France had two cuisines. First you had rmthe elegant and opulant style favored by tbe nobility and the "take odd cuts of meat and other wierd things and find a way to make something" of the peasantry.
The first one died off with the revolutions. The second turned into the archtypal French food. Tiny plates of wierd meats and foods prepared to perfection.
Not sure how accurate it is, but there was an article I read last year that claimed European nobility made heavy use of spiced and seasoned food like everywhere else, the movement towards 'natural' flavors was aristocratic backlash from the increasing availability of spices as oceanic trade kicked off, which made spiced and flavorsome foods the accessible to rich commoners.
So to be
properly elite, there was a push towards natural and unmixed flavors of ingredients, which required high quality, fresh produce over processed foods, which while not as valuable as spices, was pretty hard to get due to the difficulties of transportation. Similarly, to contrast with the working class who often indulged their increasing wealth with large amounts of cheap food, the portions shrank from the famed ancient feasts, to the tiny portions of gourmet food which is basically to say "yeah I can AFFORD to spend a lot of money on a single scoop of this"
Culture and Caste interaction with Cuisine is weird.
Taking a rough guess, 'modern' Ymaryn cuisine is:
-Salty as hell. High historical availability of salt means that salted meats and fish were likely core cultural staples since before the stratification.
-Flour products were significant. Expect much more noodles and breads than whole grains. We made milling very prevalent early on.
-Meat status is probably normal. While there was a relatively high availability of meat for commoners, our elites and intellectuals took to a highly physical lifestyle that demanded a protein heavy diet.
-Fruit featured heavily as a common luxury food. It is unlikely that the supply kept up with the exploding urban populations, but at the same time our Managed Forests would have produced a lot more fruit than anything short of dedicated plantations.
-Historically high clean water availability meant that soups and stews were easy to make. Additionally, the early communal kitchens would also further reward this, since a communal stew or soup pot was a very efficient way to prepare a lot of food for the urban population.
--At the same time the rising urban pollution levels probably means that you'd see a lot more thickened stews which hide the unappetizing color of the water in the low and middle classes, while the elite would probably make having clear soups as a point to show off that they got cleaner water even if they have to cart it in from the countryside by the barrel.
-Pots and pans were relatively common due to the prevalence of ironworks, as were ovens. Baking, stewing, and frying are then more common than open fire roasts due to the spread of utensils.
-Lard was highly available, and we consume a lot of olive oil domestically. Still, only urbanites or the elite could use a lot
-Refined sugar never featured much historically for us. So sweets were likely focused on the nobility.
-Spices were historically considered to be used to mask lower quality food due to the lack of trade back then, but once our trade opened up to the Monsoon Sea I suspect our nobility made a point of taking premium veal and fruits and then making curry with it at some point.
-Fuel varied, but there was a strong supply of good charcoal as a byproduct of the metal industries pursuit for a hotter flame.
-Convenience was a big thing to the middle class, which had our industries driven to a breaking point repeatedly.
So to sum it up, I think the most prevalent modern cuisines would be:
-The poor eat a lot of salted meat/fish stews paired with noodles or bread.
-The middle class eats a lot of breads with fried food. Possibly with spiced stews off imported spices and some semiregular fruit treats.
-The elite are running Classical Medieval Feasts to show off their prestige. And then 'generously' distribute the leftovers to show that their fire is warmer than that other noble over there whose feast has less leftovers.
--They also make use of foods which require extensive specialist time investment to make. So again, classical medieval feast.
Hmm, vaguely chinese-like?
Am unreasonably hungry now x.x
