[Sca-cooks] Lamb (was Re: lent, wine, indulgences, de Nola)

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

On 28 Jan 2004, at 14:15, Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamant wrote:

> I think records of sales, and assize laws, were kept for markets run 
> by Normans, too, which might be why the English names for many of the 
> animals have survived, while the French names for the animals have 
> largely become the names of the meat from those English-named 
> animals. This could explain why what has come down to us are English 
> names for meat animals (with the occasional exception) and French 
> names for meat, and the misimpression that only the Normans ate meat 
> (which I'm sure the Saxon aristocrats who kept their lands in England 
> after the conquest would have found rather funny).

There's a passage in the first chapter of "Ivanhoe" that touches on this.  Two Saxon 
serfs are conversing:

"And swine is good Saxon," said the Jester; "but how call you the sow when she is 
flayed, and drawn, and quartered, and hung up by the heels, like a traitor?"  

"Pork," answered the swine-herd.  

"I am very glad every fool knows that too," said Wamba, "and pork, I think, is good 
Norman-French; and so when the brute lives, and is in the charge of a Saxon slave, 
she goes by her Saxon name; but becomes a Norman, and is called pork, when she 
is carried to the Castle-hall to feast among the nobles; what dost thou think of this, 
friend Gurth, ha?"  

"It is but too true doctrine, friend Wamba, however it got into thy fool's pate."  

"Nay, I can tell you more," said Wamba, in the same tone; "there is old Alderman Ox 
continues to hold his Saxon epithet, while he is under the charge of serfs and 
bondsmen such as thou, but becomes Beef, a fiery French gallant, when he arrives 
before the worshipful jaws that are destined to consume him. Mynheer Calf, too, 
becomes Monsieur de Veau in the like manner; he is Saxon when he requires 
tendance, and takes a Norman name when he becomes matter of enjoyment."   


Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
rcmann4 at earthlink.net