Food

 


In the lower classes is was a general dinner couse to get stew/jelly/porridge. They could get it 15-16 times a week. It was easy to cook/make and not expensive. Bread was also one of the provisions that they often had for a meal. If they had stew/jelly/porridge and bread, they ate more stew/jelly/porridge. In the evening, when the stew/jelly/porridge was made on the open fire, they provided for the next day by making more than they could eat. And the next morning they had stew/jelly/porridge, cold. They rarely had meat and it depended on how poor the family was. If they had meat and potatoes, they also ate bread. In the same way as before, they ate more bread than meat, so they could get substantiated by this. Then you had meat for the next day. When we speak of meat, we speak of herrings and chicken. At the time the fishermen came back from their fishing-expedition, they had a lot of herring and other species of fish. These were pickled and had their sour taste from the preservation in salt. They also smoked the meat. In every way they tried to store the food longest as possible. This resulted in a not always fresh meal. The farmers had also trouble, selling their milk. The farms were outside the cities, and becuase there was no fast means of transport, the milk became sour before it was sold at the market. As an alternative many had stationed a cow in their apartment. It gave fresh milk and warmth.
The light meal or the night-snack was often a slice of bread with dripping.
What they ate and how much they ate depended on the harvest. The harvest was depending on many factors, like the weather, diseases and the economy. A failed harvest probably meant less bread the upcoming period, and the bread was, though underestimated, still a very important product. Peas and cabbage were some vegetables, eaten most often.

When celebrating, or at a holiday, the meals were totally changed. These festivals were celebrated always with a feast. each independent district had its own menu.
If they had good food and many dishes, they also had something to drink, as ale. At almost every feast, it was a three/four-course menu.

In Christmastime, a dish could consist of sausages, rib roast (pork), and pork-head with kale/cabbage. Then they had riff pudding with butter and cinnamon and a pint of beer. Before they went home, a little snack was served with Snaps. But there were many different dishes, and as written before, the district had its influence.

The upper class:
Alhought many people ate stew/jelly/porridge, it wasn’t all. In the upper class, people ate very different food. On a normal day, they got two or three courses. But when celebrating something, they might get up to 14 courses.

It was especially the king, who got those big dinners, but also other rich people could get more diches on a normal day. The gentleman normaly got redwine while the ladies got white wine with sugar.

Cooking and the kitchen

In most of the normal homes, the kitchen was a fireplace, with some stones, where they cooked thedinner. But because they only had one or two rooms, they used the same room as a kitchen, a living room and a bedroom.
In 1880 the kitchen range was invented, this made cooking a lot easier, now they where able to make food with minced meat, like meat balls.