[Sca-cooks] ELIZABETHAN KITCHEN

[Daniel Myers]

 From what I remember of my Anthro classes in undergrad, if you set the
genetic components aside (which have been relatively constant across
recorded history) hight is most influenced by protein consumption.  One
of my Profs made note of some Asian families that immigrated to the US.
  While most people in these stereotypical families were under 5', the
children raised in the US with its diet rich in meat were often up to a
foot taller than their parents.

It's difficult to find reliable information about the average human
height in period, but with the above in mind it is easy to imagine that
there may have been places and times where the average height was
substantially shorter than the current average, and other times when it
was closer to what we consider normal today.


On Thursday, April 24, 2003, at 05:53 AM, Terry Decker wrote:

> Although there are a great many variables, I think a better case can
> be made
> for a steadily improving and varied diet (based on economic factors)
> between
> the 14th and 16th Centuries improving the general health followed by an
> economically induced decline (general inflation followed by
> industrialization) and large scale warfare in the Early Modern period
> which
> continued until the dietary costs were reduced by reducing the costs of
> production and transportation in the 20th Century.  Braudel provides
> the
> easiest source for this argument and his bibliography provides more
> detailed
> references.
>
> Bear
>
>> If I remember correctly, one of the things that came out in the book
>> was that the physical condition of folks early in the Middle Ages was
>> fairly good, deteriorating as folks moved into cities, including
>> decreases in height. Then things gradually improved again with the
>> greatest gains being in the last century.
>> Stefan
>
>
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