SC - Servers eating free

[Chris Stanifer]

Jenne Heise wrote:
> 
> C. Anne Wilson gives an example of the household of two priests which
> consumed about a pound of pepper a year. This is a half-pound per person,
> and pepper was pretty much the most used spice.

I'm not entirely sure that this provides a clear representation of the
lifestyle of some priests in period, compared to some others. First off,
it should be noted that the clergy often came of the upper classes: an
earl would probably not give his younger son to the Church to have him
live in poverty (priests being different from monks, many of whom did
not live in poverty, either), and then there's the question of how many
that pound of pepper actually fed, given visiting clergy including,
occasionally, bishops, perhaps, servants, etc. I don't know if my wife
or I have bought any pepper this year at all, but if you add in things
like chillis and some of the other spices that are used in ways that
black pepper has been used in in the past (including mustard, for
example), I'm sure we have exceeded a pound, or will have by December.
 
> Here's canned rant on the economics of spice consumption from a Canadian
> professor: http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/munro5/SPICES1.htm
> He compares modern Indian and medieval French recipes.

This is a pretty good canned rant, all in all. I wish I'd known about it before...

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com