[Sca-cooks] Re: Moffet/Muffet Butter

[johnna holloway]

In her note which I have snipped Tara/Terri Spencer wrote:
>
> "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.
> snipped----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.

Thomas Muffet or Moffet's discourse was written prior to his death
in perhaps 1594 or perhaps as late as 1597.
His work remained unpublished until 1655 when Christopher
Bennett finished, enlarged and published it. It was published
again in 1746. Both Moffet and Bennett were physicians. Perhaps
the reason why Moffet's advice does not correlate with that given
in the earlier dietaries is that Moffet evaluated what the earlier
works said and then revised the traditional advice along the lines
of his own experience and observations. There was
interesting article on Moffet and this book that was published under
the title: "How Good Were Little Miss Muffet's Curds and Whey?" by
Victor Houliston. It appears in the Oxford Symposium papers from
1986 entitled "The Cooking Medium." Houliston not only examines
how Moffet approached his work, but also delves into the background
of whether or not Moffet's daughter ate her curds and whey while
seated on the infamous "tuffet"...

Johnnae llyn Lewis  Johnna Holloway