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Not generally. Meat was in short supply and typically reserved for wealthier individuals, such as the count or lord. Peasants typically ate things like bread, milk and cheese from livestock, and vegetables or other crops they grew. The only time a medieval peasant could expect to eat meat would be on a feast day -- for example, Christmas, when a boar or pig might be roasted.

2nd answer: I am going to disagree with this to a degree. Medieval peasants certainly would have eaten far less meat that modern people in first world counties, but they were farmers who raised animals for meat, milk, eggs, wool, etc. Every November animals larger than poultry would be evaluated for their ability to survive the winter, and animal populations would have been weighed against stores of fodder, and a certain number of animals would have been slaughtered. Meat could be preserved by drying, salting, or brine soaking. Sheep and chickens at the end of their productive lives would be killed and eaten, and in the case of the sheep also exploited for skin and bone, which had various craft uses. Dairy animals only produced milk if they had breed, and these animal's offspring were a potential source of meat as well. Pigs were raised by peasants, whose primary value was for their meat.

Again, total meat consumption was lower than modern standards, and lower than the standards of the rich of their own time, but they would still have had some. The above poster mentioned feast days. This is a good point, but keep in mind that feast days are legion in the Catholic calendar. While the peasants could not eat the platters of roasted meats that appear at the banquets of the rich, modest amounts would make their way into the family stew pot from time to time.

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13y ago

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