10 Cheap Meals Medieval Peasants Ate to Stay Alive
Medieval Sisters
127,656 views
What did medieval peasants actually eat to survive?
In this episode from Medieval Sisters, we step into the kitchens of ordinary people in medieval Europe and uncover 10 cheap meals that kept families alive through famine, harsh winters, church fast days, and relentless field labor. From maslin bread and pease porridge to trencher bread, ale, pottage, salted herring, and blood pudding, this is the real food of survival—not feasts, not castles, not fantasy.
The video also explores how the Great Famine of 1315 changed everything, why bread was a social marker, how peasants reused every scrap of food, and what daily life looked like when wasting calories could mean death.
Expect grim history, surprising details, and a much clearer picture of what “daily bread” meant in the Middle Ages.
Inside this video:
• Why peasants often ate only two meals a day
• The dark truth about medieval bread
• Why ale was safer than water
• The role of fish on church fast days
• How pottage became the ultimate survival meal
• What happened when harvests failed
If you love forgotten history, medieval daily life, and the harsher side of the past, subscribe and join us for more.
00:00 Intro
01:27 Maslin Bread And The Cost Of Survival
03:29 Pease Porridge For The Hungry Months
05:30 Root Vegetable Stew Without Potatoes
07:29 Ale As The Everyday Drink
09:42 Salted Herring And Stockfish On Fast Days
11:51 Trencher Bread And Zero Waste Eating
14:01 Foraged Greens Nuts And Wild Herbs
15:59 Cheese And Whey For Daily Protein
18:20 Offal Blood Pudding And Whole Animal Eating
20:51 Pottage The Ultimate Survival Food
24:13 Outro
20 Comments
Ale which replaced bad waterwhich didn’t have much alcohol
Pea soup stewed for days
Salted fish transported
Forest greens grown and acorns + hazelnuts
Root veggies - carrot, turnip and parsnips
Fruit trees during summer
Medicines. - mint, sage, tyme ++
Cheese and weigh like
Butter milk
Chicken eggs + chicken meat if you had chickens
A pig once or twice a year
Blood pudding from fresh killed pig made into a sausage
Mutton sheep rubbed with salt and hung over fire
Pottage made from everything you had mixed all into the pot. Basically the whole list - stewed for days and days on end!
Video explanation 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻
In the 1960-70's,
My parents used
to buy Salt fish
Herring in a brine barrel.
My mother had to Soak and change
the water for up to
3 days to rend
Most of the salt
out. She seasoned with pepper, used flour, cornmeal
or a mixture of both
to coat the fish and
fry it.
The fish had a Lot of find bones but
"we Learned how
to Pick around
and Out the find bones". We ate slices of white Bread and/or Cornbread with it. Hot sauce was a Must!!
Delicious!!
👍🏽💓😋💓👍🏽
Even My next door neighbor (a childhood friend) Used to knock on our window asking to get a Piece of fish.
👍🏽💓🧑🏽🦱💓👍🏽
We also have something similar to the stew on the bread, but I make a giant yorkshire pudding and fill it with stew 😋
10 Cheap Meals Medieval Peasants Ate to Stay Alive
Medieval Sisters
127,656 views
What did medieval peasants actually eat to survive?
In this episode from Medieval Sisters, we step into the kitchens of ordinary people in medieval Europe and uncover 10 cheap meals that kept families alive through famine, harsh winters, church fast days, and relentless field labor. From maslin bread and pease porridge to trencher bread, ale, pottage, salted herring, and blood pudding, this is the real food of survival—not feasts, not castles, not fantasy.
The video also explores how the Great Famine of 1315 changed everything, why bread was a social marker, how peasants reused every scrap of food, and what daily life looked like when wasting calories could mean death.
Expect grim history, surprising details, and a much clearer picture of what “daily bread” meant in the Middle Ages.
Inside this video:
• Why peasants often ate only two meals a day
• The dark truth about medieval bread
• Why ale was safer than water
• The role of fish on church fast days
• How pottage became the ultimate survival meal
• What happened when harvests failed
If you love forgotten history, medieval daily life, and the harsher side of the past, subscribe and join us for more.
00:00 Intro
01:27 Maslin Bread And The Cost Of Survival
03:29 Pease Porridge For The Hungry Months
05:30 Root Vegetable Stew Without Potatoes
07:29 Ale As The Everyday Drink
09:42 Salted Herring And Stockfish On Fast Days
11:51 Trencher Bread And Zero Waste Eating
14:01 Foraged Greens Nuts And Wild Herbs
15:59 Cheese And Whey For Daily Protein
18:20 Offal Blood Pudding And Whole Animal Eating
20:51 Pottage The Ultimate Survival Food
24:13 Outro