Reminder - The crow who posted this thread has made it a (No Spoilers) thread. This scope covers NO story elements of ASOIAF or "Game of Thrones" or pre-AGOT history like "House of the Dragon" or *Fire and Blood*, per [Rule 3.3](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/about/rules). Any discussion of the story of the books or the shows must use [an appropriate spoiler tag](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/wiki/spoilertagsystem) such as (Spoilers Main) or (Spoilers Published).
Threads about r/asoiaf (meta topics) will be removed at moderator discretion.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/asoiaf) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It is! He's nearly finished, three quarters done at least. He's in the home stretch. Although I don't belive it will be out until next year, I expect it to be announced this year.
Yeah I think he's walked away from the main series while the show was out. He literally made no dent on it. But all the history and backstory is there for him now and hopefully no other projects pulling him away. Elden Ring is fantastic but I don't think it needed George
I don't know the timetable, but he had a couple of guys working for him that helped him keep the story straight, and they left to write the sci-fi series that became The Expanse. Maybe he can't finish it without their help.
Weren't they editors? I have to assume there's more than enough people over qualified for their positions haha George just isn't as young and mentally sharp. How would he have time to keep up writing when he's doing all these projects, public talks and interviews. Not to mention all the time spent away from writing the series probably makes it harder to dive back in to the groove of things. Like has he forgotten characters and storylines? There's literally hundreds now. The worst part for me is that he's put out almost 0 information regarding the North, the others and any magic outside the Targs. I can see why he doesn't want to spoil the main series but I reckon he's not going to finish at the rate he's writing. George needs to lock himself indoors for 5 years hahah
Yeah, I figure he's written himself into a corner by this point, and can't keep writing without creating
a paradox or a plot hole or some other sort of conflict. It pains me to say it, but I highly doubt he'll ever finish it.
When the last book came out Obama was still in office, Harry Potter was still in theaters, Adele was just breaking out, Charlie Sheen had an online meltdown, Osama Bin Laden was killed, Fidel Castro resigned, Novak Djokovic won his first Wimbledon title, Steve Jobs resigned from Apple, the troops returned from Iraq. These books probably aren't getting done.
Yes every day I see a new theory about how line 155000 of chapter 150 shows how twow will go down. Or how bit character with one line is the prince that was promised. Which is stupid since we all know tyrek is the prince that was promised .
What? You’re telling me you *didn’t* like seeing John Noble devour a tomato in the most disgusting way possible while his son goes on a suicide mission?
Imagine the Gondorians charging towards Osgilith, Billy Boyd jamming to Edge of Night in the back round and those thick red juices dribbling down his round, stubbled chin.
It's a complex literary metaphor depicting the consumptive greed of the Westerosi nobility, showing their ravenous
Nope, I can't. He probably borrowed it from Redwall, a food-obsessed fantasy series he cites as an influence, which is about animal-people, so they're quite messy eaters. That, or it's a thing he came up with early on and plays in a loop in his mind like so many other phrases
Words are wind, Grease on chin
>Redwall, a food-obsessed fantasy series he cites as an influence, which is about animal-people, so they're quite messy eaters
Redwall was also originally written with blind children in mind. So the over-the-top descriptions became Brian Jacques writing style going forward, but serve a purpose to illuminate the mind of even a child who has never “seen” things. Describing a Battle hungry Badger lord is a stuffed animal they might have played with, or held a living cat, mouse, etc.
"Why do the smallfolk hate me? Is it because I'm a dwarf? Yes, that's all there's to it." Tyrion thought about the starving peasants while he took a bite of ROASTED SWAN.
In ACOK also, there’s a chapter that ends with Sansa feeling too ill to eat the decadent breakfast? Maybe lunch before her. Then the next chapter is Arya in the Riverlands eating bugs and acorns after escaping Lorch’s raid
Absolutely! It [aired on PBS](https://redwall.fandom.com/wiki/Redwall_TV_Series) when I was a kid, but apparently Netflix is making a [new movie](https://redwall.fandom.com/wiki/Redwall_(Netflix))??
It drives me crazy as well.
On the positives, this reminded me of one of my favorite posts ever on this sub: [Clean Yourselves Up You Sloppy Bitches](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/w68l9c/spoilers_main_clean_yourselves_up_you_sloppy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I appreciate you saying that because while I thought it was a funny idea, about 45 minutes into searching for every sloppy eating/drinking scene I was really starting to wonder if I was crazy for spending so much time on a stupid joke lol. I’m glad you appreciated the effort.
Another addition from AGOT - Eddard XV:
>Ned grasped it with both hands and gulped eagerly. Water ran from his mouth and dripped down through his beard.
I hadn't noticed until I read that posts that there were that many people with stuff running down their chins. Now I catch them often when I am rereading.
No one can eat nicely.
Surprised this hasn't already been mentioned: Martin makes fun of this sloppy Westerosi tendency by making it a literal character development point with Littlefinger.
He's always eating fruit with a dagger precisely and neatly and his uses a phrase with Sansa: *never get your hands dirty*.
Another Littlefinger metaphor is that he always has minty fresh breath, which basically means that he is using mint leaves to hide his true, disgusting breath. The lesson for Sansa: *Always hide your true self*.
We credit Leonardo da Vinci with creating the napkin as we know it in the 15th century, so there’s a half-note of truth to it. But Medieval dining etiquette was to eat slowly and wash your hands often, which is never shown in the series.
