[Sca-cooks] No Sugar in 10th Century??

[Jenne Heise]

> > <My Comment: Of course we already know that all meat
> > in the middle ages was old or spoiled...>
> You ride the horse until its too weak to ride.  You work the oxen until they
> are too weak to plow.  You keep the sheep for wool and milk.  You keep the
> pigs until you have to feed them over the winter.  Here piggy, piggy.

pgs. 170-171 of _Food, a Culinary History_ discusses the fact that the average age of
cattle at slaughtering based on ox bones among kitchen remains (for the early middle
ages) was between 3 and 5 years; and that  (here the author was discussing first
sheep and goats, then pigs, so it's not clear whether pigs alone are meant or pigs, sheep
and goats) 'According to archaelogical data, animals were never killed before their first
year was out, and sometimes after two or more years."

--
Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at mail.browser.net
disclaimer: i speak for no-one and no-one speaks for me.
"It's no use trying to be clever-- we are all clever here; just try
to be kind -- a little kind." F.J. Foakes-Jackson