SC - Bacon'd Herring-OT-Some menu examples

[LHG, JRG]

Ras said:
>>Anyway, the point is that Medieval domestic pigs were raised for lard
first
>>and meat second.

And Stefan replied:
>Medieval pigs may or may not have had a substantial amount of fat. I've
not
>seen convincing proof yet. However, even if they did have substantial fat,
>what evidence do you have that they were raised specifically or chiefly
for 
>the lard?

This "lard" conjecture must be relatively untrue...given that throughout
the history of the British Isles Pork was the meat of choice (See Food in
Britain, C. Anne Wilson). Game, and Lamb/mutton, kid, and veal  came next,
along with all sorts of fowls. It was not until much later in our period
that Beef was so immensly popular (a second source of lard or tallow), but
even then it did not take pride of place. It simply does not make sense to
raise the  most popular animal food using a variety that produces mostly
fat. Where is the profit? It seems natural that pigs had a certain tendancy
to  store fat, and this was *also* prized, however  the point of raising
pigs is for the meat, not the by-product, IMO. 


>> Fish eaten on meat days
>>during the MA were not subject to the rules of fish eaten during Lent. 

>From what I've been reading in "Food and Drink in Britain" by C. Anne
Wilson,
>it appears that for most of the medieval period in England at least, fish
>were not often served on meat days. Since fish was required on cetain days
>they tended to avoid it on those days they could have meat. Do we have
many
>recipes for fish cooked in lard for the medieval period?

I don't think Stefan's assertion can be true, either. Too much speculation
is dangerous! I suggest you go directly to the menus to determine if this
is true. People ate what was available, what the church allowed (if they
cared to), what they could put by, and what was in season. For instance:

A bill of fare for Christmas Day (Robert May)

Oysters
A collar of brawn 
Stewed broth of mutton     marrow bones
A grande sallet
A pottage of caponettes
A breast of veal in stoffado
A boil'd partridge
A chine of beef or surloin roast
Minced pies
A jegotte of mutton with anchove sauce
A made dish of sweet-bread
A swan roast
A pasty of venison
A kid with a pudding in his belly
A steak pie
A haunch of venison roasted
etc.......

So you see that the oysters are right up there with the brawn, mutton, etc.
Veal places higher on the menu that beef. Sallet may or may not have been
fresh greens....sometimes you see a reference to "pickled sallet" or "a
sallet of pickled leamons', etc for this late period. But we do have an
obvious example of mixed bill of fare in late period, as regards to fish
versus flesh.

Now, let us examine an early menu (as early as can be found in Britain
according to Curye on Inglysch, from the Anglo-Norman treatise of Walter
Bibbesworth). I have taken the C.I. translation as some of you will not
read the original french in rhyme, and I make very heavy weather of it
myself):

"A fashionable yeoman who came from a great banquet hall has told us about
the feast, how their service was ordered. Whithout bread and wine and ale,
no one at the feast will be at ease, but the choicest of all three were
provided there, he has told us. But it is worth knowing about the course
which they had first:  the head of a boar, larded, with the snout well
garlanded, and enough for the whole household of venison fattened during
the closed season. And there were a great variety of cranes, peacocks, and
swans, kids, pigs, and hens. Then they had rabbits in gravy, all covered
with sugar, Viaunde de Cypre and Mawmenny, red and white wine in great
plenty; and then quite a different multitude of roasts, each of them set
next to another: pheasants, woodcocks, and partidges,  fieldfares, larks,
and roasted plovers, blackbirds, woodcocks, and song-thrushes, and other
birds I cannot name; and fried meat, crisps, and fritters, with sugar mixed
with rosewater. And when the table was taken away, sweet spice powder with
large dragees, maces, cubebs, and enough spicerie, and plenty of wafers. "

Here, in 1285, we have the first dish as pork. Next is game, wild fowls,
and wild pig. Only then come the "made" dishes, presumably after one had
broken the appetite, and then the roasts of small birds which are there for
the bragging rights and lesser nobility. Next come the dishes that are
impressive, cheap, and must be made last and served immediately: fried
meats and fritters. Then spices, and perfumed waters, to calm and aid in
digestion. You will notice there is no beef there at all, not even  as
veal. So the sumise that pork was raised primarily for fat must be untrue,
as it has pride of place as meat in the menus both early and late period.
Stefan's assertion that fish was not served with meat or on meat days
appears to be only partially true---more true earlier and less true later
in the examples provided, but not necessarily universally. We have no way
of knowing if the menu given was for a particular season which would omit
fish, however there appears none on the menu as dictated by a third
party.Does anyone have access to a copy of 'Le traite de Walter de
Bibbesworth sur la langue francaise, ed Annie Owen (University of Paris
dissertation, 1929), or 'Acts of Interpretation: the Text in its context,
700-1600 (Norman, Oklahoma, 1982) with more biographical information? Or a
relatively contemporary menu?

CI gives other menu suggestions:

(pg 40)
Circa festum Michelis on flesshedays
Bores hedys enarmyd, frumete with venesoun, therwith chapons ibake &
cheuettes, butores &egredouns. At the ii cours, swannes &herouns,
fesauntes, therwith tartes bosewes, & drop therwith to potage. At the iii
cours venesoun rosted, pertrich, wodecoke, plouers, & lauerok, with
koketris, flampoyntes, therewith viaunde real.

On fysch dayes.
The fyrst cours oysters in graue, pyk & bacound heryng (!), stokfyssh &
merlyng yfryed. The ii cours porpeys in galentyn, & therwith congur &
samoun fresch endored & rosted & gurnard, therwith tartes and flampoyntes.
The iii cours, rosee to potage &crem of almaundes, therwith sturioun &
welkes, grete eles & lamprouns, dariol, lechefres of frut, & therwith
nyrsebeke.


Just my 97 cents worth. 

Aoife


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