SC - period bread comments

[Stefan li Rous]

Bear commented:
> > >>In the towns, the average bread use was about 2 pound per person a
> > day.<<

> No it's taken from Scully's comments about several studies of medieval town
> life.  Apparently, cereals in the form of bread, beer and porridge were the
> staples of the European diet.

> If I weren't eating much of anything else, I can put away two pounds of
> bread a day easily.  It's the gallon of beer that would do me in.

I wonder if another reason for this quantity differance might also be
in how we view bread. We think of a pound of bread being a lot, as
what, a whole loaf? Until some of the specialty breads became popular,
I think the modern ideal of bread was a light loaf. It is possible
that the medieval ideal was the opposite. 

The following passage is from a book I've just gotten and just started
to read. "Those Who Worked - An Anthology of Medieval Sources" edited by
Peter Speed. Italia Press, New York 1997. ISBN 0-934977-40-2

"Some men are deceivers and liars, like the craftsmen. The shoemaker
says, "See, these are two most excellant soles;" and he has burned
them before the file, and lies and cheats you of your money. And the
baker floods his dough with yeast, so that you, who thought you had
bought bread, have bought mere air for bread." [Sermons]

This was apparently written by Berthold von Regensburg, a German Friar
of the mid-thirteenth century. "Social Life in England from the 
Conquest to the Reformation, by G.G. Coulton, 1918.

I was interpreting this to mean an airy loaf was bad, but maybe
just an unusually airy loaf was thought so. Other thoughts?
- -- 
Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:
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