SC - What's cooking at the Tabard?

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

howdy all from Anne-Marie

"Lainie asks:
>	A question came up the other day in my Chaucer seminar- and
>everyone looked at me because they know I'm into medieval food- but I
>really didn't have a decent answer- and the question was:
>
>	What did they serve at the Tabard Inn?
>
>	My best guess was sausage, cheese, bread, ale, wine, maybe pies.
>Does anyone else have ideas about tavern food?
>

According to the travel journals of Alexander Neckham in Paris, taverns
would often cook whatever foodstuffs the travelers brought with them
(picked up in the market just around the corner, say), for a small fee. He
talks about buying a chicken, having the goodwife cook it, and after dining
on it, he stuffs the leftovers in his wallet to eat on the road.

Margery Kemp describes carefully how she had to provision herself for her
journeys to the holy land, even on shipboard.

I'm wondering how medieval the concept of a tavern where you can buy a full
meal is? Or even if there's a hunk of meat you can buy a slab off of, how
common was it to have more than one choice available? I know the
"restaurant" is a fairly modern concept...

what do other folks think?
- --AM

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