[Sca-cooks] a worrisome quote from Le Menagier

[Daniel Myers]

On Monday, January 12, 2004, at 08:10  PM, Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus  
Adamantius wrote:

> Also sprach Daniel Myers:
>> "Item, you can tell the age of a hare from the number of openings  
>> under its tail, for there will be as many openings as years."
>> Le Menagier de Paris (Janet Hinson, trans.)

[...]

> Or, is this perhaps a little practical joke, a la Margaret Meade,  
> played on Le Menagier by a poulterer?

Further support for this theory can be found in the following:  "Hares  
rarely live more than a year in the wild."
[  
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/lepus/ 
l._capensis$narrative.html ]

I found a table of life expectancies for various mammals which pretty  
much confirmed this - life expectancy at birth was 1.12 years for a  
European Hare.

That Menagier ... what a kidder!

- Doc


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  Edouard Halidai  (Daniel Myers)
  http://www.medievalcookery.com/
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