SC - OP Spelling lesson goods and services question

[Patrick Hood]

Chris Stanifer wrote:
> 
> --- Stefan li Rous <stefan at texas.net> wrote:
> > Yes, these are very general comments to which
> > exceptions can probably
> > always be found. Pompeii is however not in the
> > medieval time period.
> > While it existed then, I doubt there was too much
> > bread making going
> > on.
> 
> Stefan,
> Why do you doubt there was too much bread making going
> on in Pompeii during the Middle Ages?

I really need to read these threads more carefully; I've obviously
missed something. I assume (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong)
that Stefan felt that there wasn't much baking going on in Pompeii in
the Middle Ages because Pompeii was destroyed in 79 C.E. and, AFAIK,
never rebuilt. 

> One of the most
> important finds in the Pompeii excavation was (were?)
> a pair of Bakers Rings...which not only indicates that
> the Bakery profession was in full swing, but also that
> they had "Unionized", or created Guilds.

Pompeii is an entire town frozen in time by catastrophe. Only a true
cook would call a pair of baker's rings one of the most important finds,
and for that, Balthazar, I salute you! ;  ) How do the rings indicate
that the bakers were guild members? (I've seen them, but not recently.)
Is there something inscribed on them to that effect? If that is the
case, I can see the point, but otherwise it occurs to me that bakers may
have been regulated by law as to loaf sizes, weights, etc.

> The rings, I
> believe, were in the possession of Chef Luis Zathmary,
> and now reside in the Johnson and Wales Culinary
> Museum (though i could be wrong about any of the
> statements above)

Oh Puck... when's your next day off?

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com