Students and other readers will learn about the common foodstuffs available, how and what they cooked, ate, and drank, what the regional cuisines were like, how the different classes entertained and celebrated, and what restrictions they followed for health and faith reasons. Fascinating information is provided, such as on imitation food, kitchen humor, and medical ideas. Many period recipes and quotations flesh out the narrative.

The book draws on a variety of period sources, including as literature, account books, cookbooks, religious texts, archaeology, and art. Food was a status symbol then, and sumptuary laws defined what a person of a certain class could eat—the ingredients and preparation of a dish and how it was eaten depended on a person's status, and most information is available on the upper crust rather than the masses. Equalizing factors might have been religious strictures and such diseases as the bubonic plague, all of which are detailed here.

学生和其他读者将了解到现有的普通食品，他们如何做饭，吃什么，喝什么，各地区的菜肴是什么样的，不同阶层如何娱乐和庆祝，以及他们出于健康和信仰的原因遵循哪些限制。书中还提供了引人入胜的信息，如关于仿制食品、厨房幽默和医疗理念等。许多时期的食谱和语录充实了叙述内容。

本书借鉴了各种时期的资料，包括文学、账簿、食谱、宗教文本、考古学和艺术。当时，食物是一种地位的象征，军需法规定了某一阶层的人可以吃什么--一道菜的原料和准备以及如何吃都取决于一个人的地位，大多数信息都是关于上层社会而不是大众的。平等的因素可能是宗教上的限制和诸如鼠疫之类的疾病，所有这些在这里都有详细说明。