Reblogged from ookish Fame:

I’m not sure how many of you have eaten at Granny Muggart’s Eatery? It’s just off the Ropewalk in Port Naain. Granny Muggart died long before my time, it was her daughter, ‘Young Muggart’ who ran it. She and her husband still used her mother’s recipe and still served up the same single dish.

This was a stew which contained a reasonable amount of meat, a fair dollop of vegetables, and gravy which was frankly delicious beyond words. You paid your half-vintenar as you entered, and ‘the husband’ would hand you a bread trencher. You took your place on a bench at one of the long tables and waited while Young Muggart circulated with a large pot of stew. She would pour a generous ladle full over the trencher, and if she decided you were obviously still hungry, she might appear later with another ladle full.

Now a half-vintenar isn’t really a lot of money, a working man would earn between twenty and thirty a week. If you ate at Granny Muggart’s you were set up for the day and might not even need another proper meal. On the other hand, if you’re a working poet, silver rarely crosses your path. On the occasions when I did have the money to dine there, I was normally scrabbling through a handful of low denomination copper and brass coinage trying to fund my dining.

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