[Sca-cooks] Rotten meat and spices...

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

Laura C. Minnick wrote:

> At 04:47 PM 4/12/2005, you wrote:
>
>> FWIW, here's Chaucer's description of the diet of a poor widow:
>
>
> Except it is not a description of her diet, but of her possessions.

[snip]

>
> So she has three sows, three cows, and a sheep. And a few chickens. It 
> is clear that these animals are where she gets her meager income- she 
> milks the cows (and possibly Molly) and sells the milk. Possibly sells 
> eggs. She likely has the sows bread and sells the resulting piglets. 
> She may butcher a pig now and then, but not often, as the only mention 
> of meat is a bit of smoked bacon. What she eats apparently is the 
> products of her animals, and bread. (God help her in Lent!) She 
> doesn't eat the animals themselves (at least until they are old and no 
> longer producing) any more than a wheat farmer eats his seed.
>
> 'Lainie 

I didn't mean to imply that she ate her beasts.  Her diet is bread, 
milk, eggs, and sometimes bacon.  I left in the description of her 
farmstead to give an idea of her economic position.  She is a poor 
widow, but not utterly impoverished (ie., not a beggar).

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