SC - Medieval Coffee

[david friedman]

At 12:47 PM -0400 6/14/00, CBlackwill at aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 6/13/00 11:36:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time, ddfr at best.com
>writes:
>
>  > _Du Fait de Cuisine_ includes a shopping list, with quantities (see
>  >  below), from which you can calculate roughly how much food was being
>  >  produced; since it also provides a menu, you can get a rough idea of
>  >  how much was in each dish.  My calculation was a total of about
>  >  70,000 lbs (i.e. 35 tons) of boneless meat. That was for two meals a
>  >  day for two days, and he doesn't say how many guests are expected.
>
>I had read this before, and it was my understanding that this was not an
>actual shopping list for an actual feast.  I believe it is meant as an ideal
>guide (read: "wouldn't it be swell if...") for producing a Grand Feast or
>some such.


Correct. The author was the chief cook of the Duke of Savoy, and he 
appears to be describing how to do a very big and fancy feast. So far 
as I know, there is no evidence that he actually did it, but it 
presumably represents a description by a professional of the high end 
of what was done. He goes into considerable detail.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/