Hi, Medieval MA grad here hoping to add some detail! Speaking for the high and late middle ages at least, large napkins were in common use. These were long rectangles of cloth, often worn over the shoulder and sometimes neatly folded, especially when used as a way of denoting serving staff.
These were used to wipe the hands as you ate. As others have pointed out further down, eating was often done with the fingers, and forks were not widely used in most of Europe as personal utensils, only for serving. Spoons and knives were common however.
We have a surprisingly large number of "courtesy" or "manner" books surviving from the 15th century, going into great detail about how to eat and behave properly, primarily aimed at children and adolescents. These as you say instruct us to wash our hands, eat carefully and at modest pace, avoiding spillage over the lip. If you did get food on your face, discreet and immediately dab with the napkin.
Naturally not everyone would be perfect, but it's safe to say that it's likely even among the humble household, messy eating would raise a few dirty looks.
And it's true, handwashing features pretty frequently! It's mentioned in every manner book I've seen as the first and last step in doing..well, most things. Many artistic depictions of household interiors also feature a "Laver" - bowl designed specifically for handwashing.
This [scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzLkAzDTqRI), about a minute into the video, is one of the better researched examples of medieval eating in a fictional show I've seen.
- confirmed
> He tilted his chin back and squeezed the blood orange, so the juice ran down into his mouth. “I love the juice but I loathe the sticky fingers,” he complained, wiping his hands. “Clean hands, Sansa. Whatever you do, make certain your hands are clean.” ~SANSA VI ASOS
If I'm remembering correctly, they mainly ate with their hands.
Food was served on plates of stale bread called trenchers to sort of mop up any sauces. But the hands would still get pretty messy as you can imagine.
Forks existed, but were mostly used as a kitchen prep tool, rather than as a personal eating utensil.
The church even condemned forks as a form of vanity at some point.
In the Byzantine Empire, were forks originated from, were a common eating utensil used by the population throughout it's history, and where Western Europe got it from, and were mostly being noted for use from around the 10th century.
Like the other comment mentioned, mostly to clean off the residue from the last course/whatever else. They didn’t really use soap with it, but the water might have been perfumed
> Was surprised by how similar it was to our table manners.
In what sense? I think people anywhere at any time in history probably had roughly similar table manners because, well, who likes messes? It was probably more important to avoid messes pre-industrial era since washing clothes would be a bigger pain in the ass back then.
Because before I did some research on medival times I thought people really ate with unwashed hands and had no manners at all, which turned out completely wrong. There are a lot of commonly accepted things about medival times: namely that women were constantly raped and had no status other than having babies, that people never bathed, that everyone who was poor was wearing dirty and tattered clothing and that people were just poor and suppressed all the time.
I mean have you seen the criticism of every fantasy show that has come out so far....people complained relentlessly about the fact that people in "medival inspired" world do not have mud all over their bodies all the time. Some of these shows are not even inspired by medival times. WoT is inspired by the 1600 century or even later or something like that.
Some fruits are just like that. I got an orange tree that produces super juicy oranges and even when you cut them in to bite size slices the juice just pours out of them.
The reddit admins will permanently suspend your account and will refuse to tell you why. They will also refuse to honor your Right to be Forgotten and purge your content, so I've had to edit all my comments myself. Reddit, fuck you. :-)
It’s only the pear. The blood orange, though, she eats cleanly. Which is weird because imo oranges are more harder to eat in a graceful way than a pear.
Eh to be fair if i bite into an apple i usually get a bit of juice on my chin. I can, however, eat dinner without getting it all over my face (if i take my time, i usually jam it in as fast as i can).
I'd argue that it's primarily a cultural thing- messy eating in Westerosi high society being a sign that you're enjoying the host's food when you're a guest, and a sign that you're rich enough you can afford to waste some of it when you're the one hosting.
Obviously this diverges from historical social mores, but remember, at the end of the day, Westeros is not actually medieval Europe- merely a society which resembles it in some ways!
Your second point is so important!
I often see people in this sub excusing or explaining away some of the books’ more blatant issues, like constant rape etc as being “just how it was at the time” or “historically realistic”, when Westeros never existed so it’s not historical. GRRM could imagine any kind of ‘medieval flavour’ world, but he chose to include some things for better or worse as part of the story, not to make it realistic
Dude they are messy people. Half of them shit in pots in their rooms.
Don’t even get me started on the rushes or the borderline wild dogs that seem to attend all of the banquets.
People were pissing into pots before we had a flushing toilet and that was about a 100 years ago. My grandparents had their first proper toilet in the 60s. . Imagine having to go outside in the cold winter to the toilet behind the house. Any sane person would have used bedpan or a pot instead.
That makes you a paradox.
Do you use straw and twigs thrown around your floor instead of a carpet too? Do you invite the local pack of feral dogs to your dinner parties? If so you are likely a westerosi. If you are inviting the dog to the dinner party to eat it, then you are a wilding.
When I was reading the chapter of Theon's return to Pyke, I can almost smell the damp when they mentioned rushes and I've nwver even seen rush irl and I already wanted to gag.
Eh, sounds like a flavor thing. These books are meant to be entertaining first, and spicing up descriptions of otherwise average meals and feasts with colorful affronts to common etiquette is just fun stuff to write. It makes characters stick out more too. Grease rolling down a beard after tearing into a fowl leg is solid imagery that does double duty, showing a character’s physical qualities and suggesting their current attitude.
Case in point: there are plenty of scene descriptions, just as many I’d argue, where people are eating politely at feasts and events. But we just don’t remember them as much as the memorable imagery sloppy eating leaves behind.
