[Bill Ferny]

Dain,

Well, circa AD 1250: Thick soups, brewets and stews made from meat, vegetables and bread crumbs. Roasted meats of various sorts, including but not limited to beef, chicken, pork, wild fowl, duck, heron, swan, rabbit, mutton, and venison. Blankmanger of chicken and mortrews of fish were also very popular. It was made from pounding meat into a paste, mixing in other ingredients and serving it like a custard. The same basic principle was behind the quenelle that instead of being prepared like a custard was poached, coming out like a dumpling. Meat and fish in much the same manner was made into fritters, pasties and pies. Any dish, of course, was covered by a blanket of spices such as ginger, basil, sage, marjoram, rosemary, thyme, pepper, saffron, cloves, garlic, nutmeg, cannel, mace, cumin, cinnamon, honey and the expensive sugar that came in huge hard lumps called loaves. Mustard, while expensive, was used by the gallon. Of course, everything was accompanied by loaves of bread by the basket full (much to the miller's pleasure), and gallons of wine and home brew.

Of course, there's always my personal favorite, the entremets, consisting of whole roasted boar's heads, apple in mouth and all, and swans, herons and ducks roasted in their feathers, carefully propped up and possed with string and stick like Greek statues. These courses were usually accompanied by spiced wine and sweetened wafers.

Meals were lavish on rather common days in the households belonging to burghers of even modest means. Not to mention the voluptuous meals served by the likes of Thomas à Becket before he got religion which consisted of meat pies or custards that when cut would release a number of sparrows or doves, roasted boars and other game that would be presented at the table hanging from strings and dancing like puppets, and roasted cormorants dressed up with wafers and feathers to look like baby dragons.

All in all, hobbit meals, even with tea, coffee and tobacco, pale in comparison.