Period Foods (What are your characters eating?)

Interesting thread!

My story takes place in 14th century India. The main things my MCs will be eating is rice and basic veggies like gourds and plantains because they're first stuck in the middle of a siege. Then they're stuck in the house of a holy man who is vegetarian and have to eat lots of millet/bread and lentils. But once they get to the Sultan's palace, it's all about meat (poultry, tortoise, fish, etc.) and exotic fruit (like mango, jackfruit, pomegranate, and guava). My FMC has a thing for buffalo milk. One of my MMCs has a sweet tooth and loves sugarcane. The other MMC really likes this drink made from fermented dates.

Excellent question. I should have a feast scene.

Here's a good site for medieval food

http://www.godecookery.com/

Feast scenes are great for upping the word-count *grin*

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Tigg, or Tiggothy for long

Oohhhhh.... food!! This was really fun to research. My story is in the second half of the 17th century and in different countries and social environments. Before I write an entire cookbook, I'll pick out one: Amsterdam, middle class catholic.

His everyday breakfast is bread and cheese. The water in Amsterdam was undrinkable, so everybody drank beer, even young children. But around this time it became fashionable (for those who could afford it) to drink tea or coffee instead.

Because he is catholic, he eats little or no meat, except on Sunday and special occasions. Salmon, sturgeon, pike, carp, eel, lobster, oysters and mussels were the most common fish. The kind of vegetables he would eat: spinach, lettuce, endive, beet, sour white cabbage (sour kraut), Brussels' sprouts, cauliflower, asparagus and artichoke.

If it turns out I need some padding, I'm considering having a wealthy Dutch merchant invite him for dinner. Really a mixed blessing as these dinners were meant to show off. Lots of food and wine, resulting in an upset stomach or worse the following day.

Many of these recipes have survived. I tried some of them and to be honest, I was not impressed. To me it tasted overcooked and what was really pretty disgusting is that they use sugar in dishes with fish and meat together with spices like cloves, nutmeg, pepper and mace.

Here's one that isn't too bad.
http://www.coquinaria.nl/english/recipes/5histrecept.htm

2008: Lapis Lazuli (historical fiction)
One minute of bad writing is better than one hour of good thinking - Harry Mulisch

Found these 17th Century English Recipes from the website mentioned above: http://www.godecookery.com/engrec/engrec.html

I plan on making a few, if I want to procrastinate that badly, so I can try to really describe what my characters are eating.

^That's a pretty comprehensive list. Otherwise, they'll probably be eating a lot of ham.

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2006: Untitled YA novel unfinished at 16,368
2007: Afterwords Cafe ended at 53,643.
2008: Discovering Eleanor... Still trucking.

That's one of the areas I really need to research...

Since it's mainly in the Snow Country of Japan (Tohoku region), probably a mix of rice (of course!) and maybe some fish....and a type of bean. I really don't know--I need to go research it now :P

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The pleasantest of all diversions is to sit alone under the lamp, a book spread out before you, and to make friends with people of a distant past you have never known.--Yoshida Kenko, Essays in Idleness

Mine's set on a trail going West to California, so there's gonna be a lot of hardtack and salt pork and beans, I expect.

This is an excellent question and one I had not thought about yet. I usually write crime/mystery, but I'm trying something totally different this year.

My story is a fictionalized account of some of the folks who founded one of the few all-Black towns in the United States - Nicodemus, Kansas. My fictionalized family migrates from Tennessee to Kansas in the late 1870s. They are induced by vivid tales of lush lands and "milk and honey" only to find the great prairie. Because they are former slaves, their foods are mostly lard biscuits, herbs-mushrooms-berries that they gather along the way (and make various soups and stews wth them), dandelion greens that they gather along the way, and small animals/birds that the men are able to catch. They will also get a cow, goat, and pig along the way by various means.

I'm really glad I read this thread because it has helped me visualize the journey even better from my MC's POV, who is going to be a young girl.

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2004 - Daniel In The Lion's Den (crime/mystery)
2005 - Two Women And A Girl: EGG, MAT, and MSG (crime/mystery)
2007 - Finding Emma Jane (fictionalized memoir)

I have been accumulating research, and only know do I realize how poorly organized it is for purposes of actually writing. This question is great!

I'm writing about 1875-1877 on a tropical island (Saipan) in the Western Pacific.

Inhabitants fall into two groups--namely peninsular Spaniards (and a few other European types) and native islanders and island-born.

The first group-Europeans--believe that local foods are insufficient or unhealthy for the westerner. They eat rations brought in by ship: flour (for bread), biscuit (hard tack), cured pork, rice, garbanzo beans, kidney beans, vinegar, coffee, sugar, and red wine (with seasonings--ground pepper, black peppercorns, cloves, cinnamon, salt --sometimes available). Of the local foods, the only thing they're comfortable with is beef and corn and some of the fruit.

