[Sca-cooks] Period vegetarianism, 'Lainie looses her cool

[Laura C. Minnick]

At 03:46 PM 11/13/02 -0500, you wrote:
>> Very few people in the Middle Ages were vegetarians by choice. There are
>> aescetics and hermits, some orders of monks are veg or nearly so, there are
>> a few heretical sects that are partly veg (the Cathars, for instance, but
>> even they have a sliding scale). And there are a few fast days, and
>> penetential fasts.
>
>Actually, even if you only count 40 days of Lent and 12 days of Ember
>days, plus Wednesdays & Fridays, those work out to over 35% of the days in
>the year. So, I think that you have to say there were more than 'a few
>fast days'.

If you are _very_ observant. :-) And it does vary quite a bit from place to
place. When I was taking canon law, one of the cases we were working on
(which I use when teaching) is that of a nun, on pilgrimage to Rome. On her
way she discovers that they observe different fast days in different
places, and there are differing levels of 'fast'- from no animal products,
to bread and water, to water only. And at one point she finds herself with
the fast days from her home convent (which she is stil observing) and all
of the local ones, and is eating only two days a week... IIRC, the correct
answer was a 'when in Rome...'

'Fast' diet is very different for cloistered religious than for the upper
nobility. And like sexual activity, not all of the proscriptions were
observed (otherwise the population would not have been anywhere near what
it was ;-).
There's one case (hmm, where is that?) where a local priest let the
calendar get away from him, and suddenly one day realized in was well into
March... and Lent was two weeks in his parish that year. Odd, yes. But
recorded. what went unrecorded? I haven't a clue.

However, my main point was, this is all immaterial. Are we re-creating fast
days? No. Are we re-creating Lent? No. Are we serving an Ember day meal
becasue all of the attendees are observant Catholics? No.

I'm not saying don't try to accomodate vegetarians/vegans if you can and if
it doesn't overly disrupt the rest of the menu. That is admirable. But
don't pretend you are doing it for period reasons, becasue you aren't.

'Lainie
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Sometimes Life makes drastic changes without our permission...