SC - a very tiny hurray and some questions

[david friedman]

At 10:30 AM -0400 7/5/00, Elaine Koogler wrote:
>I know that when I wanted to do a 14th century feast for a Coronation, I
>searched high and low for a recipe from that period.  What I did find (and I
>don't remember where now, was information that beef was not usually served at
>feasts as it was considered to be peasant food...usually what was served was
>pork, veal, fowl, etc. The reasoning was that the only beef that was 
>served was
>very old and tough...the cow being kept until old age because of the other
>products obtained from milk.  And, of course, only the peasants would eat such
>old, tough meat!

That sounds like a conjecture converted into a fact by a few repetitions.

Looking at Two Fifteenth Century Cookery books, which is conveniently 
to hand, I find not only several recipies using beef, but, on p. 67, 
the menu of a royal feast. The list of ingredients starts:

XIII oxen lying in salt
IJ oxen fresh.

Similarly, the shopping list from Du Fait de Cuisine (for a very big 
proposed feast) starts:

"And first: one hundred well-fattened cattle, one hundred and thirty 
sheep, also well fattened, one hundred and twenty pigs; "

David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
ddfr at best.com
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/