[Sca-cooks] SCA Slaughtering

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

> > _Feeding a City_ suggests that some home butchering was done by smaller
> > urban households but that it was actively discouraged by the civil
> > authorities.
> Ooh. This book sounds like it could be interesting. Can you give us a more
> complete desciption/synopsis and the bibliographic info on this book?

Since you asked, Stefan...

_Feeding a City: York; The provision of food from Roman times to the
beginning of the twentieth century_. edite by Eileen White. (Based on
papers from the 12th and 13th Leeds Symposia on Food History, 1997 and
1998; series: Food & Society, vol. 10) (Prospect Books, 2000)

Table of contents (with my notes):

Foreword, C. Anne Wilson
Introduction, Eileen White, Allan Hall, Terry O'Connor

1. A brief history of plant foods in the city of York: what the cesspits
tell us, Allan Hall
	This archaeobotanical analysis includes a great chart showing what
plant remains show up in cesspit layers from different periods in the
history of York.

2. Bones as Evidence of Meat production and distribution in York. Terry
O'Connor
	Analyzes the kind and quantity of meat and fish bones, plus
information about the location of such finds. Notes (surprisingly) that
the most staple meat appears to have been beef in York in period.

3. Can we tell what people ate in Late Medieval York? Ann Rycraft
	This sceptical article summarizes what we can suspect from food
supplies, guild records, etc. about what and how people ate, but points
out that evidence is fragmentary.

4. The Food Guilds of York, Peter Brears
	Discusses the various guilds at work in York, how they operated
and what restrictions they were under.

5. The Daily Exercise: The Housewife in Elizabethan and Jacobean York,
Eileen White
	Covers what food, what food markets & sources, etc. a Housewife of
the period might have access to, also the hours of the markets, etc.

6. The Domestic Scene, Eileen White
	An analysis of a number of late period inventories from York
covering what kitchen and food-preparation equipment was recorded.

7. Reproduction Pottery for use in Historical Cooking: Some problems for
the potter: a personal view, John Hudson
	This is a great article not just for the potter but for those who
want to drool over the pictures and understand the terminology. Mr.
Hudson's metier is more in the 17th and 18th century pottery, but the
equipment does indeed seem to be consistent with some of the things
mentioned in our period texts.

the last chapters are all postperiod:
8. York and the Gentry: The York Season and the Country House, Peter
Brears
9. Continuity and Change, Eileen White
10. rebirth and Growth, Nineteenth Century York, Hugh Murray
11. Poverty and Policy: the Rowntree Study of 1899, Laura Mason
12. The emergence of the confectionary industry in York, Bill Taylor
13. Cooks and their Books: Four York Manuscripts, Ann Rycraft
14. York Ham and other 'Regional' Foods, Laura Mason

-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa   jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
"The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken
places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and
the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these
you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
-- E. Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms