"When you live in the far North and there's a war on, you don't expect to eat lemoncakes and fresh lamb at every meal," Sansa points out. "It's quite a bit of hard tack and thin porridge and vegetables that might better have been left in the ground. Salt does a lot to help it, of course, but salt can't cure everything. You just have to school your face and swallow it with everyone else."

And drink ale, which was in abundance. Sansa had never cared for it before going to Castle Black and she doesn't know that she loves it now but it does make her feel more connected to life in the North to drink and eat simple fare.

"I cannot feast when my people starve. That's no way to rule."