Court menu

In the Middle Ages, the cattle and game meat dominated the court menus. However, in the early modern period, pork and beef were considered as food for the lower levels of society, while the nobility increasingly consumed feathered game. It was believed that the food that was consumed contributed to the development of characteristics attributed to each social group. Thus, one sixteenth-century author noted: We nobles eat more partridge and other fine meats, and as a result we are more intelligent and more sensible than people who eat beef and pork.