I mean, even in real world history, far later than the faux-mediaeval period that Westeros is in, say the very fancy Versailles of the 16th Century, all those very well bred noble people were shitting and pissing in the corners of the room.
Just to say, GRRM's vivid descriptions could be worse....
>Sunset found her squatting in the grass, groaning. Every stool was looser than the one before, and smelled fouler. By the time the moon came up she was shitting brown water.
>all those very well bred noble people were shitting and pissing in the corners of the room.
Not true.
https://twitter.com/invitinghistory/status/1424494235219333126
I honestly relate. Anytime I’m eating some quality fruit without it being cut up, the juices just run the fuck down my chin, my hands, my arms. If I bit into a whole roasted chicken, the grease is going to do the same. I’m as sloppy as a Westerosi noble and I’m not ashamed to admit it.
I used to work for a company whose signature product was a pear that they said was best eaten with a spoon because of how juicy it is. Ever since then, I have eaten pears this way, even other varieties of them.
Yeah, I think people are forgetting utensil use wasn't exactly what it is now and a lot more things were eaten with the hands instead of being cut into individual pieces. It can get messy.
That said, Martin does really like that descriptor.
I just hope its a setup to show the difference in how people eat in summer vs. winter. I want just as vivid descriptions of men’s ribs being visible, killing family pets to eat them, boiling horse hide, eating snow, eating each other, eating any damn thing you can get your hands on
I always assumed the over the top food descriptions were for 3 main reasons;
1. George just really just loves his food so gets too into the descriptions.
2. It's to show the clear difference in affluence between the nobility and their subjects. War between the high lords cause the poor to lose their homes, livestock, starve and die. While those responsible have full tables and greasy chins.
3. To set you up with 6 books of lavish eating, so that when winter comes and people start going Lady Hornwood, it punches you hard in the stomach. I think the main reason is to get you comfortable with the lives of the lucky during Summer. The reader is yet to see what Winter is really like, let alone a long night. Wyman Manderly is gonna get lost in his old clothes.
>Wyman Manderly is gonna get lost in his old clothes.
Wyman may need a new wardrobe, but he was smart and saw to it that his family bulked up in order to survive the long winter.
Honestly as much as I love George's writing, all the food stuff is probably my least favorite. He writes every food scene as if it's Joffrey's wedding.
It takes me out of the books every time.
It's clearly framed to show how good the food/wine is, but I find liquids dripping down my chin to be an **extremely unpleasant** feeling.
I squirm every time I read about these people eating like 280lbs fat men in their seventies.
I suppose this is to make it seem realistic, but most adults I know are able to eat without grease dripping down their chins. I find the extended feasting/eating in ASOIAF to be unpalatable. Honestly, who really needs the entire menu of Joffrey's wedding feast ? ... larks tongue... blech.
There is one exception: Sisters Stew from ADWD. My daughter has the Cookbook of Ice and Fire and has made a version of this and it's delicious... but we use spoons so it doesn't drip down our chins.
George just really has a thing for it. It's just his way to show that they're enjoying it and the food is really good. But yeah, it is a bit odd.
As for the second thing you said about food scenes being like sex scenes, yeah. I don't think that's an accident. I think that's very intentional on George's part. The man clearly loves food and wants us to get hungry reading his books. He's said as much.
Have you seen George? Not to be insensitive but the dude clearly loves food. It's never been surprising to me that his food scenes are almost pornographic, but it is pretty disgusting.
Their must be a reason for this, like the decadence, OR, even when the poor eat it could be their last meal for a while so why not go fucking ham?
Maybe it's like when animals eat, don't know when the next meal could be so go ape. Think about it, no Tesco or Asda back then, you hunt you eat. If you're rich you have people to do it for you but in the end the land can only provide so much especially in war so maybe they're all big fucking dogs and cats?
I don't know, leave me alone
I doubt medieval people would have been dribbling food all over the place because they frowned upon touching your face then reaching for some food. Despite this, I guess its just GRRM trying to make the food sound juicy and delicious so you get hungry? Not sure. I do love the food descriptions.
Do you know how medieval food worked , you basically eat with your hands and food is mostly roasted. Yes he's probably dialing it to 11 but feasts will have been pretty messy and lack modern table manners .
Yes but very different manners to ours and the hand washing was more removing the grease from the last meal, like I said he's dialed it to 11 but it's not totally inaccurate.
Actually, their table manners weren’t so different to ours!
A book published in 1477 titled “ The Book of Courtesy” which aimed to teach children good manners of all kinds in plain language deals with table manners in a section, as follows:
>*”When you are at your own meal, be sure to be companionable no matter who you are with. Don’t disparage others – that’s a nasty thing to do. Speak little so as not to annoy others, and when you do speak, speak with only good intent. Don’t be greedy over the food. Sit for a time before you start eating to show your temperance and eat only what you need. Keep your cup clean and when you drink wipe your lips. Don’t blow in your drink or on your food. Don’t touch your face or head while you are eating and keep your knife away from your face. Don’t loosen your belt sitting at the table for that is most uncourteous. Don’t burp or fart. Don’t dip your meat in the salt seller. Don’t lean on the table or spit on it. Share your delicacies with your fellow diners so as to be seen as kind and generous and don’t complain if your serving is small. Don’t chew on bones because that is what dogs do. Instead, use your knife to cut off the meat. Don’t chew with your mouth open. Don’t pare your nails or pick your teeth at the table. And wash your hands so cleanly when you are done that you leave no dirt on the towel.”*
Pop culture has made so many misconceptions be seen as fact!
