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

[Philip & Susan Troy]

> Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 23:15:53 -0800
> From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <acrouss at gte.net>
> Subject: Re: SC - Lenten foods

> I know people say this 

<[eating of beaver tails and other supposedly "water-based" animal
flesh, like fetal rabbits -- G.T.A.]>

> is the case, but I have yet to see a single recipe
> in medieval cookbooks, or a single example in the numerous menus from
> primary sources of people eating beaver, baby rabbits, or even barnicle
> goose on a fast day. The closest thing to "cheating" I see on these menus
> (Chiquart, Taillevent and le Menagier, as well as the English corpus) is
> porpoise as fish, but a suprising number of  modern adults today don't
> realize that porpoises are mammals and not fish.

I'm not aware of much in the way of documentation for this, either, but
have you considered that the expenditures for the girl jumping out of
the cake, or the male strippers, or what have you, are frequently not
clearly accounted for in records of modern functions along similar
lines? I'm not saying this was how it was, but does it seem likely a
recorded menu would say, "Entremets  follwed by a Course of Naughty
Indulgences..."?

And speaking of Indulgences, it was my understanding that various Church
officials were among the worst offenders in this area. But, as you say,
there doesn't seem to be much support for the idea, and there is plenty
of support for the idea that a _lot_ of hard work went into creating
interesting dishes that _were_ acceptable in the eyes of the Church on
the more austere days.     
> 
> The more I learn about the real middle ages, the more I realize that most
> of the stuff I thought I "knew" was a bunch of urban legends and
> misinformation propogated by undereducated (and underpaid) fifth grade
> teachers and bad Errol Flynn movies.

The only bad Errol Flynn movie I'm aware of is "Cuban Rebel Girls", but
if you were referring to historical inaccuracy, I'm inclined to agree. I
saw, within the last couple of years, the 1938 "Adventures of Robin
Hood", complete, uncut, in a large-screen theatre. I was with a couple
of friends from the SCA, and we spotted, in the scene where Robin busts
in on the Norman feast, a large platter of cubes of blue Jello. When
Robin slams that stuffed deer down on the table, the Jello quivers
dangerously, which prompted one of my companions to shout, "There's
ALWAYS room for Jello!", and another to shout, "It's alive!"

So much for Mystery Science Theatre 1190... 

 Please, if anyone can show, with
> primary sources that medieval people were so unpious as to bend the rules
> like that, or were so ignorant as to really think that fetal material was
> not really meat, I'd love to hear about it.

Have you checked Henisch's "Fast and Feast"?

Adamantius
troy at asan.com
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