor people eating a unvaried diet, where on the other hand, wealthy people had very extravagant feasts.

Wealthy families could produce more or purchase better grades of food, and while they did not eat as lavishly as the nobility, they certainly ate better than the peasantry.

The diet of the peasants was dominated by grain, wheat, oats, barley, and millet. A typical peasant meal consisted of thin vegetable soup made from peas, beans, or cabbage, eaten with bread. Vegetables and fresh fruit were eaten by the poor, vegetables would have been included in some form of stew, soup or pottage. Food items which came from the ground we're only being considered fit for the poor. Peasant lived near a body of water of some sort, they may have caught fish to supplement his diet, and peasants ate mostly what they could grow.The lower classes were healthier than the upper class due to their consumption of vitamin C, fiber, and calcium. Meat was a rare luxury for the poorer classes. Their meals typically featured bread, eggs, and dairy products.“Their diet also included freshwater and sea fish, such as salmon, trout, eel, pike, and sturgeon, and shellfish such as crabs, lobsters, oysters, cockels and mussels. For the poor, bread was the staple food and it would be eaten with butter, cheese, eggs, and pottage. (“Elizabethan Food”). (“Food and Drink”) & (“Elizabethan

Here is some “food” for thought; the Romans. The roman people made everything extravagant. A main focal point in the Roman Era was food and drink. The food and drink of the Ancient Romans differed greatly throughout time; during the early empire, both the rich and the poor ate alike, but as the era continued, because of Greek influence, the rich ate expensively, while the poor ate what they could afford.

Behind each house was a garden or small plot of land. The common fields surrounding the village were some distance away, divided into strips and separated by twigs and pieces of unplowed land. Past the open fields was the waste, the uncultivated land which provided grazing land for the cattle, sheep and pigs and also fuel and timber for building.11 Bread was the staple item of the peasant diet. Eating meat was either a rare or nonexistent occurrence. Peasants ate whatever they grew: grains and a small percent of vegetables and potatoes. Barley and oats were made into both food and drink for consuming. The good grains, the meat from the animals, and the tasty fruits and vegetables went to either the lords or to the upper classes.12 “The peasant’s housing was as basic as his diet.” Most houses consisted of two rooms, one for living and one for sleeping. The walls were constructed of clay or straw supported by wooden frames. The roofs were thatched and animals were free to wander in and out. The smells of animals, sweat and waste were anything but pleasant and were more than plentiful.Water was gathered from an outside well or spring and there was no form of sanitation leading to a low level of personal