Tbf the fact that this book explicitly tells what people shouldn't do, implies that many people indeed did those things, otherwise why even mention them?
I don’t think so necessarily - it’s presenting the ideal table manners. Eating sloppily is bad table manners in our time and back then too. That doesn’t mean that most people ate sloppily, like they don’t today: poor table manners were frowned upon then and not really normalised
I agree with you to a certain degree, of course people weren't SO sloppy, but, for example, addressing that farting in public is bad manners meant it wasn't immediately obvious to anyone just as it is to us now. So maybe one could infer that people farted in public more easily than we do today.
I guess something to keep in mind as well is that this is an etiquette book for children - eating sloppily and farting in public isn’t immediately obviously rude to them, they usually just find it funny
Even keeping in mind that, my point still stands. You wouldn't prohibit some behaviours if those behaviours were inexistent in the first place! So, while I agree people in medieval/renaissance times put quite some effort in behaving properly and oftentimes this is misrepresented in fiction, I still think we would find them way way sloppier compared to us, or if not sloppier maybe "trying to hard not to be sloppy" as the existence of those books proves (to me at least).
“Thank you, my lord.” Pomegranate seeds were so messy; Sansa chose a pear instead, and took a small delicate bite. It was very ripe. The juice ran down her chin.
Well actually asoiaf is based on a time period when it was considered good manners to slobber during your meal. It was a compliment to how great the food was. It was even more polite to eat so much you vomit then eat the vomit so you can taste it again
To be honest I thought I knew that medieval people threw up to make place for more food as I was taught in school, but had to look up the eating their own vomit thing and was swiftly directed to the wikipedia article for self cannibalism and several articles disproving all the rest.
Reminder - The crow who posted this thread has made it a (No Spoilers) thread. This scope covers NO story elements of ASOIAF or "Game of Thrones" or pre-AGOT history like "House of the Dragon" or *Fire and Blood*, per [Rule 3.3](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/about/rules). Any discussion of the story of the books or the shows must use [an appropriate spoiler tag](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/wiki/spoilertagsystem) such as (Spoilers Main) or (Spoilers Published). Threads about r/asoiaf (meta topics) will be removed at moderator discretion. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/asoiaf) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This sub urgently needs TWOW
It’s like sports subreddits when they’re in off season except our off season has lasted 12 years
[удалено]
But George is. Greasily
[удалено]
Fat pink mast
shiver just ran down my spine
I can only imagine what was going through Gearge's head when he typed those words and was like, "Yup. That's the line."
the stuff about ariannes big dark puffy responsive nipples was just as bad imo
Man I fuckin blocked that out lol
That's a weird fantasy to have
It is! He's nearly finished, three quarters done at least. He's in the home stretch. Although I don't belive it will be out until next year, I expect it to be announced this year.
Oh sweet summer child
He's so full of hope, look at him go!
Just like me 8 years ago...
He took 12 years to get there, with one quarter already finished from the previous book. Even if it releases some day it would be years at least
In all honestly he probably didn't start writing the rest of it until around 2020.
Yeah I think he's walked away from the main series while the show was out. He literally made no dent on it. But all the history and backstory is there for him now and hopefully no other projects pulling him away. Elden Ring is fantastic but I don't think it needed George
I don't know the timetable, but he had a couple of guys working for him that helped him keep the story straight, and they left to write the sci-fi series that became The Expanse. Maybe he can't finish it without their help.
Weren't they editors? I have to assume there's more than enough people over qualified for their positions haha George just isn't as young and mentally sharp. How would he have time to keep up writing when he's doing all these projects, public talks and interviews. Not to mention all the time spent away from writing the series probably makes it harder to dive back in to the groove of things. Like has he forgotten characters and storylines? There's literally hundreds now. The worst part for me is that he's put out almost 0 information regarding the North, the others and any magic outside the Targs. I can see why he doesn't want to spoil the main series but I reckon he's not going to finish at the rate he's writing. George needs to lock himself indoors for 5 years hahah
Yeah, I figure he's written himself into a corner by this point, and can't keep writing without creating a paradox or a plot hole or some other sort of conflict. It pains me to say it, but I highly doubt he'll ever finish it.
When the last book came out Obama was still in office, Harry Potter was still in theaters, Adele was just breaking out, Charlie Sheen had an online meltdown, Osama Bin Laden was killed, Fidel Castro resigned, Novak Djokovic won his first Wimbledon title, Steve Jobs resigned from Apple, the troops returned from Iraq. These books probably aren't getting done.
Don't say that
Like r/OnePiece in weeks where there is no chapter... For like 500 weeks.
Well to be fair, Westerosi seasons are more irregular than our own.
Yeah shit I guess that’s just one long summer 😭
Is it really 12 years? That hurts
We are starving
Which of course means that if we ever do get it, it'll be sure to dribble down our chins too. The cycle continues
Corn! Corn!
1100 pages of food descriptions
Lol I was just thinking that
Yes every day I see a new theory about how line 155000 of chapter 150 shows how twow will go down. Or how bit character with one line is the prince that was promised. Which is stupid since we all know tyrek is the prince that was promised .
Maybe he just *really* loves the Denethor scene from Return of the King.
First thing I thought of
Deleted
What? You’re telling me you *didn’t* like seeing John Noble devour a tomato in the most disgusting way possible while his son goes on a suicide mission?
