its desserts, which included biscuits, rice pudding, quince marmalade, rose sugar and many types of non-alcoholic beverages. The most common sweetener was honey, with sugar extracted from sugar cane being reserved for those who could afford it. The food of the lower classes was mostly vegetarian and limited to olives, fruit, onions, and the occasional piece of cheese, or stews made from cabbage and salted pork. The standard meal of a shoemaker was described in a Byzantine poem, one of the Prodromic Poems, as consisting of some cooked foods and an omelette followed by hot salted pork with an unspecified garlic dish. Notes References Adamson, Melitta Weiss (2004) Food in Medieval Times Adamson, Melitta Weiss, ed. (2002) Regional Cuisines of Medieval Europe: A Book of Essays Dalby, Andrew (2003) Flavours of Byzantium Kjersgaard, Erik (1978) Mad og øl i Danmarks middelalder (summary in English) Grewe, Rudolf and Constance B. Hieatt (2001) Libellus De Arte Coquinaria: An Early Northern Cookery Book Scully, Terence (1995) The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages Dembinska, Maria (1999) Food and drink in medieval Poland: rediscovering a cuisine of the past, translated by Magdalena Thomas, revised and adapted by William Woys Weaver Medieval cuisine History of Europe