That is why I specified Early Middle Ages. Not much serfdom during that time, and there was a lot of food to go around due to low population density - and that included meat, and yes, even for the peasants.

Also, you are wrong. Meat stews were not just eaten, but the mainstay of the medieval peasants diet: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2019/may/medieval-peasant-die...