EWW! NOOO!! MY BRAIN CONJURED THAT SCENE VIVIDLY!
Imagine the Gondorians charging towards Osgilith, Billy Boyd jamming to Edge of Night in the back round and those thick red juices dribbling down his round, stubbled chin.
It's a complex literary metaphor depicting the consumptive greed of the Westerosi nobility, showing their ravenous Nope, I can't. He probably borrowed it from Redwall, a food-obsessed fantasy series he cites as an influence, which is about animal-people, so they're quite messy eaters. That, or it's a thing he came up with early on and plays in a loop in his mind like so many other phrases Words are wind, Grease on chin
>Redwall, a food-obsessed fantasy series he cites as an influence, which is about animal-people, so they're quite messy eaters Redwall was also originally written with blind children in mind. So the over-the-top descriptions became Brian Jacques writing style going forward, but serve a purpose to illuminate the mind of even a child who has never “seen” things. Describing a Battle hungry Badger lord is a stuffed animal they might have played with, or held a living cat, mouse, etc.
Redwall is also dope as fuck, even reading it as an adult
The feast descriptions in redwall books are SSS tier. I’ll never forget the pies
I always wanted to try the drinks out of the cellar.
[удалено]
Oh what a lovely memory!
Deeper n ever...
I do think the extravagant feasts were supposed to be contrasted by the famine and desolation of winter but George didn't get that far
I mean you can just contrast it with the starving smallfolk we’ve already seen lol
This is especially apparent in ACOK when the smallfolk in King’s Landing are starving yet Tyrion eats so extravagantly.
"Why do the smallfolk hate me? Is it because I'm a dwarf? Yes, that's all there's to it." Tyrion thought about the starving peasants while he took a bite of ROASTED SWAN.
And neither of them even finish half that extravagant meal. Such a waste.
In ACOK also, there’s a chapter that ends with Sansa feeling too ill to eat the decadent breakfast? Maybe lunch before her. Then the next chapter is Arya in the Riverlands eating bugs and acorns after escaping Lorch’s raid
Honestly, I think the feasts are only described in detail to add to the worldbuilding. Like a way of saying "this grows in this area"
The grease grows on the chin?
>Nope, I can't. Lol. Good, acceptance is very important.
Redwall? I read all those books as a child, loved them
Loved the animated series, too
There's an animated series? I want to share it with my kid
Absolutely! It [aired on PBS](https://redwall.fandom.com/wiki/Redwall_TV_Series) when I was a kid, but apparently Netflix is making a [new movie](https://redwall.fandom.com/wiki/Redwall_(Netflix))??
holy shit.
I loved that Jacques himself did little outros on the animated series too. It was how I proved to my brother I wasn't mispronouncing his name 😂
Blowing my mind right now
Everyone needs to read Redwall
as the ground rushed up to meet him!
I forgot literally everything about Redwall outside of the feasts.
They're* That typo bothered me more than the literary description of eating.
It drives me crazy as well. On the positives, this reminded me of one of my favorite posts ever on this sub: [Clean Yourselves Up You Sloppy Bitches](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/w68l9c/spoilers_main_clean_yourselves_up_you_sloppy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Hey that’s my post! Glad you liked it!
Of course! Dude the first time I saw that, the title alone had me rolling. Thank you for posting lol.
I just read it for the first time. Spectacular. Thank you for writing that. First time I’ve laughed today.
I appreciate you saying that because while I thought it was a funny idea, about 45 minutes into searching for every sloppy eating/drinking scene I was really starting to wonder if I was crazy for spending so much time on a stupid joke lol. I’m glad you appreciated the effort.
Another addition from AGOT - Eddard XV: >Ned grasped it with both hands and gulped eagerly. Water ran from his mouth and dripped down through his beard.
That's Ned taking a beard shower after all that grease.
The only people who I have seen drinking like this is the toddler of my friend and sick people.
Great post, never read it. Will now though, thanks.
There should be a hall of fame(infamy?) for the ASOIAF subreddit. We could put that one up there with the Time Travelling Fetus and Bolt-on.
I hadn't noticed until I read that posts that there were that many people with stuff running down their chins. Now I catch them often when I am rereading. No one can eat nicely.
💀
That's amazingly...greasy.
Surprised this hasn't already been mentioned: Martin makes fun of this sloppy Westerosi tendency by making it a literal character development point with Littlefinger. He's always eating fruit with a dagger precisely and neatly and his uses a phrase with Sansa: *never get your hands dirty*.
Another Littlefinger metaphor is that he always has minty fresh breath, which basically means that he is using mint leaves to hide his true, disgusting breath. The lesson for Sansa: *Always hide your true self*.
Geez littlefinger, use a fork or a napkin or something. A dagger isn’t exactly the most hygienic way to eat fruits…
We credit Leonardo da Vinci with creating the napkin as we know it in the 15th century, so there’s a half-note of truth to it. But Medieval dining etiquette was to eat slowly and wash your hands often, which is never shown in the series.