The indigenous--are eating coconut, breadfruit, pandanus (nut), mangos, lemons, oranges, guava, star fruit, a wild wet fruit (strawberry in color and shape, but very wet and melon like in texture), pomellos, bananas (both eating and cooking), taro, tapioca, yam, sweet potato, corn, sugar cane, rice, and FISH, fruit bat, birds, wild boar, locally raised beef.

Most cooking is over open fire, but there are huge community ovens also, used for the bread.

And there will be drought and famine at some point in the story.

Saipanwriter
http://saipanwriter.blogspot.com

Well, since I'm writing about the Great War, on the frontlines too, I'm heavily limited in what I can have my folks eat.

For the British, they'll -start- with this:
1 lb. preserved meat; 12 oz. biscuit; 5/8 oz. tea; 2 oz. sugar; 1/2 oz. salt; 3 oz. cheese; 1 oz. meat extract (2 cubes.)

And end with:

Preserved meat (1 lbs), Bread (1.25lbs), Cheese--(3 oz), Bacon (4 oz), Tea (5/8 oz), Salt (1/2 ounce), Jam (4 oz), Sugar (3 oz), M&V (20 to 24 oz), Tinned Beans (12 oz)

Yeah...the final set of rations doesn't sound too appetizing, but then again - neither do their "early" rations either.

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My novel is set in the Bronze Age, around 1800 BCE, in Mesopotamia (present day southern Turkey).

A typical meal is fresh bread made from wild barley or emmer, date beer, fresh cheese, probably some dates. They eat wild foods that they can find in season, like wild asparagus, wild garlic or onion, pomegranate and walnuts. They really love dates, and can make a wide variety of things out of them. They eat a LOT of dairy products, because they herd sheep, goats, and camels.

A typical feast meal is goat meat in a thick, spicy yogurt sauce, served over barley. Traveling merchants trade with them, and that's where they get anise, cardamom, and turmeric.

http://ofbooksandwriting.blogspot.com - Come visit me at my blog
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Great topic! My Pictish protagonist and his warband are on the move a lot, with herds of cattle driven along with them and slain as needed. According to Pictish Warrior by Osprey Publishing each warrior would "...carry a bag of oatmeal which could be fried with blood or water, while the meat was boiled in the hides of the slain cattle, so there was not even a need for cumbersome pots." Scottish cuisine hasn't really evolved much since then really!

Outside of that there will be porridge, stews, spit-roasted boar, smoked fish, salted meat, barley bannocks, cheese, wild cherries, raspberries and hazelnuts all washed down with copious amounts of heather ale.

My characters are high society in 1912 England and America, so naturally, they eat well. However, since they'll be aboard the Titanic, here's the last meal aboard the ship:

First Course
Hors D’Oeuvres
Oysters

Each of the 10 courses was served with a special accompanying wine. Following the tenth course, fresh fruits and cheeses were available followed by coffee and cigars accompanied by port and, if desired, distilled spirits.

http://cookingmonster.com/2008/04/09/the-last-meal-on-the-hms-titanic/

Writer of Edwardian-set fiction
http://www.edwardianpromenade.com

I love this question!
My story is set in 1750's New France. It'll probably be during the Plains of Abraham/ English Occupation. It's been my dream Nano for around six months now.

Anyway, the usual dinner my character will eat is:
Tortiere, if allowed to eat meat on that day.
Beer of some sort.
Handfull of berries/ Some assorted Vegetables
A loaf of bread

I really need to research more. I started off from the old Quebecois folk tales and didn't think of what my characters would eat! Whoops :)

Heh.

Most of my Caledonians will be eating meat from wherever they can get it: roast beef, pork, mutton, wild boar and venison. Lots of fish, as well, especially those living next to the coast. Barley is also pretty much a staple, in bread and bannocks, and oats for porridge (of course!) and oatcakes, which must have existed in some form back then. Nettle soup was probably slurped up back then, too. And cheese and butter, which tends to end up buried in bogs... And, of course, whatever herbs, nuts and fruits are in season: hazelnuts, raspberries, brambles...

One source has it that the Caledonians had a type of food that you could eat only a small bite of, and be nourished for the rest of the day, but that sounds just a wee bit fanciful. I'm pretty sure the ancient Caledonians weren't Elves. ;)

And there's the obligatory booze. Mead, barley beer, heather ale, and whatever wine's been traded/raided from the Romans. ;)

'Course, all those warriors mean a lot of feasts, which is good for the word count. ;)

Well, my character is a lower middle class girl from the north in the 1930s so she'll probably eat fairly standard fare of the time - a bit of meat on Sundays, vegetables, bread and butter, porridge, soups and stews, eggs on special occasions etc. etc. Tea and milk drunk mostly. Custard and sponge pudding!

Then she moves to London and is pretty skint so she'll eat more simply - just the bread and butter and vegetables and porridge, I imagine. I'll have to look into that some more.

