SC - Ostrich, and cruelty to geese
Jessica Tiffin
melesine at ilink.nis.za
Thu Mar 19 08:20:44 PST 1998
Greetings, the list!
At some stage in the dim, distant past, kat wrote:
<< Darkwood is a difficult place to try to serve "specialty meats;" and when
you consider the fact that out here they consider VENISON a specialty meat...
I could no more serve eel or ostrich here than fly to the moon. I was pushing
it with the goose and the salmon... >>
Ah, ostrich... Given that this is readily and quite cheaply available in
South Africa: was it, in fact, eaten in period? I know it was known as a
heraldic beastie and found in menageries (although my documentation for that
is a bit dicey... mere historical novels), but I've never heard of a recipe
- - has anyone else? We have a Shire birthday feast coming up in may. Mmmmm
- - whole roast ostrich.... always seemed to me to be the logical conclusion
to putting a lark inside a quail inside a chicken inside a goose inside a
pheasant, etc.
Another, totally unrelated query. A non-SCA friend today came up with the
comment that she was put off the whole medieval thing by the really cruel
way they killed their animals for cooking. She quoted a extract she'd seen
in the programme for a Shakespeare production, which purported to be from a
medieval source she couldn't remember, and described cooking a goose by
plunging it alive into boiling water and killing it slowly. I've never come
across anything like this in any medival sources with which I am familiar -
it sounds horribly like one of those "medieval people threw their food
around" sort of urban legends. Can anyone identify this purported quote?
Back to lurking and drooling,
Melisant
**********
Jessica Tiffin
melesine at ilink.nis.za * jessica at beattie.uct.ac.za
***********
Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made
you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.
(Terry Pratchett, Hogfather).
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