SC - Fetal Rabbits as "fish", et al.

[Philip & Susan Troy]

> Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 00:00:27 -0600
> From: Stefan li Rous <stefan at texas.net>
> Subject: SC - Lenten foods
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> I had asked a while back about what was done with milk during Lent and
> other days when milk use was restricted:
> <<Or were these times when the milk wasn’t generally available>>
> 
> To which Ras, among others answered:
> 
>  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
> =====================
> 

Lent could be regarded as a 40-day period of mourning, I suppose, for
the death of Jesus, but I gather that the "party line" of the Church is
that it is a period of austerity and fleshly denial, for purposes of
spiritual purification, in order to make Catholics comprehend the full
impact of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection. It presumably mirrors
the 40-day fast Jesus is said to have undergone in the wilderness prior
to His own experiences in this matter... .

As for the prevalence of butter in some traditional Easter foods, I
suppose that may be so; I never really thought about it too much. It's
generally assumed the various supplies of animal fats like lard and
butter are used up by Shrove or Fat Tuesday, and if a lot of butter is
(or was, in period) eaten on Easter,  a forty day buildup isn't quite so
bad. Figure two weeks to still be sick of the sight of the stuff, two
weeks to actually miss it, and not quite two weeks to anticipate its
return to the menu.

Another aspect is that I believe that the definitions of fish day, fast
day, and Lenten day observances changed at various times during period,
and I believe there were times when dairy foods, and products of animals
that weren't killed in the process, if you follow me, such as eggs, were
permissible on some of these days. One dish apparently designed under
these rules is the Tart for Ember Day found in the Forme of Cury: it
contains both eggs and cheese, and seems to have been eaten on Fast days
outside of Lent. I assume butter would be acceptable on such days.

I'd have to do a little digging to figure out the practical differences
between fast days and fish days, and which was which in Lent. Maybe I'll
do that and get back to folks.

Adamantius
troy at asan.com
============================================================================

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".

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