Then during the war, she's evacuated to the country and it'll be much how it was for my grandma who was a country girl during the 40s - they have pretty much whatever they want, and farmers will let their neighbours do without coupons etc. etc. So butter, eggs, cheese, milk etc. galore.

[img]http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/6428/nanosigzp4.jpg[/img]

Hah, I have a book published in 1918 and it writes about what women at the front were eating and I was surprised by how much it was. They had about six meals a day! I know that they had to keep up their energy etc., but I never imagined that they would have eaten that much. Of course the men, or at least a lot of them, didn't do quite so well - but they couldn't get the food through to them as easily.

(I have a sweet postcard from somebody in the family to his mother from about 1915, thanking her for some cakes she'd sent him and asking for more. I think food from home was one of the things that really kept the men going during that time)

[img]http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/6428/nanosigzp4.jpg[/img]

My story takes place around the mid 1800s in America.

Um, I honestly I never really cared to look it up.
But the basics I'd think would be

stew, ice cream, bread and cheese, fish, milk, water ect.

Thank you for this thread, it's given me a prod to research things further in this regard. My novel is set in Australia in the late 1930s/early 1940s in Sydney. Middle class household, which would have meant a very English diet still. A lot of beef, lamb, potatoes and bread but in particular tea.

"I love writing but hate starting. The page is awfully white." (Aaron Sorkin)

I really should not know.
I am writing about a girl in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 19th century.
Her parents are poor, so she will not have very much to eat.
The girl is Jewish and I should not know where to look for this combination in time and religion.

In 1928 Manhattan, I believe the dinner of my main character looks something like this:

- One mint julep
- Roast duck
- A sip of bathtub gin from a leg flask
- Nut loaf
- Rice pudding
- Another sip of bathtub gin from leg flask
- One piece of cake in black and white check
- The rest of the gin from leg flask
- One martini

Then he would fall asleep, preferably in the arms of a dame.

He has a small problem. I'm unsure how this will develop within my story.

NaNoWriMo 2007 entry: http://uneasilyslumberingstory.blog.com/

Ohhhhhhhhhhh! What a wonderful thought. I'll have to do some research about foods of the period I'm writting. Meals would be a good way to add to that word count.

I'm yet another who didn't think of this. I really should figure it out too, since my FMC needs to be impressed by what they eat at her employer/the MMC/her future love interest's place.

My story is set in an asia-like country so my characters, who are either slaves or laborers in a tea plantation they will not be getting much more than rice.... of course then there is the rich people in the story, I'm going wild with all sorts of fruits, spices, exotic birds/animals, as well as some bizarre/nasty foods here and there that some people in my story claim to be "good for you"
Ah, I want to go eat some rice now. HUNGRY!

a great website for this kind of research is the food timeline:

http://www.foodtimeline.org/

of course, what foods your characters have access to has as much to do with where they are and what they can afford, but at least that site will help you with when certain foods came about and when they were popular. (it also has the unfortunate side effect of making me very hungry.)

You were able to post the timeline before me...

Anyway, my novel takes place in an American Western setting so food is pretty much:

Traveling:
Jerky
Dried fruit
Anything they hunt
Water

Not Traveling:
Various meats; poultry and beef mainly, buffalo possibly
Soups
Various fruits and vegetables
Pies or pudding for dessert
Alcohol; most likely whiskey, gin, or beer
Water
Coffee (made of brown bread, acorns, dandelion roots, barley, and snuff) Lol

Specifically, here is a link to food possibly found in a saloon in the American West in the 19th century.
http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodpioneer.html#saloons

http://lionheart-clan.livejournal.com/
I shall be posting my entire novel on a chapter basis in my LJ

Well... they just eat bar food, basically. And when visiting rich parents, they eat at finer places or drink lemonade and eat things like cucumber sandwiches. They mostly only are depicted drinking various types of alcohol and occassionally smoking some green. They're little 1940's New York rebels, they are...

"I believe that the main thing in beginning a novel is to feel, not that you can write it, but that it exists on the far side of a gulf, which words can't cross: that it's to be pulled tthrough only in a breathless anguish..."
--Virginia Woolf

My story takes place in England around 1816, so they'd be eating chicken and pork, cheese bread, some cherries and drinking wine... Stuff along those lines.

My story takes place in 1795 Virginia (now West Virginia) on the frontier. The settlers live and eat off the land, mostly. Corn is their main staple. They eat it in cornbread, johnnycakes, mush and distill it into liquor. They also grow beans, squash and pumpkins with the corn and the women have smallish vegetable gardens. Just about everything is eaten fresh, dried or pickled. Deer and other game is plentiful and each family has a hog or two and a flock of chickens. The main characters are well to do and are able to import luxuries like rice, sugar, tea, and coffee - plus an occasional bottle of French wine!