three cups later....

In said book, Mme. Jones decries the use of stew as a common inn and heroic staple. Why make stew, she asks, when -- saaaay -- a steak is faster?

First, we will address "Stew at an Inn". As a cook with a passion for the victuals of yore, I must emphatically say that while on an individual basis, yes, a steak is faster, on a mass basis a stew makes more sense. A stew you can set over a cookfire, leave your nephew's cousin's deranged godson to tend to (and possibly slip poisoned mushrooms into -- ah ha! Stew Plot Point!), and you're guaranteed to have something at least edible in a few hours.

Start offering steaks, though, and suddenly you have to hire chefs, and then soux-chefs, prep chefs, and then someone to look after the sauces, and good heavens! What if the bearnaise breaks? What if there aren't any bears for the bearnaise? What then?

As well, the people of antiquity "enjoyed" a diet high in vegetables, forageables, and grains, with very little meat. Cows were for milking and m'lord's supper, not for snacking. And when m'lord of the Shire or the Barony or the Floating Island in the Middle of a Sea of Chaos did deign to give them a scrap or two, it was usually the tough, gristley bits (or the cured, dried, and smoked bits) no one could eat without soaking, smothering in seasonings, and boiling for at least an hour.

There's an additional reason for Inn stew. When you get a steak, you know exactly what you're getting. The only question you might have is what critter the chop you're masticating may have been cut from. In stew, you can hide things. In stew, you can bulk up with all sorts of items -- potatoes, carrots, parsnips, sawdust, the afore-mentioned Fungi of Doom. Stew is sneaky.

So then we come to "Stew on the Run". Alas, a steak is just not going to keep in your saddlebags (unless, of course, you have managed to fit a mini-fridge in there, or your sword is known for its Searingly Cold Aura, or you are Mongol). Cured and salted meat, however, is. And since you're probably going to have a Roaring Blaze going by nightfall anyway to tell the Abominable Ringwraiths your precise location, you may as well bubble up a pot of stew while you're at it.

The food of choice for my characters-on-the-ride is gruel. Milled grains with bits of dried fruits and nuts boiled into them. I expect that this meal from start to finish probably takes about 40 minutes (30 if one of the characters has some sort of magical fire-starting ability) and it satisfies both nutritional and hunger needs. Steaks are good, but carbs transport more easily and are filling.

And that, friends, is what happens when I dwell on things a bit too much.