SC - Re: Alcohol & the SCA

[Donna J. White]

Once, in my youth, my father made an early morning trip to a farm on
Halloween morning to bring the farmer some last-minute supplies.  I went
along to help unload the truck.  Whether consciously or not, the farmer had
followed the ancient custom of slaughtering his pigs on Samhain morning.
There were a couple of dozen disemboweled pig carcasses laid out on tarps
when we arrived.  The coppery smell of blood was sharp in the frosty air,
and the women were busy working over boiling cauldrons making blood sausage
and head cheese.  This was less than half a century ago.  Do you think that
farmers had less knowledge in Period times?

In Period most of the population were rural.  They knew how to slaughter and
prepare domestic animals. They had to know.  The difference between a deer
and a cow or a goose and a swan are not that great.  Let's go beyond
slaughtering - even today the best smoked hams come from small farms that
most people have never heard of, where a particular family smokes the
hindquarters of a pig for 18 months before selling it to those people who
know enough to seek them out.  

By the way, it is worth while to seek them out.

I am a scientist myself.  It does not require scientific knowledge to learn
an appropriate way to prepare dead animals for preservation or consumption.
Trial and error suffice, especially when is accumulated over the centuries.



__________________________________________________________________
                                                                  |
W. Roy Wessel                      | rwessel at abwam.com            |
W. Roy Wessel & Associates         |                              |
3545 Arthur Court, #3              |  Voice: (303) 444-5004       |
Boulder, CO 80304-2031             |                              |
"Times change: it was once the custom to take a bath weekly and to exercise
religion daily."  
- --C.E."Ted" Andrews
__________________________________________________________________|

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
SCA-Cooks-Request with the message body of unsubscribe.

============================================================================