SC - Dairy Products (long) - was: Bread and Circuses, was: Citrus Fruit History

[James L. Matterer]

Hello Master A! (and the rest of the list)

Thank you for such an informative and wonderful letter on butter and
cheeses!

I guess what I forgot to write in my last two posts (in my rush to get
my e-mail written before leaving the house) was that I believe the
SCAdian practice of starting nearly every feast with bread, butter, and
cheese is based more on modern preferences than common medieval
practice, but there is ample evidence to show that bread was eaten with
butter, and that cheese could be served at periodic points throughout a
meal, or a day's meals. And while bread with butter wasn't considered
the primary apertif, it seems that at times it was recommended as a good
opener. So I won't feel overly cautious about starting a feast with
bread & butter, but I will admit that I gave up the practice of serving
cheese at the start of dinner several years ago, mostly due to the
increasing price of the product! As for the flavored butters, I've never
found documentation for them, but would like to know if such
documentation is available; right now I consider the ubiquitous
honey-butter to be a modern SCA custom, but I wouldn't mind being proven
wrong.  

Also, in my first posts I was keeping in mind more the daily eating
habits of the general population and not just those meals served at noon
on a feast day.

Leafing through Food & Feast in Medieval England by P. W. Hammond, I
found several interesting comments. Hammond says that most butter was
used by cooks for cooking purposes; in great households butter was made
available to members of the family but usually not to the servants; most
peasants had access to some sort of butter; in 1289 carters on Ferring
Manor, Sussex, had a morning meal of rye bread with ale & cheese, at
noon they received bread, ale, and a dish of fish or meat, and in the
evening they were given a drink only (no butter for these poor fellows,
but cheese in the morning). This book also has an interesting 15th c.
illustration of a peasant man scooping out butter from a large pot
suspended over a fire.

The only reference to butter I've found in the writings of Chaucer is
for the butterfly! He mentions cheese quite a bit, though.

It's been my belief that soups & pottages, as warm & moist foods, are
excellent stomach openers (Scully mentions this) - what are your
thoughts on this?

Huen
- -- 
A Boke of Gode Cookery
http://www.labs.net/dmccormick/huen.htm
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