SC - Chicken usage

[david friedman]

At 2:28 PM -0400 5/22/97, Christi Redeker (Contractor) wrote:
>Didn't his Grace, Cariadoc have an article on how to throw a good feast
>that mentions having like a thousand head of poultry?  Would that have
>meant that chicken may have been a standard, or would that have been some
>other type of poultry.  If I remember correctly the next paragraph
>mentioned having horses to go and get rabbit, venison, pheasant and other
>animals.  I would take this to mean that chicken was served very often, at
>least in noble households.
>
>Murkial
>
It was actually by Master Chiquart (chief cook of the Duke of Savoy,1420)
and translated by me (Elizabeth).  The first section is a list of what you
need for the biggest feast anyone would ever want to do--Cariadoc's rough
calculation was that it amounted to feeding all of Pennsic dinner and
supper for two days.

"And first: one hundred well-fattened cattle, one hundred and thirty sheep,
also well fattened, one hundred and twenty pigs; and for each day during
the feast, one hundred little piglets, both for roasting and for other
needs, and sixty salted large well fattened pigs for larding and making
soups. ... And there should be for each day of the feast two hundred kids
and also lambs, one hundred calves, and two thousand head of poultry.

"And you should have your poulterers, subtle, diligent, and wise, who have
forty horses for going to various places to get venison, hares, conies,
partridges, pheasants, small birds (those which they can get without
number), river birds (those which one can obtain), pigeons, cranes, herons,
and all wild birds - what one can find of whatever wild birds. ... And they
should provide for each day of the said feast six thousand eggs."

Also spices, wine and vinegar, money for vegetables and "other necessary
things which might be needed, which do not occur to me at present",
firewood, fish, dishes, etc.

Elizabeth/Betty Cook