Feeling the burden of affluence? Tired of the endless parade of pleasant, trendy restaurants offering this week's foodie ingredient? Looking for that ever-elusive air of authenticity? Come on down to the Middle Ages House of Gruel!

Our meticulously researched menu includes such guilt-assuaging items as:

- Rat, cooked in flaming pitch - Gruel! - Root vegetables in a thin broth - Gruel! - Extremely unfresh bread - Gruel!

All served in a freezing, unwholesome, fetid hovel atmosphere!

Come on our theme nights:

- Peasant uprising night - Repression of the peasant uprising night - Famine night - Foreign invasion night (sacking AND looting!)

After a trip to the Middle Ages House of Gruel, your next trip to The French Laundry or Jean-George will be as fresh and exciting as the first time!
-- tspyz, May 01 2002

You forgot the most important part - customers must work for their dinner. This involves:
1) chopping wood
2) slaughtering animals
3) preparing food
4) stirring the cauldron
5) serving

Random customers will be singled out for whippings (to set an example).
-- phoenix, May 02 2002


you know, there are places where people would actually enjoy something like this.
-- Isaac, May 02 2002


don't need the expense, I do all my own cooking.
-- po, May 02 2002


I quite like this one. Very suitable for Renaissance Faire / SCA enthusiasts.
-- waugsqueke, May 02 2002


I also was expecting something from Unabubba, but the author does not detract from the good idea.
-- kaz, May 02 2002


There is a really really good Middle Ages restaurant in Tallinn, Estonia. Lots of barley, root vegetables (carrots and swedes), nuts, herring, peas, lentils. No potatoes of course, or pasta or rice. Not much meat. (Estonia was a poor country back then, too.)
-- herilane, May 02 2002


Before you put one on every corner in Polloiville, you'd better plan for some stiff competition from the likes of La Pat's Eats, Gone Flavoring, and D'obos.
-- reensure, May 03 2002


<obligatory Dickens reference> Please sir, can I have some more?</obligatory Dickens reference>
-- RayfordSteele, May 03 2002


For true abasement you need two restaurants. One serves fancy middle-ages court food - lots of roast beef, that sort of thing, authentically served on 'Trenchers' - big flat slices of hard bread - instead of plates.
The restaurant next door will be called "The Trencherman" and will serve the used Trenchers from the other restaurant.
(A trencherman used to be a term for a peasant who'd eat the trenchers left over after feasts)
-- hippo, May 03 2002


'Polloiville' - I like that a lot, reensure.
I was watching a TV archaeology show on Discovery channel about the Silk Road yesterday and it struck me that we all think that 'peasant class' is an archaic concept. But actually if the archaeologists of the future dug up 20th/21st c. cemeteries and found well preserved bodies and fabrics, they would find most of us in polyester high street fashions. (I own one expensive suit and one silk ball dress and I know for sure that my girl cousin won't let them bury me in either of those!) So those future archaeologists might consider all the polyester-clothed people the peasant class, which is likely to be a majority of us. Just a thought.
-- sappho, May 03 2002


I think that may possibly be the first time that I have ever been called kazzy. lol
-- kaz, May 03 2002


Every 50th plate is contaminated with Plague
-- binkley, Aug 22 2002


For a truly medievel attitude to nourishment, I would wholeheartedly reccomend the public health system. For an organisation that is supposed to be encouraging people to take care of themselves and help them to recover after not having taken care of themselves, they do a truly horrendous job. Really, we spend zillions of pounds/dollars/gumbo-beads fixing peoples ailments and then feed them similar shit to what often as not put them in the hospital in the first place. The restaurant in Estonia sounds like it has just the right sort of menu for a recovering victim of the fast food/tobacco/alcohol industry. One of the places I work has a kids ward sponsored by McD's!!! How f***ed is that? What next? cardiac units sponsored by Marlboro? This a a twisted world..... sorry, I'm ranting.
-- briandamage, Aug 22 2002



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