SC - Re: Butchery

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Agreed. Other sources corroborate the idea that participants on a hunt
divided the quarry amongst them according to a generally pretty
clearly-defined system. So-and-so would make the first cut, Lord Pat
would be given the heart, and Lord Mike the liver (which some sources
suggest was eaten raw, apparently). I'd say this is a gesture of
camaraderie amongst hunters, many of whose party would have been nobles. 

Whether or not the same cheery scene applies to the urban middle
classes, I don't know. Obviously the butchering got done, so someone
must have known how to do it, but whether or not Master Joe Average had
acquired these skills in the course of being, say, a miller, I'm not so
sure. Seems as if people, then as now, acquired the skills they need to
survive.

Adamantius

Ian Gourdon of Glen Awe wrote, and I snipped a bit:

> from Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight:
> 
> Some were assigned the assay of the fat:
> Two fingers'-width fully they found on the leanest.
> Then they slit the slot open and searched out the paunch,
> Trimmed it with trencher-knives and tied it up tight.
> They flayed the fair hide from the legs and trunk,
> Then broke ipen the belly and laid bare the bowels,
> Deftly detaching and drawing them forth.
> And next at the neck the neatly parted
> The weasand from the windpipe, and cast away the guts.
>  
> On a hide of a hind the hounds they fed
> With the liver and the lights, the leathery paunches,
> And bread soaked in blood well blended therewith.
> High horns and shrill set hounds a-baying,
> Then merrily with their meat they make their way home,
> Blowing their bugles many a brave blast.
> 
> Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
> translation by Marie Borroff
> copyright 1967, W.W. Norton & Co.