RE [Sca-cooks] Butter (was Honey Butter? No! No!)

[Christina Nevin]

Hi all,

I must admit I find it difficult to make up my mind here.

Should I now serve bread and butter at my feasts on the strength of the one
definite reference (Way of Dining) and the debatable reference (cited
below). And is the latter documentation for in-feast bread and butter or
not?

What do other people think?

Lucrezia

===================================
> Greetings all,
>
> Brighid cited a latin poem "The Way of Dining" from 1180 instructing
> that butter and soft cheese be eaten spread on bread, thus documenting
> bread and butter at feast.  Her post prompted me to re-read my copy of
> the translation in The Babees Book, edited by Frederick J. Furnivall.
> Therein, in John Russell's Boke of Nurture (1460-70), I had previously
> marked:
> Bewar at eve of crayme of cowe & also of the goote, thaugh it be late,
> of Strawberies & hurtilberyes with the cold Ioncate
> For these may marre many a man changynge his astate,
> but iff he have aftur, hard chese, wafurs, with wyne ypocrate.
> hard chese hathe his condicioun in his operacioun:
> Furst he wille a stomak kepe in the botom open,
> the helthe of euery creature ys in his conicioun;
> yf he diete yhm thus dayly, he is a good conclusioun.
> buttir is an holsom mete / furst and eke last,
> For he wille a stomak kepe / & helps poyson a-wey to cast,
> also he norishethe a man to be laske / and evy humerous to wast
> and with white bred / he wille kepe thy mouthe in tast.
>
> Wynkyn de Worde's Boke of Kervynge, 1513 repeats this pretty closely
> (the editor suggests they are copies of a common earlier source, the
> text is online at http://milkmama.tripod.com/kervynge2.html). Some
> small differences:
>
> Also loke ye have in all seasons butter, chese, apples...
> Serve fastynge butter, plommes, damesons...
> butter is holsome fyrst & last, for it wyll do awaye all poysons...
<snip>
> "Serve fastynge" is interpreted as before dinner, so it might be the
> first course at table, or it could be served elsewhere.  The Way of
> Dining starts the meal with potage, and ends thus:
>
> "Butter is holsome fyrst & last" sounds promising, but the editor says
> it does not refer to it's place in the meal.  He quotes Thomas Muffett
> (Health's Improvement, 1655) on butter: "best for children...and for
> old men; but very unwholsom betwixt those two ages, because...it is
> forthwith converted into choler".  None of my humoral sources agree.
> I've checked Platina, Hildegard & Tacuinum Sanitatis; they wrote that
> butter is warm, moist, nourishing and fattening, healthy in
> moderation.
>  The Way of Dining says butter dissipates humors.  The worst
> I can find
> is that it can render the stomach apathetic, and too much
> breeds phlegm
> - not choler.  Do any period writings agree with Muffet?  If
> not, we're
> back to butter first and last at the meal, spread politely on bread,
> some small support for SCA tradition - without the honey.
<snip>
> Tara
> Almost caught up, only 9 digests to go!
>


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