[Sca-cooks] period tavern foods

[Stefan li Rous]

Ana replied to my question about period tavern foods with:
<<< Gruel was eaten in taverns, roasted meat in all forms, broth with  
turnips
and cabbage, ale of course, sausages, pies, onions in all forms,  
carrots,
fish, boiled or roasted, bread, eggs. Chaucer or Rabelais or Bocaccio  
are
good sources for it. >>>

Some of those aren't that different from what would comprise "tavern"  
food today.

But I'm not sure gruel would go over very well in the modern world or  
in an SCA tavern!

If anyone can cite any particular examples from Chaucer, Rabelais or  
Bocaccio, I'd love to have them for the Florilegium. While many SCA  
tavern foods aren't that far from these, it would be nice to give  
folks some basis for more authentic tavern foods.

Afterall, one of the reasons such foods were picked then, as well as  
now, is that they are easy to fix and/or inexpensive. Many tavern  
foods these days seem to be picked because they are likely to make you  
more thirsty and thus more likely to buy more beverage. Some of the  
period foods might have been chosen similarly. At least the sausages,  
but perhaps there are some other salty period tavern foods as well.

Giano's air dried sausages look like they might be a good choice for a  
tavern foods.

Stefan

--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/marksharris
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****