What did Noble women in the middles ages ate?
Just the same as noblemen. Lots of meat – game meats like venison and wild boar were especially liked. Beef and mutton (but these would have been salt meat in winter). All sorts of poultry and wild birds – not just partridges and pheasants but herons, bitterns, larks and thrushes. But in Lent and on other fast days nobody was allowed meat, so then they ate fish. Fresh sea fish if they were near the coast, and freshwater fish if they lived inland; and preserved fish like dried cod and smoked herring. In Lent dairy products were also forbidden, so in many recipes during that season milk was replaced by “almond milk” (ground almonds steeped in water and strained). Spices – e.g. pepper, saffron, cumin, cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, galangal, grains of paradise – were very much liked, though they were very expensive. It was thought that fruit and vegetables were unhealthy unless they were well cooked. Rich people drank wine. In England some of this could be home-produced (in the 12th-13th cen
