Meats/spices in MA (was Re: SC - I am So Ashamed! (long))

[Jenne Heise]

> Not familiar with Dembinska or Eastern Europe, so I cannot comment on
> the veracity of that reference.  If that is The recent Polish 'cookbook'
> I'm curious what the original reference is and what time period is
> discussed.  Veal is different than beef.  recipes in English 15th
> century texts (Curye on English and 2 15th) distinguish veal when they
> mean veal.  _History of Food_  has some good information and some less
> supported information.  some is downright wrong.  I'll look at the
> references to beef in my copy to see what you are bringing up.  This is
> fun.

Interestingly enough, I just checked C. Ann Wilson _Food and Drink in
Britain_ and she cites records of beef being driven to market in the 13th
century:

"Beef soon emerged as the Englishmans' favorite fleshmeat. Not enough
could be produced in the arable southern and eastern counties, and cattle
owners in the pastoral north and west found it profitable to drive their
beasts long distances to the lowland markets. In the mid-thirteenth
century drovers were taking cattle from south Wales to Gloucester and
beyond. In northern England a similar trade developed. By Tudor times a
system had grown up whereby beasts were driven to the midlands, East
Anglia or even the home counties, and were there grazed and fattened up to
be resold to the butchers of London and other towns.
Cattle were also fattened local. 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)"

When I dig up my copy of Dembinska (_Food and Drink in Medieval Poland_;
the reference is from the text, not the 'cookbook' portion), I'll post
that too.
 
> > A look over Le Menagiers menus reveals a regularity, if not a superfluity,
> > of beef. However, skimming some of the menus in Two 15th c. coookbooks
> > doesn't show ANY beef that I recognized!
> 
> In skimming Le Menagier for beef references, it usually is mentioned as
> one of several meats, as beef stock or marrow or fat, or a ground meat
> in a pie.  While it is certainly a food item, the few recipes for
> cooking a leg or roast of beef say to boil it a long time or parboil and
> then roast.  A couple of organ meat recipes, tongue has three, 6 for
> roasting the leg or sirloin, 4 ground beef.  Many many references to
> beef stock and marrow, but no mention what was done with the meat then. 

Did you look at the menus, or just the recipes? Because beef shows up
there.
Menu I: "salted and coarse meat,"
Menu II: "Pies of veal chopped small in grease and marrow of beef" as well
as "salted meats, coarse meats, that is to say beef and mutton."
Menu III: "Beef pies and rissoles,... and the coarse meat of beef and
mutton."
Menu IV: "beef marrow fritters," and "coarse meat" again
Menu V: "Beef and marrow pies," the mysterious "coarse meat"
Menu VI:"beef marrow rissoles  and skewers (kebabs) of beef ut pa" 
Menu VII: "beef kebabs, coarse meat, veal stew, marrow-bone soup."
Menu VIII: "Coarse meat," "beef-marrow fritters"
Menu IX: "beef pies, " "coarse meat"
Menu XI: "Beef pies and rissoles, "
Menu XII: "coarse meat," "beef marrow rissoles"
XIII: "coarse meat."
XIV: "pieces of beef and mutton"

This doesn't count all the things in the online translation that are
rendered as 'roasts' of unspecified meat. 

> This definitely suggests that beef was a viable meat option, but not the
> superfluity suggested when considering the number of recipes including
> meats. I also inquire about the translation of beef and veal from
> french.  I am not a french scholar and Janet Hinson's translation is
> respected, so I suspect it is correctly done.


> > Well, I don't thein the tax spices were so much in special regard as of a
> > set, constant value, like salt. It's posisble that the use of peppercorns,
> > in particular, in rents meant that people of lower means had access to
> > that spice.
> You lost me on the 'rents' thing; don't know where that came in.  Using
> spices as tax payment and tribute suggest that they were a combination
> of valued, expensive, rare and desired by nobility. All of these suggest
> it could be intentionally limited for low classed peasant types. Do you
> have positive reference to purchase or use by working class farmer
> types?  I don't say it never happened, but my readings suggest very
> limited access to 'luxury spices' by any save nobility and later (post
> 1300) merchant classes in Italian regions, France and England.  Cannot
> speak for Germany et al.  That would be for the appropriate scholars to
> comment.  Lots of viable replacements spices and herbs were readily
> available, as in the aforementioned ubiquitous mustard.

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". 

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.

- -- 
Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at tulgey.browser.net
disclaimer: i speak for no-one and no-one speaks for me.
"I do my job. I refuse to be responsible for other people's managerial 
hallucinations." -- Lady Jemina Starker