SC - Re: Saracen Bruet

[Crystal A. Isaac]

In a message dated 1/13/98 2:10:13 AM Eastern Standard Time, acrouss at gte.net
 writes:
 
 << What happens
 > if you stop milking your livestock during these times? >>
 
 If the animals are still producing milk, they must be milked. To neglect this
 process would put the animal into considerable pain and danger of infection or
 other nasties.
 
 <<Does the milk dry up? >>
 
 
 Eventually the milk will dry up. Although there were specific breeds of sheep
 raised solely for milk as opposed to wool/mutton, the "family cow" was not
 designed to be a milk factory as are the dairy breeds today. With judicious
 husbundry the cycle of milk to dry cow, would most likely have occured at just
 this time of year for a good portion of animals. Of course, animals are as
 unique individually as are humans and the individual families would have been
 aware of the breeding cycles of their privately owned animals.. 
 
 <<Or were these times when the milk wasn’t generally available anyway? >>
 
 As noted above the production of cow's milk would most definitely have fallen
 off dramatically by the Lenten season. During this time any milk from cows
 which was still being produced could have been used in many ways.
 
 <<Or would they have continued milking the animals and just thrown out the
 milk (which I doubt) or make products that would keep such as cheese? >>
 
 With the cows going dry and sheep freshening, it would have been a simple
 matter to use the limited milk from the cow for butter production or for pig
 swill. Which is exactly what we used to do on the farm. 
 
 Since we seperated our milk and sold the milk and  cream seperately , there
 were many times when we had too few milk cans  and too much milk. The answer,
 of course, is obvious. Simply put the extra milk into the pig slop. (You
 really don't want to know what else went into the pig mix.) These 55 gal
 barrels obvious soured. Each morning, evening and when any noticed the pig's
 needed food throughtout the day, buckets of this sour milk were mixed with
 grain and kitchen middlens to feed the pig's. I st
pping the hogs" have changed very little , if at
 all since the Middle Ages. Add to this the fact that acorns and roots would
 not have been readily available for pig feeding at this time of the year such
 use of  excess milk would have been logical in a society based upon
 agriculture.
 
 <<Or were these times when the milk wasn’t generally available>>
 
 To conclude my tho'ts about the use of excess milk during the Lenten season ,
 IIRC, the Lenten season is 40 days of mourning preceeding the memory of the
 death of Jesus the Christ which ends with the celebration of His ressurection
 on Easter Sunday. (Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong as my
 knowledge of Christian festivals is limited to those customs that directly
 affect my own religion).  Traditional Easter cuisine features a LOT of butter.
 So, IMHO, during the Middle Ages, the excess milk produced by cows during the
 Lenten season was most probably made into butter and used to slop the hogs.
 
 al-Sayyid Ras al-Zib, AoA, OSyc
 

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

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

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