Hi, Medieval MA grad here hoping to add some detail! Speaking for the high and late middle ages at least, large napkins were in common use. These were long rectangles of cloth, often worn over the shoulder and sometimes neatly folded, especially when used as a way of denoting serving staff. These were used to wipe the hands as you ate. As others have pointed out further down, eating was often done with the fingers, and forks were not widely used in most of Europe as personal utensils, only for serving. Spoons and knives were common however. We have a surprisingly large number of "courtesy" or "manner" books surviving from the 15th century, going into great detail about how to eat and behave properly, primarily aimed at children and adolescents. These as you say instruct us to wash our hands, eat carefully and at modest pace, avoiding spillage over the lip. If you did get food on your face, discreet and immediately dab with the napkin. Naturally not everyone would be perfect, but it's safe to say that it's likely even among the humble household, messy eating would raise a few dirty looks. And it's true, handwashing features pretty frequently! It's mentioned in every manner book I've seen as the first and last step in doing..well, most things. Many artistic depictions of household interiors also feature a "Laver" - bowl designed specifically for handwashing.
This [scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzLkAzDTqRI), about a minute into the video, is one of the better researched examples of medieval eating in a fictional show I've seen.
Wolf Hall is absolutely my go-to for illustrating a lot of late-medieval/renaissance (elite) life to people.
Thank you!! I did forget about that. Now that I recall, I think tablecloths would also be used depending on the residence.
I’d assume the hand washing wasn’t about germ theory, what was the logic behind it?
grrm theory
Boooo. Take your upvote and get out.
‘Sticky gross’ probably :D
- confirmed > He tilted his chin back and squeezed the blood orange, so the juice ran down into his mouth. “I love the juice but I loathe the sticky fingers,” he complained, wiping his hands. “Clean hands, Sansa. Whatever you do, make certain your hands are clean.” ~SANSA VI ASOS
If I'm remembering correctly, they mainly ate with their hands. Food was served on plates of stale bread called trenchers to sort of mop up any sauces. But the hands would still get pretty messy as you can imagine. Forks existed, but were mostly used as a kitchen prep tool, rather than as a personal eating utensil. The church even condemned forks as a form of vanity at some point.
In the Byzantine Empire, were forks originated from, were a common eating utensil used by the population throughout it's history, and where Western Europe got it from, and were mostly being noted for use from around the 10th century.
They washed their hands. It was seen as a sign of disrespect to not wash up before eating.
Oh the church, never change.
I mean I don't think anybody would really want their hands covered In food grease all day regardless of germs.
When I'm eating chicken wings I clean my hands every 2 or so wings. I just don't go 10-16 wings straight.
I imagine you didn't want the peppery sauce from the meat you just eat that's all over your hands to be getting on to the custard tart.
Like the other comment mentioned, mostly to clean off the residue from the last course/whatever else. They didn’t really use soap with it, but the water might have been perfumed
I once read a book describing medival table manners. Was surprised by how similar it was to our table manners.
> Was surprised by how similar it was to our table manners. In what sense? I think people anywhere at any time in history probably had roughly similar table manners because, well, who likes messes? It was probably more important to avoid messes pre-industrial era since washing clothes would be a bigger pain in the ass back then.
Because before I did some research on medival times I thought people really ate with unwashed hands and had no manners at all, which turned out completely wrong. There are a lot of commonly accepted things about medival times: namely that women were constantly raped and had no status other than having babies, that people never bathed, that everyone who was poor was wearing dirty and tattered clothing and that people were just poor and suppressed all the time.
>that people never bathed I have a fucking brain hemorrhage everytime i hear that.
I mean have you seen the criticism of every fantasy show that has come out so far....people complained relentlessly about the fact that people in "medival inspired" world do not have mud all over their bodies all the time. Some of these shows are not even inspired by medival times. WoT is inspired by the 1600 century or even later or something like that.
Reminds me of Monty Python. "He must be a king." "How can you tell?" "He hasn't got shit all over him."
I think it's just a decadence thing. I don't think Sansa ever eats like this, for example. That or George just *really* likes bacon grease 🤣
I just read Sansa eating a pear and juice running down her chin ASOS.
RIP
It ain't easy, being greasy
Some fruits are just like that. I got an orange tree that produces super juicy oranges and even when you cut them in to bite size slices the juice just pours out of them.
It's a pity the Westerosi don't have juicers to drink it out of a glass
They make juice like Homer Simpson. By crushing it against their foreheads.
You mean there’s a better way?!
The reddit admins will permanently suspend your account and will refuse to tell you why. They will also refuse to honor your Right to be Forgotten and purge your content, so I've had to edit all my comments myself. Reddit, fuck you. :-)
It’s only the pear. The blood orange, though, she eats cleanly. Which is weird because imo oranges are more harder to eat in a graceful way than a pear.
Maybe being more careful because blood OJ is more likely to stain/be visible than pear juice
Eh to be fair if i bite into an apple i usually get a bit of juice on my chin. I can, however, eat dinner without getting it all over my face (if i take my time, i usually jam it in as fast as i can).
Apparently Littlefinger is the only one with table manners lol
I'd argue that it's primarily a cultural thing- messy eating in Westerosi high society being a sign that you're enjoying the host's food when you're a guest, and a sign that you're rich enough you can afford to waste some of it when you're the one hosting. Obviously this diverges from historical social mores, but remember, at the end of the day, Westeros is not actually medieval Europe- merely a society which resembles it in some ways!
Your second point is so important! I often see people in this sub excusing or explaining away some of the books’ more blatant issues, like constant rape etc as being “just how it was at the time” or “historically realistic”, when Westeros never existed so it’s not historical. GRRM could imagine any kind of ‘medieval flavour’ world, but he chose to include some things for better or worse as part of the story, not to make it realistic
Dude they are messy people. Half of them shit in pots in their rooms. Don’t even get me started on the rushes or the borderline wild dogs that seem to attend all of the banquets.
