SC - Thoughts on Medieval food

[Decker, Terry D.]

> > But isn't it true My Lord that in "the olden days" it was either feast
> or
> > famine?'  Meat was not eaten every day as in the recent past.    So that
> when
> > there WAS meat, it was "feast & enjoy yourself"  And eating was a way to
> keep
> > healthy! (back then.)
> > 
> > Phillipa
> 
> I think that this is another "medieval myth".  Certainly there were famine
> years.  And meat was limited by the church for certain days of the week
> and seasons of the year.  That very fact brings us back to the old truism
> of historiography - you don't make a law against something unless people
> are doing it.  That the church limited consumption of meat was a clear
> indicator that on non-fast days people were regularly eating meat.
> 
	<snipped>  This leads me to
> believe that the reason we see non-meat dishes in the other cookbooks is
> so that cooks could accomodate the fast days of the church, not because
> people chose to eat meals without meat.
> 
> Elaina
> 
I think you are right Elaina.  Here's another quote form a footnote in
Scully to help the discussion along:

"Yet in the diet of the bourgeois population of a town such as Chambery in
Savoy meat did enjoy a relatively important place.  Rejane Brondy has
estimated that over one year (1375-1376) between 160,000 and 165,000
kilograms of red meat was consumed, which amount she calculates to mean the
eqivalent average of 45-50 kilograms per inhabitant per year.  Chambery.
Historie d'une capitale vers 1350-1560, Lyon (Presses Universitaires de
Lyon), 1988, pp. 108-109."

Or 94-110 lbs of meat per capita that year.  Since meat days are only about
1/2 of the year, we're talking over 1/2 pound of meat per person per day.

Bear
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