[queenoftheshire]

What type of food would normally be served at feasts in Middle Earth? I'm preferably thinking about Gondor. Also just regular dinners.

[miriel361]

Meat and a lot of it. Whole piglets with apples in their mouths, swans with feather coverings placed back over them, venison (deer), ducks, fish etc. There would have been alot of courses at a feast with the food brought in in procession by pageboys and servers.

Possible courses would have been soup, fish, fowl, three or four meat courses, followed by fruit and cheese. Fruit was only eaten by the wealthy as it was a very expensive commodity.

Vegetables and salad was often believed to be food for the poor, but you can decide how healthy the Gondorians were. In any case they would have cooked with a lot of herbs and very expensive spices (more expensive than their weight in gold) because there were no fridges and food was quite often at least partially spoilt. The herbs and spices hid the taste.

Also very popular was custard and boiled puddings. Actually a pudding is anything boiled in a muslin cloth, so they can be sweet or savory.

Porridges made from various grains (actually porridge is the term used for the mess made from oats and milk or water) like rye, wheat, oats or.... (there were many more but alas I only know them in German) were eaten not only for breakfast but also for the other meals.

Cheeses also - not only from cow's milk but also from sheep and goats (very sweet - its like fudge cheese)

In the Middle Ages, people ate using a knife and fngers so finger bowls were a necessity at the table. Instead of plates people ate from wooden boards or bread was used as an edible trencher.

Oh and in any feast there would have been sweetmeats - which is made from the intestine I believe. And you might like to add tripe or brawn or boiled pig's head to add a touch of authenticiy.

For everyday, there would have been a lot of soup as well, especially for the poorer people.

[queenoftheshire]

Thanks! Which of the meat dishes would be the most common is say Aragorn's Court?

[miriel361]

Well venison (deer) and wild pork obviously after they had been hunting. Perhaps bear as a speialty. On a more mundane level: pork, mutton, lamb, beef, rabbit stew, goat, chicken, but NOT turkey. Probably ducks. Meat would have been fresh, smoked or salted. There would also have been blood pudding (made from the blood).

Probably not horse meat, although some cultures would have eaten it. Eel would also have been eaten.

Will that do?

[LuthienTinuviel]

I think you might want to leave out the blood pudding.

It's...kinda killing the appetite ya know.

[Haleth]

I'm willing to bet there would have been a fair amount of dishes involving root vegetables, which keep well. Other fruits and vegetables would have been served in season.

Cheeses, breads and wines would have been on the menu.

The Anduin was close, so there may have been fish.

I'm not certain if fresh fish could have been brought up from the ocean. It probably would have been pickled or salted.

Playne Delyght, a cookbook from the Middle Ages/Renaissance, might serve as a good reference for this sort of thing.

Useless fact: Tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and tobacco are all New World (aka American) plants, but Tolkien certain makes reference to potatoes and tobacco in Middle Earth, so you can use them.