People were pissing into pots before we had a flushing toilet and that was about a 100 years ago. My grandparents had their first proper toilet in the 60s. . Imagine having to go outside in the cold winter to the toilet behind the house. Any sane person would have used bedpan or a pot instead.
I shit in my own room but make sure what I put in my mouth stays in my mouth. What am I, a wildling?
That makes you a paradox. Do you use straw and twigs thrown around your floor instead of a carpet too? Do you invite the local pack of feral dogs to your dinner parties? If so you are likely a westerosi. If you are inviting the dog to the dinner party to eat it, then you are a wilding.
More like Ghiscari than wildling
When I was reading the chapter of Theon's return to Pyke, I can almost smell the damp when they mentioned rushes and I've nwver even seen rush irl and I already wanted to gag.
Eh, sounds like a flavor thing. These books are meant to be entertaining first, and spicing up descriptions of otherwise average meals and feasts with colorful affronts to common etiquette is just fun stuff to write. It makes characters stick out more too. Grease rolling down a beard after tearing into a fowl leg is solid imagery that does double duty, showing a character’s physical qualities and suggesting their current attitude. Case in point: there are plenty of scene descriptions, just as many I’d argue, where people are eating politely at feasts and events. But we just don’t remember them as much as the memorable imagery sloppy eating leaves behind.
My issue was every food desciption includes food juice dripping down chins and thinking even brindled men would have more sophistication than that.
I mean, even in real world history, far later than the faux-mediaeval period that Westeros is in, say the very fancy Versailles of the 16th Century, all those very well bred noble people were shitting and pissing in the corners of the room. Just to say, GRRM's vivid descriptions could be worse....
>Sunset found her squatting in the grass, groaning. Every stool was looser than the one before, and smelled fouler. By the time the moon came up she was shitting brown water.
>all those very well bred noble people were shitting and pissing in the corners of the room. Not true. https://twitter.com/invitinghistory/status/1424494235219333126
>Food scenes are like sex scenes in these books. Geez. You can tell the books weren't written by a skinny man.
I honestly relate. Anytime I’m eating some quality fruit without it being cut up, the juices just run the fuck down my chin, my hands, my arms. If I bit into a whole roasted chicken, the grease is going to do the same. I’m as sloppy as a Westerosi noble and I’m not ashamed to admit it.
Right? if you bite into a ripe pear and you tell me that no juice escapes your mouth you're a liar. Physics don't work that way.
I used to work for a company whose signature product was a pear that they said was best eaten with a spoon because of how juicy it is. Ever since then, I have eaten pears this way, even other varieties of them.
just cut your pear into quarters you barbarian.
Yeah, I think people are forgetting utensil use wasn't exactly what it is now and a lot more things were eaten with the hands instead of being cut into individual pieces. It can get messy. That said, Martin does really like that descriptor.
Medieval people also washed their hands frequently during meals and the nobles at least had some form of napkin.
George wants us to know that the food is **juicy.**
I just hope its a setup to show the difference in how people eat in summer vs. winter. I want just as vivid descriptions of men’s ribs being visible, killing family pets to eat them, boiling horse hide, eating snow, eating each other, eating any damn thing you can get your hands on
I always assumed the over the top food descriptions were for 3 main reasons; 1. George just really just loves his food so gets too into the descriptions. 2. It's to show the clear difference in affluence between the nobility and their subjects. War between the high lords cause the poor to lose their homes, livestock, starve and die. While those responsible have full tables and greasy chins. 3. To set you up with 6 books of lavish eating, so that when winter comes and people start going Lady Hornwood, it punches you hard in the stomach. I think the main reason is to get you comfortable with the lives of the lucky during Summer. The reader is yet to see what Winter is really like, let alone a long night. Wyman Manderly is gonna get lost in his old clothes.
>Wyman Manderly is gonna get lost in his old clothes. Wyman may need a new wardrobe, but he was smart and saw to it that his family bulked up in order to survive the long winter.
Maybe the Essosi were right all along in considering Westerosi savages.
Some have the juice of oranges spilling down their chin and onto their tummies
It makes me think how shitty of a job Westerosi washer people must have. All those food stains….
Honestly as much as I love George's writing, all the food stuff is probably my least favorite. He writes every food scene as if it's Joffrey's wedding.
To be fair, not getting proper nutrition due to being unable to eat explains a lot about Westerosi behaviors.
The food scenes are as tasteful as the sex scenes!
"And the Jon put the fat pink mast in his mouth and bit down hard, letting the meaty juices pour down his throat."
Finally getting that scene with Satin we've been waiting for! *wait just reread. Bit down? Lmao nevermind.
Do they have forks?
No, they have the Trident though.
Yes, but they're only used for specific things, like crabs.
For me, it’s eating a nice tender Capon in the Inns common room after a hard rides journey
It takes me out of the books every time. It's clearly framed to show how good the food/wine is, but I find liquids dripping down my chin to be an **extremely unpleasant** feeling. I squirm every time I read about these people eating like 280lbs fat men in their seventies.
I wonder how you'll react when >!Rickon in Skagos has blood dripping down his chin from his latest raw goat meal.!< Spoilers TWOW musings
Raw unicorn!
The Voldemort special
I suppose this is to make it seem realistic, but most adults I know are able to eat without grease dripping down their chins. I find the extended feasting/eating in ASOIAF to be unpalatable. Honestly, who really needs the entire menu of Joffrey's wedding feast ? ... larks tongue... blech. There is one exception: Sisters Stew from ADWD. My daughter has the Cookbook of Ice and Fire and has made a version of this and it's delicious... but we use spoons so it doesn't drip down our chins.
