A Middle Ages-Style Breakfast

Morning.

The sun had only just risen, and the air still carried a slight chill, not yet having had time to turn hot and dry.

The streets of Blue Lion City were gradually filling with pedestrians: merchants busy learning the market prices, craftsmen seeking odd-job opportunities, hunters peddling furs, grooms soliciting customers...

Everyone hurried along the bluestone roads.

The windows on the second floors of the buildings lining the streets were opened one after another. Due to the lack of a proper drainage system, basins of wastewater from washing and grooming were dumped directly into the streets. Anyone walking below who was unlucky enough could be drenched from head to toe.

Amid curses, noise, and clamor, the atmosphere gradually grew lively. Blue Lion City was like a giant who had just awakened and stretched lazily. Blue Lion City Royal Palace was the giant's heart. Compared to the rest of Blue Lion City, it was somewhat quieter and more orderly: Maids diligently swept the ground, gardeners carefully trimmed the plants, and guard soldiers vigilantly stood at their posts...

At the heart's left atrium—the eastern palace of the Royal Palace—a breakfast was underway at a dining table.

Richard sat alone at one end of a long dining table over four meters long and more than a meter wide. With the maids standing around him ready to serve, he looked as lonely as a sailor shipwrecked at sea, floating alone upon the ocean.

But Richard said nothing. After all, fifteen years had made him more than accustomed to the ways of life in this world, and he could not be bothered to waste time changing such trivial matters. So, holding a knife and fork, he calmly ate this Middle Ages-style breakfast.

The staple of breakfast was white bread. True to its name, it was white, baked from repeatedly sifted wheat flour. But its texture was far from pleasant. Bread in this world was fermented very poorly; it was generally tossed into the oven to bake after only a slight fermentation.

As a result, it was nothing like the soft, fluffy bread of Modern Earth. It was extremely hard, like unleavened flatbread when bitten into, and wore down the teeth badly.

In fact, Richard could only eat this bread because he was a Prince. Commoners ate the even worse "black bread." So-called black bread used the same ingredient as white bread—wheat flour. The difference was that, in order to save flour, wheat flour was barely sifted when making black bread, leaving it mixed with large amounts of bran and making it incredibly coarse.

Some unscrupulous bakers even deliberately added things like sawdust and pebbles to black bread to increase its weight. At the same time, to make it keep longer, they reduced its moisture content as much as possible. This made the baked black bread outrageously hard, and it only grew harder with time. Generally speaking, black bread could still barely be bitten through during the first two days after it was made. After two days, it could only be sliced with a table knife and soaked in soup before eating. After a week, even a table knife could not cut it, because it had become as hard as stone and could be used as a weapon.

There were many such records from the Middle Ages: foolish thieves stole in poor villages, accidentally exposed themselves, and were beaten to death by enraged farmers wielding black bread.

Of course, bread also had its high-end varieties, such as Queen Bread. This bread was made by adding eggs, milk, and wild honey to refined flour, then using Brewer's Yeast instead of ordinary leavening for thorough fermentation before carefully controlling the oven temperature during baking. It was only palm-sized, but its flavor was already comparable to, or even better than, the finest cream bread on Modern Earth.

But such a thing was a luxury more precious than gold. Even the most extravagant King or great noble would not dare eat it casually. It was generally given as a special reward during banquets to those who had made outstanding contributions. Its significance was similar to that of a medal; its spiritual satisfaction outweighed its culinary enjoyment. In short, when it came to staple food in the Middle Ages, even the most powerful people generally had no choice but to obediently eat dry, hard white bread.

Richard held his knife and fork, cut a slice from the white bread, put it into his mouth, chewed forcefully, and swallowed. His expression showed neither joy nor sorrow. He truly had become used to it.

A moment later, after Richard had swallowed the white bread, footsteps sounded by the dining table. A maid carefully carried over a plate, placed it on the table, and set it before Richard.

On the plate was a thoroughly cooked Pork Chop, one of the breakfast's main dishes. It did not look particularly appetizing, however. The heat had not been controlled well, and some parts were already slightly burnt.

Richard gently cut off a small piece of the Pork Chop with his knife and fork and put it into his mouth. He chewed for a long while before managing to chew it apart, while a gamey smell spread through his mouth. This was because biological knowledge in the Middle Ages was truly poorly disseminated. Most people did not know that male livestock raised for meat needed to be castrated, resulting in extremely poor-quality meat with a gamey odor.

After finally swallowing the Pork Chop, Richard quickly grabbed the cup at his right and raised it to his mouth.

The cup contained the breakfast beverage.

Generally speaking, the most common breakfast drink in this world was not water, but low-alcohol liquor. This was not because people loved drinking, but because of hygiene.

Yes, hygiene.

Westerners had never had the habit of boiling water before drinking it. All untreated water lacked sterilization and contained countless bacteria, making intestinal infections easy to contract. In this world lacking antibiotics, an intestinal infection meant a high chance of dying from dehydration.

By comparison, low-alcohol liquor was better and cleaner than untreated water. That was why many people drank ale, also known as Malt Liquor, as if it were water. This liquor differed from beer because no hops were added, leaving it with little alcoholic flavor and making it prone to sourness. To cover up that strange sour taste, brewers often added all kinds of bizarre things to it, making drinking it much like drinking herbal medicine.

Many people did not care in the slightest, gulping down Malt Liquor with all sorts of flavors. But Richard found it somewhat unbearable, so the cup on the table contained water—boiled water—clean drinking water that had been sterilized through boiling.

He picked up the cup, drank several mouthfuls of water, rinsed away the gamey taste in his mouth, and continued eating the sliced bread.

He had only just swallowed a slice of white bread with difficulty when Edward suddenly ran in and said, "Prince, Butler Delong has come."

"Didn't he come yesterday? What is he here for again today?" Richard raised his head and asked.

"I don't know." Edward shook his head. "He did not reveal anything. He only said that he wanted to see you."

With two soft bangs, Richard set down the table knife in his hand. After thinking for a moment, he said, "Bring him here."

"Yes." Edward answered and quickly walked out. Before long, he led the thin, elderly Butler Delong into the dining room.