Meat. All social groups ate, by modern standards, a tremendous amount of meat, which was not a luxury item in Europe until the mid sixteenth century. Prior to that time Europeans—rich and poor alike—preferred their meat boiled or roasted, and the standards included beef, mutton, pork, poultry, pigeon, goat, and lamb. Game was regularly consumed: wild boar, hare, rabbit, stag, roe deer, as well as many types of birds that today would be considered rarities, such as herons, egrets, wild swans, cranes, partridges, and larks. Turkeys became popular after they were introduced from the Americas in the first half of the sixteenth century.

Availability. Before the mid sixteenth century, the demand for meat rarely fell, and, even in times of famine, the poor were able to consume it. The size of the herds of cattle brought to sixteenth-century Germany's largest cattle fair...