Food and Feast in Medieval England

This fully illustrated book describes the extraordinary range of food which found its way on to the tables of medieval English society, its production and distribution. Although bread, ale, meat and fish were the staple diet, fish often came from as far away as Iceland, and as early as 1480 over 100,000 oranges were being imported to augment the diet. The book covers a wide range of medieval food, from hunting, fish breeding, brewing, baking, food hygiene and storage. The book concludes with an examination of medieval feasts, such as that held at York on 26 December 1251, which took six months to prepare, and saw the consumption of no fewer than 68,500 loaves of bread, 170 boars and 25,000 gallons of wine. Based on archaeological and documentary evidence, this book aims to provide an introduction to an often neglected topic of medieval life.