Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forme_of_Cury
This is where you get the memes about shocking medieval Europeans with a time travelling bag of Doritos: both the bag and its contents are completely impossible items for them.
Worth noting that durable items could be shipped long distance - precious metals, gems, textiles - but foodstuff shipping was more limited to high value density stuff like spices and the European wine trade.
Speaking of wine: no modern stimulants. No coffee, no tobacco, no weed, no cocaine, no opiates. No painkillers, no anasthesia. For all those situations, you have one option: alcohol.
A huge number of critical historical decisions were taken by people who would fail a brethalyser.
Not by the standards of the world 5th percentile, as in the question posed. The 5th percentile today is mostly subsistence farming and doesn't have access to imported foods or own a refrigerator (though there probably is one in their local village, and they may well own a mobile phone).
Well, except for food preserved via pickling, salting, drying, smoking, fermenting, sugaring, and confit. Which makes for quite a long list.
Plus, various foods like grains, root vegetables, onions, and even apples could be stored for months using proper techniques. They didn't have the luxury we have of not paying much attention to how we store things and just replacing them when they go bad, so they became quite good at this.
None of which preserves the taste/nutrition well for a wide range of foods like greens/fruits/vegetables, you the limits in seasonal availability don't get resolved
Plus the excellent point that dylan604 made, they weren't bougie bitches.
Yes, but also my understanding is that the preservation technique of that name involves much more salt than modern palettes are willing to tolerate, and also salt itself was much more limited in supply.
Despite this, salt as a preservative was indeed critical to civilisation.
> fermenting
True, and also I want to say "blessed are the cheesemakers" etc. here. :)
I have been told there is a huge difference between the two.
There are the fermented pickles
There are the pickles that get mixed with prefermented preservative (usually vinegar/salt) and pressure-canned
And then there are the pickles that get flash cooked or not cooked, mixed with preservative, and refrigerated for a limited time
There is some difference in taste, due to modern additiomal conservants and minor changes in receipta, but not all that much.
And thus potatoes and sauerkraut was born.
I would also expect them to have various special variaties of apples/pears that actually improved their taste with storage. For example a variety that was best with 2 months of storage, another one that was best after 6 months.
Then you have cheeses, yoghurts, milk. Those things could be available year round. One would expect the king of France to have quite a variety of cheeses at his disposal. Then we have meats prepared in a hundred different ways. From simple roasting, to gelling, pickling like modern hams. And so on.
Then we have various types of wild mushrooms. I wonder if the king ate wild mushrooms and who picked these mushrooms for him... Poisoning would be so easy to get away with if he did.
It would be tough without potatoes, tomatoes and peppers, but I think food-wise I'd be just fine (assuming money and power).
Hemlock and henbane were both used as painkillers and dulling agents .. up to unconsciousness and death, depending on dosage.
Added: Monastery herb gardens often had quite the range, eg: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/blog/ar...
The taste wasn't so fun though.
https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.92.15_supplement.P...
Alcohol, though, is great for dissolving opium into an easily ingestible potion, whence one gets dwale or laudanum.
[citation needed]
The idea that historically people went around hammered because the water supply was poor is a myth.
The water myth is not the cause.
He wasn't gay, but his many male lovers might have been. :D
Apart from his painful, smelly leg ulcers that he had to tolerate for years
I'm going to go with a cautious "yes" to the first: the ages at death of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_monarchs are not great.
"No" on the second (king is never going to have to worry about food security, that's for the peasants)
And "life opportunties" .. bit of a divide by zero situation. As king, you technically have all the opportunities. But you can only do things which actually exist at the time. And you're bound by the social and religious conventions of the time, which you mess with at your peril. Doing so worked for Henry VIII but not for the various Georges. See, for example, the controversy over whether James 6 might have been gay.