SC - Meals and other observations-OOP

[Seton1355@aol.com]

Reading all the assorted menus for Thanksgiving can only put a lie to the
traditional Thanksgiving Dinner. All of these feasts sound wonderful and,
although a commonality is readaily apparent based on variety and 'special'
dishes, I can only wonder how a the myth of the 'Traditional Dinner' started.

Feasts in the Current Middle Ages are, upon inspection, no more nor less
faried than those in the former Middle Ages. And, I suspect (as Jeff Smith
would say) that very little if any thought was put into producing menus based
on any particular system of health or or societal medical ideals by modern
medieval cooks. 

Curiously, there seemed to be a decided lack of pork products which caused me
to look in Le Manegier where I came across an interesting tidbit. It seems
that the pork which is so much touted as the most common of meats was in fact
next to last in terms of weight of meat butchered and sold in Paris during any
given week. Topping the list was mutton with 3080 per week, 514 oxen,  600
pigs, 300 calves. These numbers do not include the animals used by the King
and Queen's household nor do they include those used by the 'Lord's of
France'!

Paris at that time had a population of around 100,000 people.  Considering
that there were 180 fast days in the year, the amount of meat produced and
consumed is extraodinary. If we look at the yearly numbers, we can begin to
get some idea of what it means to be an 'aricultural' society.  Non-noble
Parisians consumed 36960 sheep, 6168 oxen, 7200 pigs, and 3600 veal calves. To
get a feel of these numbers of animals, observe that these figures do NOT
include small birds, chickens, duck, geese, fish, rabbits, or pigeons. 

Considering that fish, ducks, geese and other water fowl would have been
consumed on the 185 fast days as well as during the normal days, the numbers
become astronomical. And this was only one city in France. We still have not
accounted for the animals consumed by royals and nobility.Nor have we looked
at vegetable kingdom products nor apothecary inventories. :-0

THINK AGRICULTURE with towns and cities acting as clearing houses for the vast
agricultural machine when viewing the Middle Ages and the true scope of the
entire era becomes clearer and more easily understood. 

Ras
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