The Commoners' Board
The main food of is bread; Dark bread of whole-ground meal, sometimes baked of entire grains (like German black bread). Other important foods are peas, lentils and onions. Grain, legumes and onions provide commoners with about 9/10ths of their nutrition. Of non-vegetable foods, dried, salted fish is the most important. This has the basic consistency of plywood and must be boiled for a long time, after soaking for even longer. People along the coast tend to eat quite a lot of fish, and also mussels,oysters and shellfish. Meat is a rare dish, and is usually dried and salted when it arrives at the commoners' tables. Generally, hot food tends to be eaten in ragouts and pottages, which are spiced with whatever herbs one has been able to gather, grow or purchase. Garlic is a favoured seasoning, held to be good for the body and aversive to evil spirits. Most people keep pigs, and pork is the traditional Yuletide meal. Lamb may be eaten in the spring. Fruit such as apples, pears and plums are eaten when in season. Only poachers and the retainers of nobles eat fresh meat regularly.
People tend to drink a lot of alcoholic beverages, as clean water is not always available. The typical drinks are weak ale and equally watery wine. The sour posca (inferior wine) has been drunk since the time of the Cargans.
The Tables of the Rich
In general, the richer a family is, the more meat it eats. Most of the meat eaten is poultry: chicken, goose, duck, and doves. Nobles keep dovecotes to provide themselves with fresh, succulent fowl - which feeds on the grain of the commoners' fields. Some have rabbit warrens, which also may eat quite a bit of nearby crops. Fresh fish is gotten from private ponds. Much pork is eaten, veal and beef is somewhat more rare. Venison is a very popular with nobles; deer, boar and bear meat is reserved for noble tables, and smaller game is also eaten. Pepper and even more exotic spices are popular, and it is actually possible to carry around significant sums of money in spices.
A skilled cook is a prestigeous retainer.
Nobles also drink ale and wine, but of far better quality and greater variety than that of commoners. Nardigenean and Decrian wines are held to be particularily fine, as is Dorannian beer.