Medieval Diets

>>3349630
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxr2d4As312LulcajAkKJYw

>>3349639
Well now I'm going to be watching YouTube for an hour. Thanks.

Bread

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>>3349630
I recommend giving this book a read. It describes what was available in medieval Europe and how it would be prepared (including by different classes), along with the cuisines of different countries, eating habits, and views on healthy eating.
I'm pretty sure I discovered it via /his/, but I can't seem to find it in the archives. Would appreciate it if someone has a link.

>>3349663
>Bread
Wrong, mash was the predominant food for poor people, at least north of the alps.

>>3350354

Why do you tell lies on the Internet?

OP bread was a staple for all classes throughout the middle ages and into the renaissance, with the wealthier having whiter and finer loaves.

There's a whole bunch of surviving recipe books that have been transcribed and are available online

There's excellent documentaries that cover diet and food too.

Clarissa and the King's Cookbook covers the Forme of Cury, the first English language cookbook.
Christina: A Medieval Life has a section on diet and cooking for peasants.
Hidden Killers of the Tudor Home has an extensive section on the introduction of refined sugar to European diets and it's health effects.
Tudor Monastery Farm and Tales from the Green Valley are very in depth looks at daily life in 16th and 17th century England, including food and cooking.

>>3349630
how bad was nutrition back then compared to now really?? did they eat like 0.5 meals a day??

>>3350730

Initially 2 meals per day but towards the later middle ages onwards this turned into the 3 meals we have. People usually got up early and had a early light breakfast, then having a heavier meal in later morning early afternoon which would be the main meal of the day. Evening meals would be light to finish off the day.

The image of medieval people being scrawny starvlings is something of a myth outside the very poorest or during a severe famine.

>>3350755
then how come the average height has been increasing over the years? i thought it was due to nutrition?

>>3350760

It hasn't. Height takes a massive dip during the industrial revolution when people moved into unhealthy towns in dreadful conditions and even worse diets. We're only now getting back to the heights of our medieval ancestors.

>>3350779
interesting, thank you for this information.

>>3349630
My ancestors have lived here since the 1600s and 1700s, and we've been disconnected from the rest of the province up until the 60s. So we still have in common many cuisines that a lot of British people would have eaten at the time.

Traditionally, our family ate a lot of stews and soups. Beef, Pork and Fish were salted to preserve them; and would require boiling them over and over again to cook. Ship biscuit was used in place of four, simply because the flour often was full of bugs and got really damp and molded. Fruits were seasonal and hard to come by; many sufficed with ruffage.
Protein was often dried/salted/smoked and would consist of a very small portion throughout the day (if at all). Depends whether youre a hunter/farmer/city-dweller.

>>3350789

http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-04-18-highs-and-lows-englishman%E2%80%99s-average-height-over-2000-years-0#

Article/paper on it

>>3350779
By all means the early modern diet might have meant a smaller variety (unless you were upper class you'd eat more of the exact same stuff for most of your life, which sucks+chance of famines) but in good periods of food surplus it was actually better for the lower class overall imo. These days the average guy who doesn't really pay attention to what he eats or just ops for what's the cheapest cus of income constraints ends up eating a lot of processed crap; obesity epidemic, diabetes ect. Back then everything is what you'd call "organic" at the very least.

>>3350332
I have link for pdf if you want.
http://b-ok.org/book/509673/537505

I cant find .epub version thou disappointing.

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I am not familiar with the medieval diet but what I do now is that the Dutch Republic had an abudance of imported grains from the Baltic Sea areas. Farmers therefore could invest in raising cattles rather than spending their time growing meager harvests of wheat. It led to the development of commercialized cheese production which was exported, as well as salted meat. Meals would consist out of parsnip/carrot mashes, leafy greens such as kale. herring, bread, butter, cheese and meat. Especially the rich were very well off, many famous Dutch Golden Age portraits show off the wealthy merchant class as fat/chubby.

>>3349630

The main thing you must immediately understand about the Medieval diet is that the New World hasn't been colonized yet. Indeed, most of the world, excluding the Vikings, are completely unaware that the Americas even exist. Many of the foods that we take for granted today come from these parts of the world.

>>3350779
Sources plox. This sounds like horse shit to me. I have been to too many ancient ruins, medieval churches, seen too many graves, furniture furnture from medieval to the 19th century, etc. I am 5'8 which is enough to be called a manlet and have 30% of the modern female population refuse to mate with me (the other 70% have better reasons), but I am quite large and almost too big when it come to hallways, furniture, looking at the size of coffins, etc.
I find it very hard to believe that there were as many 6 foot people walking around and yet building hallways that they would have to stoop into all the time. Not to mention that most scientific growth trends contradict you as well.