Now that the holidays are in full swing and you can’t seem to go anywhere without hearing Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.” At Pearson’s Renaissance Shoppe, the holidays are really special to us. Not only do we get to be festive and celebrate with our friends and family, we also take some time to learn a little bit about medieval and Renaissance era holiday traditions. Today, we found some great information about what exactly people in the medieval era ate during this festive time.

Did you know that people in medieval times actually celebrated twelve days of Christmas? That’s a lot of celebrating! Wealthy people and people of nobility were able to feast upon fresh meat and flavor them with cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and pepper from India and Indonesia. Wealthy people were also able to afford sugar, so sweets were plentiful for the upper class people in the medieval period during the holidays.

Less fortunate people would still celebrate with food, but the food wouldn’t be as luxurious. Less expensive meat like sausage and bacon were eaten, and while sugar may not have been plentiful, poorer people still indulged in dried apples and honey.

No matter how you celebrate the holiday this year, keep some medieval style in mind. Take a look at The Forme of Cury, a cookbook written around 1390. This will give you some inspiration and who knows – maybe you’ll find your next holiday tradition!