SC - SC-by the way of introduction

[Shayne & Trudi Lynch]

Hi, Katerine here.  Over the years, I've been working on a project on the use
of various ingredients in 13th to 15th C English cuisine, as reflected by
the surviving recipe corpus.  My numbers are complete relative to the 13th and
14th centuries (not much of a trick for the 13th), though I'm nowhere near
done with the 15th.  For the curious, the total number of recipes involved
in the current figures are 26 13th C recipes, 419 14th C ones, and 907 15th
C ones.

Of these recipes, butter occurs in 15% of the 13th C recipes, and in 3% of 
the 14th and again 3% of the 15th.  3% isn't a lot; but it's as many as, say,
pears and shellfish show up in, and more than cheese, peas, venison, kid,
or rice (comparisons from the 15th C).  Other forms of fat are far more common;
recipes include oil or grease six times as frequently.  Still, it was hardly
unknown.

I do agree with the original claim, however, that it does not appear to have
been much used as a preservative in meat pies.  Meat pies do not frequently
appear to have be used as preservation techniques; for fish, galentine 
(in gelled form) appears to have been used more often.

Cheers,

- -- Katerine/Terry