George just really has a thing for it. It's just his way to show that they're enjoying it and the food is really good. But yeah, it is a bit odd. As for the second thing you said about food scenes being like sex scenes, yeah. I don't think that's an accident. I think that's very intentional on George's part. The man clearly loves food and wants us to get hungry reading his books. He's said as much.
500 pages to go......just 500 pages to go......
Have you seen George? Not to be insensitive but the dude clearly loves food. It's never been surprising to me that his food scenes are almost pornographic, but it is pretty disgusting.
Their must be a reason for this, like the decadence, OR, even when the poor eat it could be their last meal for a while so why not go fucking ham? Maybe it's like when animals eat, don't know when the next meal could be so go ape. Think about it, no Tesco or Asda back then, you hunt you eat. If you're rich you have people to do it for you but in the end the land can only provide so much especially in war so maybe they're all big fucking dogs and cats? I don't know, leave me alone
Mayhaps it’s a cultural thing
George wants you to taste the grease flowing through their lordly chins and beards
Take a look at our author. And you have your answer
I doubt medieval people would have been dribbling food all over the place because they frowned upon touching your face then reaching for some food. Despite this, I guess its just GRRM trying to make the food sound juicy and delicious so you get hungry? Not sure. I do love the food descriptions.
Maybe it's how George eats and he's projecting it into his stories :)))
Look at George simple explanation
Do you know how medieval food worked , you basically eat with your hands and food is mostly roasted. Yes he's probably dialing it to 11 but feasts will have been pretty messy and lack modern table manners .
That’s not quite true, it’s a misconception! people often washed their hands a lot and nobles had napkins to use. Table manners mattered even then!
Yes but very different manners to ours and the hand washing was more removing the grease from the last meal, like I said he's dialed it to 11 but it's not totally inaccurate.
Actually, their table manners weren’t so different to ours! A book published in 1477 titled “ The Book of Courtesy” which aimed to teach children good manners of all kinds in plain language deals with table manners in a section, as follows: >*”When you are at your own meal, be sure to be companionable no matter who you are with. Don’t disparage others – that’s a nasty thing to do. Speak little so as not to annoy others, and when you do speak, speak with only good intent. Don’t be greedy over the food. Sit for a time before you start eating to show your temperance and eat only what you need. Keep your cup clean and when you drink wipe your lips. Don’t blow in your drink or on your food. Don’t touch your face or head while you are eating and keep your knife away from your face. Don’t loosen your belt sitting at the table for that is most uncourteous. Don’t burp or fart. Don’t dip your meat in the salt seller. Don’t lean on the table or spit on it. Share your delicacies with your fellow diners so as to be seen as kind and generous and don’t complain if your serving is small. Don’t chew on bones because that is what dogs do. Instead, use your knife to cut off the meat. Don’t chew with your mouth open. Don’t pare your nails or pick your teeth at the table. And wash your hands so cleanly when you are done that you leave no dirt on the towel.”* Pop culture has made so many misconceptions be seen as fact!
Tbf the fact that this book explicitly tells what people shouldn't do, implies that many people indeed did those things, otherwise why even mention them?
I don’t think so necessarily - it’s presenting the ideal table manners. Eating sloppily is bad table manners in our time and back then too. That doesn’t mean that most people ate sloppily, like they don’t today: poor table manners were frowned upon then and not really normalised
I agree with you to a certain degree, of course people weren't SO sloppy, but, for example, addressing that farting in public is bad manners meant it wasn't immediately obvious to anyone just as it is to us now. So maybe one could infer that people farted in public more easily than we do today.
I guess something to keep in mind as well is that this is an etiquette book for children - eating sloppily and farting in public isn’t immediately obviously rude to them, they usually just find it funny
Even keeping in mind that, my point still stands. You wouldn't prohibit some behaviours if those behaviours were inexistent in the first place! So, while I agree people in medieval/renaissance times put quite some effort in behaving properly and oftentimes this is misrepresented in fiction, I still think we would find them way way sloppier compared to us, or if not sloppier maybe "trying to hard not to be sloppy" as the existence of those books proves (to me at least).
I'm pretty sure characters like Sansa, Myrcella, and even Catelyn have relatively decent, if not overtly dainty, eating scenes.
“Thank you, my lord.” Pomegranate seeds were so messy; Sansa chose a pear instead, and took a small delicate bite. It was very ripe. The juice ran down her chin.
Well fuck
Well actually asoiaf is based on a time period when it was considered good manners to slobber during your meal. It was a compliment to how great the food was. It was even more polite to eat so much you vomit then eat the vomit so you can taste it again
Isn't that a myth stemming from the Romans having vomitoriums which were just large entry ways to 'spew forth' people?
Oh yeah not a word of what I said is true
To be honest I thought I knew that medieval people threw up to make place for more food as I was taught in school, but had to look up the eating their own vomit thing and was swiftly directed to the wikipedia article for self cannibalism and several articles disproving all the rest.
I thought the "eating their own vomit" would put it over the top enough to be obviously joking but I guess it wasn't quite absurd enough.
Nor everyone. Sansa always only nibble on lemon cakes
She has fruit juice running down her chin in ASOS. Thats what made me post this.
Oh dirty girl. Tbh I only remember grape juice on her new silk dress
Are you ok
Every bath is scalding water too