What to Eat in Atlantis

In his legendary last battle with the traitorous Mordred, King Arthur suffers a blow to the skull. For a moment, it looks like the end. But then he is borne away to the island paradise of Avalon, where nine sisters feed him magic apples that grant him immortality. Supposedly, he is still there, waiting for the right moment to return to Britain and reclaim his throne.

What the medieval scribes failed to tell us about this recuperative exile was that Arthur almost certainly supped on fancier fare than fruit, including leek-onion porridge and wild game stew topped with asparagus and bulrush stems. How do we know? If Avalon were a real isle, the enchantresses who lived there probably cooked and ate similarly to other English aristocrats in the Middle Ages.

Food can reveal a lot about a place, even a mythical one. If we want a visitor to understand how we live, we invite him to dinner. When