SC - Re: Not eating cute furry animals

[Vincent Cuenca]

>
>It's true that many surviving Medieval feast menus feature lots of
>meat. This to me suggests that it is NOT the way they typically ate.
>And of course, the surviving cookbooks tend to represent the foods of
>the well-to-do. I assume that the well-to-do ate a more varied diet
>then the poor, although i need to do more reading.

This is a good point, and one that tends to be missed.  Meat and the 
consumption thereof was closely tied to social rank, with the wealthiest and 
most powerful getting the most and best of it all.  Venice even had food 
laws limiting how much and what kind of meats could be eaten by commoners. 
Your kitchen and larder were subject to inspection, to make sure you weren't 
eating above your station.

One might view the current American meat-heavy diet as the result of 
hundreds of years of cultural programming.  Meat=prosperity.  More 
prosperity, more meat.  And didn't the sign of the prosperous man used to be 
a bay window gut?

Vicente
(the very model of a mildly prosperous banker of the 1910's)
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com