It is easy to write the line "people starve to death"; it is much harder to deal with the harsh reality. but you need to understand this point, if only to see how little choice you might have in what you eat. the itinerant poor might literally die in the street. the following examples show how famine hits the cumberland parish of greystoke. here "a poor fellow destitute of succor" is found in the highway and is carried to the constable's house, where he dies. a miller's daughter dies in her bed, weakened from lack of food. –the time traveler's guide to elizabethan england, ian mortimer how does the passage develop the central idea "food was valuable due to the limitations of local resources"? it explains that the poor starved to death as a result of a shortage in the food supply. it compares the elizabethan food supply to the modern-day food supply. it describes cumberland parish of greystoke, where most of the food came from.