[Sca-cooks] Fwd: Sca-cooks Digest, Vol 8, Issue 91/Period Breeds

[Marcus Loidolt]

Well, Master Johann is reading this thread with much
interest!!

Yes, there are and have been throughout the ages
various breeds of goats/sheep kept for their fat,
especially in their tails! In the ME, where there are
high Jewish and Moslem population, the oil of
fat-tailed sheep was/is highly prized and can be
expensive or hard to comeby. This is mainly because
the sheep require a higher amount of care than
normally short-tailed or docked sheep. The long fat
tail traps dung in the wool of the hindquarters which
must be kept clean to prevent blowflies from infesting
the area.

I will try to send some links to various animal
husbandry sites on antique breeds of sheep and swine.

A word about swine and lean vs. fat hogs and the
English. Far from being inexpensive or cheap, if an
English king was asking for 'Fat Hogs' he was laying
out some gold!! It isn't cheap to fatten hogs!  Free
range swine are pretty lean and damn right dangerous,
they eat whatever they can scavenge and in an area
around a town there are always poor people to gather
up any extra's so lots of unclaimed food lying around
for the hogs just wasn't happening!!
Especially if there is a seige of any kind!!

Lean hogs are cheap, but hard to catch and not worth
doing so for his needs,
Fat hogs would have had to been kept in pens and fed
expensive food and taken up valuable space, hence
expense.

Johann von Metten OL
medieval poultry




> Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 13:24:57 -0500
> From: "Phlip" <phlip at 99main.com>
> Subject: More period critters- Re: [Sca-cooks] back
> to food was PETA
> 
> > I seem to recall reference to the fact that there
> were period, now no longer extant, breeds of rather
large sheep that were bred more for meat and
> > perhaps milk than for their wool.  When I say
> large think of the Odyssey bit with the Cyclops. 
Anyone have any input in this regard as it might
pertain to recipes that appear to call for larger than
what is currently available cuts of mutton?
> >
> > Daniel
> 
> Sorry- changed the subject line, so Master Johann
> would be likely to read it
> ;-)
> 
> I'd be very interested in more period breeds. One
> breed that has my
> curiosity up, are the "fat tailed sheep" mentioned
> in a couple of Arabic (I
> think) recipes. Certainly, larger sheep would be of
> interest too.
> 
> I suspect that the reason sheep never got bred up
> for fat was that they're
> basicly designed to live on more marginal land, so
> that a breed which grows
> and develops well on a strctly grass diet isn't
> likely to get as marbled,
> as, say, pigs and cattle, which are confined and fed
> grains. I imagine that
> the free range hogs in the MA were pretty lean,
> although I'm sure that there
> were some confined and fattened, like the example in
> Platina.
> 
> Johann- have you got any input or insight into these
> breeds? Maybe know of
> breeders, or references you might share? Something
> like the Sand Hill
> catalogue would be great- speaking of which, if I
> wanted to order a period
> breed of chickens, what would you suggest, as easy
> keepers, not likely to
> challenge that idiot rooster of mine, Cogburn, for
> dominance.
> 
> Saint Phlip,
> CoDoLDS
> 
> "When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a
> hammer."
>  Blacksmith's credo.
> 
>  If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it
> is probably not a
> cat.
> 
> Never a horse that cain't be rode,
> And never a rider who cain't be throwed....
> 
> 
> 


=====
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