• webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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      11 days ago

      King Richard I was once captured for ransom while traveling undercover trough Austria.

      His cover was blown specifically because he tried ordering a roast chicken.

      There are a few variations of the details in this story though, a peasant could definitely have owned a chicken and eaten it when it died but it was probably way more valuable to sell it.

    • Denjin@feddit.uk
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      11 days ago

      Doubtful, most common meal for peasants would have been a sort of stew of vegetables and oats called pottage.

      A whole chicken would have been prohibitively expensive either to purchase or in lost money from sale at market, same for pork or beef.

      Fish though would be plentiful and cheap and a valuable source of protein. Oysters were considered peasant food until pretty much the 20th century.

      Wheat bread similarly would have been a rare luxury, especially made from refined white flour, rye and buckwheat, roughly ground would be far more common.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      A roasted bird? Why not? Y’all are making assumptions that this is a chicken and the peasant a small farmer but why not a traveling mime trapping pigeons from the square?

  • manuallybreathing@lemmy.ml
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    10 days ago

    Even in the 1960s eating a whole chicken would have been a luxury, this isn’t peasant food, that’s the gout inducing diet of a king

      • Faildini@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        I used to work at Boston Market, and there were definitely customers that would order a whole chicken just for themselves and eat it. Not every day or anything, but it wasn’t rare enough to raise eyebrows either.

  • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    Soft white bread? Nobody but rich upper class people could afford soft white bread until well past the industrial revolution.

    That’s also a pretty large roasted bird that’s being eaten in complete absence of stew.

    • Th3D3k0y@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      Roast chicken on a nice crusty sourdough is amazing. Get some butter or gravy in there it’s a hell of a meal

  • john_t@piefed.ee
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    10 days ago

    “What is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent chicken meal?”, “Get your hand off my baguette!”

  • ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online
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    10 days ago

    Peasants? Even many nobles didn’t eat like that every day.

    People think that the typical nobleman in the Middle Ages ate like King Henry VIII. That isn’t true. Did you know that they determined that at least at a few points in Vlad the Impaler’s life he was basically living on a vegan diet? They ate a hell of a lot of vegetables and grains because meat was still expensive for everyone involved.

    • Lucky_777@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      This. You had a steady diet of vegetables and bread. Maybe eggs if you had chickens and some small bit of land. Those times were harsh as fuck

      • vga@sopuli.xyz
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        9 days ago

        Or our lives are abundant as fuck, which makes everything else look like absolute poverty.

      • ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online
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        9 days ago

        Also they weren’t guzzling wine and ale at all hours and when they did drink it was usually cut with water or what they called ‘small beer’ and very young wine (which didn’t have time to properly fermented and reach full potency) that had limited alcohol content. Also they did drink water. In the same way that in places in the world where they have limited water treatment facilities they still drink water even if it isn’t the best.

        Again… they weren’t stupid. They might not have had the depth and breadth of modern medical technology on how alcohol affects you, but people knew what it did and they know what addiction is (even if they made it out to be a personal weakness) and how terrible it was.

  • Aeri@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    If by “peasant” you mean “knight of the fucking round table” then yes

  • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    A few things to unpack here.

    • That chicken is roasted nicely, but I completely understand if that was bought in that condition at the grocer’s.
    • Plain bread is a travesty. it needs to be either toasted and/or you need some melted butter or gravy to sop up.
    • Pair this with some fruit or pan seared/roasted vegetables. Even microwaved beans would make this nutritious. Takes very little effort, very easy to do.
    • Even peasants had access to beer, ale, or home-made short-beer/kvass. Gotta calorie-max so you can work in the field tomorrow. Plus, the alcohol helps with the constant muscle-aches and fatigue from endless labor.

    There are innumerable ways to elevate this meal, but I’ll keep this comment short. Anyone, feel free to message me or reply here if you want tips for that.

    • edinbruh@feddit.it
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      10 days ago

      Plain bread is perfectly fine as long as it’s not one of those super dry breads

      • ThirdConsul@lemmy.zip
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        10 days ago

        super dry breads

        Technically that’s not bread. That’s… Hm… Wheat buttscratcher? Anywho, a proper bread with no industrial processing is moist. :)

        • edinbruh@feddit.it
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          10 days ago

          The 0.62€ industrial baguette I buy at Despar Is fine and not dry despite being industrial

            • edinbruh@feddit.it
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              10 days ago

              The day after it’s fine. The next day it’s meh. Provided you keep it in a paper bag and not out in the air

              • ThirdConsul@lemmy.zip
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                10 days ago

                Then it’s slightly better industrial bread (was it baguette?), but yeah. Leavens or emulsifiers or weird making process lead to it. Like they also used one of the water retaining emusifiers instead of proper starch content - those tend to keep moistness for up to 48h since baking and then it evaporates instantly.

                Non industrial bread keeps water longer, but more importantly loses it more gradually and from the outside in (so that at least the “core” is still moist).

                (I’m not arguing pro/against breads here, or trying to, idk, shame you for buying baguettes lol, honestly just trying spread the knowledge)

          • ThirdConsul@lemmy.zip
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            10 days ago

            Crumb must be crumby, but “flesh” of the bread should be moist (do not confuse it with soft). Properly made bread shouldn’t be wet or chewy.

            When making bread you add water to the dough. Starch will keep the water and when baking, the flesh should retain it spread evenly. Industrial bread often dehydrates/dries it, as that’s how it works with their emulsifiers or leavens - don’t ask me why though, it’s just my observation.

            And you can be sure that dry bread is either old stale bread or fresh industrial bread.

            • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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              10 days ago

              a friend of mine brought me some self-made bread yesterday, and it was indeed moist, and i instantly loved it. i wish there’s more bread like that one. idk why industrial bread tastes differently.

              might be that they intentionally dessicate it for hygienic reasons? i.e. i imagine a higher water content might make it spoil faster.

    • Alaknár@sopuli.xyz
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      10 days ago

      Plain bread is a travesty

      This isn’t plain bread, good sir, this is a baguette! Well, rather small one, but still.

  • arc99@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    A lazy supermarket special - a roast chicken in a bag and a baguette roll picked up on the way to the checkout. We’ve all been there and I’m sure it makes a passable meal, but cooking is a skill everyone should endeavour to be proficient in.