To Anachronism in Heaven

As civilization evolves, some products that start as luxuries eventually become affordable for working people. Obvious modern examples include refrigerators, televisions, and indoor plumbing.

This can lead to anachronism in our understanding of history. Today, India Pale Ales are basically affordable for everyone, and they are commonly marketed as "the beer that the British drank in India." What this obscures is that they would have been drunk by the upper classes in British India, while the bulk of British soldiers were drinking porter. (This was not necessarily purely a matter of affordability. Working class Britons were accustomed to porter and may have preferred it.) Because of the way class and history work (and, admittedly, because of the near-total disappearance of porter in the intervening years), we think of IPA as the archetypal British beer in India, though porter was the typical drink. (These links are only indicative, if I feel less lazy I will dig up more definitive numbers later.)

Similarly, mead looms large in our understanding of Viking culture, but it appears likely that mead was very rarely drunk and the typical drink was beer. (Here's another analysis along the same lines.)

Of course this kind of thing is inevitable, but I find it a little sad. Even in our cultural memories, we discount the experiences of regular people and elevate the tastes and aspirations of the elite, and we end up understanding our history poorly or not at all.