The bill of fare showed bread and vegetables and fruit and fish. Sometimes there was meat, but this was cooked in the kitchen of the infirmary, and served in the misericord, or House of Merciful Meals. No flesh which had ever walked about upon four feet was dressed in the cloister kitchen or served in the cloister refectory. But fowls were eaten, and eggs were a staple of monastic diet. The monks had wine and beer for drink, according to the custom of the country. In the book of signs--_De Signis_--which shows how the monks of Ely indicated their wishes at the silent table, four gestures are set down to mean beer: signifying good beer, _bona servisia_, small beer, _mediocris servisia_, smaller beer, _debilis servisia_, and a very common beer called _skagmen_. In the “Mirroure of Our Ladye,” the sister of Sion House who desired an apple was directed to “put thy thumb in thy fist, and close thy hand, and move afore thee to and fro”; for milk, “draw thy left little finger in the manner of milking”; for mustard, “hold thy nose in the upper part of thy right fist, and rub it”; for salt, “philip with thy right thumb and his forefinger over the left thumb”; for wine, “move thy forefinger up and down upon the end of thy thumb before thine eye.” A dinner to the accompaniment of these cheerful communications, while one read aloud from a good book, may well have been a pleasant meal. At Ely, during the week beginning August 5, 1336, the brethren of the monastery had on Sunday eggs, chickens, pigeons and dripping; on Monday, pottage and cod; on Tuesday, fresh meat and mutton; on Wednesday, fresh fish, white herring and cod; on Thursday, fresh meat, white herring and cod; on Friday, white herring and cod; and on Saturday, dripping, milk, white herring and cod. When Abbot Grenewell went to attend the assizes at York, as he did in 1455, at the March session of the court, he dined the first day on fish alone; on the second day, having guests at his table, he added salt and mustard to the fish; on the third day, fish was served with figs, raisins and gingerbread; the fare of the fourth day was like that of the second, and the fifth day followed the third. With this were bread and beer and wine.