SC - meat days and fast days - MIXED?

[Philip W. Troy & Susan Troy]

Stefan li Rous wrote:
> 
> Cariadoc said:
> 
> > To put it mildly, yes. The book is webbed at:
> >
> > http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Medieval/Cookbooks/Du_Fait_de_Cuisine/du_fait_de_c_con
> > tents.html
> >
> > "And as at such a feast there could be some very high, puissant, noble,
> > venerable and honorable lords and ladies who do not eat meat, for these
> > there must be fish, marine and fresh-water, fresh and salt, in such manner
> > as one can get them.
> >
> > And as the sea-bream is king of the other sea fish, listed first is the
> > sea-bream, conger-eel, grey mullet, hake, sole, red mullet, dorade, plaice,
> > turbot, sea-crayfish...
> 
> > Concerning fresh-water fish: big trout, big eels, lampreys, filleted char,
> > fillets of big pike, fillets of big carp, big perch, ferrés, pallés,
> > graylings, burbot, crayfish, and all other fish."
> 
> Would this "sea-crayfish" be what we know as lobster?

Unlikely. What we call lobster (Homardus Americanus, IIRC) does get into the Eastern
Atlantic, but not in the concentration we find it in the Western Atlantic. The spiny
lobster is found in the South Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and, I think, the Pacific (they
lack the big front claws, and are the basis for most frozen lobster tails). But there are
several less commercially viable (read "smaller") arthropods found in the Mediterranean
that probably include what Mistress Elizabeth translates as sea-crayfish. Scully uses the
word "lobster", but without the original French word, it could be almost anything, ranging
from langouste (spiny lobster), langoustine (a smaller version actually classified in
English as  a prawn or lobsterette, closely related to both the scampi and the Dublin Bay
Prawn), slippershell lobster, squillfish, etc.

BTW, if I remember correctly, the father of the Red Count Amadeus of Savoy (Chiquart's
employer/patron, later Duke of Savoy, and later still, Pope) had bought (!) a county on
the Mediterranean coast (either Nice or Marseilles, I forget which) so as to have local
access to fresh fish, among other considerations.

Another BTW: Chiquart's employer, Amadeus, is one of those great lords who, by choice, ate
no meat, IIRC. Du Fait de Cuisine does give both meat and fish versions of the same dishes
in comparable menus (part or all of the feast Chiquart is writing about falls on a fish
day, so he may be including the information on the meat dishes just for the reader's
information), but it seems extremely likely Amadeus had all the fish versions of the
dishes described served to him, regardless of the day.
  
Adamantius
Østgardr, East
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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