SC - Re: Meats/spices in MA

[Nicholas Sasso]

<<<<<   "Beef soon emerged as the Englishmans' favorite fleshmeat. . . .north and west found it profitable to drive their beasts long distances to the lowland 
markets....SNIP...Thirty-four 'lean beefs', half-starved on
their winter diet, were purchased for the Earl of Northumberland on St.
Helen's Day (21 May) and fed in his pastures to suppy his households in
Yorkshire from midsummer to Michaelmas, when a further hundred fat cattle
were acquired to last until the following midsummer. (H.P. Finberg, 'An
early reference to the Welsh cattle trade,' _Agric. Hist. Rev._ 194, 2, p.
12; FJ Fisher, 'The Development of the London food market, 1540-1640,'
_Econ. Hist. Rev._ 1935, 5(2), p. 51.; Northumberland Household book, p.
5)"    >>>>>>>>>

These are good references.,  Does she give the connection in other parts of the 
chapter as to who was purchasing these in 13th century and for what purpose?  We 
then jump right to Tudor times.  There is a goodly amount of history and agricultural 
/economic change from 1200 to 1540.  The inference of ubuquitous beef and the 
meat of choice is a bit thin with just this info spread across 2 centuries and even 
regions within the English Isles during those centuries.  I like the fact that we have 
suggestion of cattle being driven in some quantity to markets.  34 beasts doesn't 
seem much an Earl, but it leds us to the use of cattle as a marketable commodity by 
them.  I encourage clarification of my hazy interpretation of any of this.  I want to be 
accurate in my perceptions.

<<<<<<<Did you look at the menus, or just the recipes? Because beef shows up
there. . . . SNIP . . . This doesn't count all the things in the online translation that are
rendered as 'roasts' of unspecified meat.   >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

Unspecified 'roast' meats cannot be simply attributed to be beef with all of the other 
references to meats in the menues and recipes.  Beef is more often boiled or used 
ground in this text than roasted.  I was counting the menues, as that is where I got the 
references to marrow and ground beef. Coarse meat can or cannot be beef each 
time.  Veal is a different beast than Beef.  It has diofferent characters and taste than
 their older relatives (same as lamb vs. Mutton).  In the 14 menues, there is mention of
 actual beef in 7 items.  This suggests to me that it isn't rare, and possibly even used 
fairly often.  To suggest from this info that it is a preferred meat would be a strectch
 since it is also referred to as coarse meat in a couple.  Viewing the entire body of the
 food references, including menues and recipes, I find that beef is greatly outnumbed 
by fish, pork, lamb, mutton, game meats and the other proteins.  Beef products such 
as marrow and broth are mentioned frequently, but we really don't knownwhat 
happended to the meat from the stock . . . could have been eaten or discarded or fed 
to animals or fed to servants or given to the church or burned as sacred offering to 
some deity.  Again, I may be myopic, so someone stop me before I misinterpret again.

<<<<  There are certainly references to peppercorn rents. Remember that the
terms 'taxes' and 'rents' are messy. However, C. Ann Wilson says, "But
pepper had become common again" by the 11th c. "and was cheap enough to be
within reach of the small manorial landlord" . She also mentions late
period peppercorn rents. The price given for later period: "Dame Alice de
Bryene in 1419 paid two shillings and a penny per pound for pepper in
london, but only one and eleven a pound when it was bought at Stourbridge
fair" and a pound of pepper goes quite a way. By contrast, mustard was
sold for "less than a farthing a pound for the household of Dame Alice de
Bryene".  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Calling pepper common and available to the 11th century manorial landlord suggests
 to me that it was aavailale to nobility and land-owning class.  There is a bit of an 
economic gulf between manorial landlords and their tennant chattle.  I accept the 
assertion that pepper of some sort became MORE common in the 11th c. (end of war, 
opening the spice road, etc.), but am 
hesitant to generalize that reference very far down the economic scale of people. 
Dame Alice de Bryene is also not common or peasant, having a title and all.
Does she give reference for her pepper stuff?  There are lots of peppers out there
in the Middle Ages, including black long, cubeb and malegueta (grains) that could easily be confusing in translations.  We have occasional discussions of our difficulties
in translating recipes ourselves.  I don't say this as absolute refutation, but 
explanation of my systematic evaluation of the source and conclusions.  My reading 
has always led me to believe, posbibly incorrectly, that the more valuable spicestuffs 
were not common or financially affordable to peasant classes en masse.  If you have 
positive reference of general peasants of substance purchasing spice such as pepper
 and cinnamon or mastic, then I welcome those from anyone with them.  My 
references are limited in discussion of the classes of people 'below' merchant, save clerical.

<<<<<  One thing I find interesting in this discussion is that the idea of the
prosperous peasant seems to be being ignored. Over and over again, the
economic history texts mention the idea that, depending on the laws,
peasants worked hard to have enough grain, etc. to sell after paying their
rent, taxes or tithe. Such might not have a lot of spending cash, but the
assumption that the Grocer's guilds and the itinerant chapment catered
only to merchants and the aristocracy seems to be an illogical leap.   >>>>>>>

I am certain that merchants sold to whoever could afford their wares.  (Prosperous peasant seems a little oxymoronic, though, on the surface).  I cannot speculate 
whether a peasant farmer who sold extra barley bought Indian Spices or Venetian 
silks in England.  The Pepperer's Guilds appeared to be extremely powerful and 
wealthy in Venice, Florance, Naples and Genoa.  These were the epicenters of the 
spice trade from the east.  This seems the more likely region for 'prosperous' 
peasants to afford spices, but I haven't run across that yet.  Suppositions can 
always be made, but they have a lower degree of confidence than a hard reference.

niccolo difrancesco