They cooked in the kitchen in a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They mostly ate vegetables and didn't get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been there for a month.
Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.
Sometimes they could obtain pork and would feel really special when that happened. When company came over, they would bring out some bacon and hang it to show it off. Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food. Most people didn't have pewter plates, but had trenchers-a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl.