The space you are walking through now is the Canonical House, that is, the canons’ residence and the centre of cathedral administration and management. One of its annexes was the Pia Almoina, a charitable institution charged with feeding the neediest members of that society,

the poor, the sick, widows, orphans... and also the pilgrims who stopped at the cathedral on the way to Santiago de Compostela. All in all, a collective place to eat.

Curious about what they ate?

The menu served consisted of a dish of stew accompanied by 700 g of bread and half a litre of wine, quantities which seem particularly surprising if we compare them with our current habits. The stew contained vegetables, legumes, greens and a small piece of meat of some 70 g. The most common meat was lamb. The least common, pork. And the meat they never tasted was poultry, as it was reserved for the most refined palates or the sick. During Lent or on fasting days, instead of meat, they ate eel or a piece of cheese.

In total, some 2,300 calories per person per day.

All this information is extracted from a paper written by the University of Barcelona professor Prim Beltran in 1338.