What did people eat in travel (the middle ages and early modern era)?

by Horridhorsey

I asume most of the traveler's diet would be bread, since it was the biggest part of one's diet in general with dairy products in the second place, followed by dried meat and fruit. I'd like my to get more specific information, such as how was the food stored, who could afford meat and if there were any products associated especially with traveling? How about water or any other drink - what was the general drink of choice?

Eugeniavictoria

It depends a lot on what sort of travel you’re talking about - a one week journey on a carriage, a two month journey on a ship - and also where the people were coming from, but a few specific things you might find interesting:

  1. Meat could be prevented from rotting for long periods of time by drying it with salt. That was pretty common in some parts of the world.

  2. Depending on the length of the trip, people would stop to get more food / water one or a few times

  3. On many occasions, wine was preferred to water. Most long trips had a substantial amount of wine stocked up, and many times people would drink significantly more wine then water. Bear in mind that wine, during a long period of time and in many parts of the world, was not seen as something “fancy” but as a basic, natural part of one’s diet.

  4. Depending on the length and the nature of the trip, people would take livestock to kill and eat during the trip. Many ships carried living animals for that purpose.