[Sca-cooks] from bacon to the availability of other meats

[Chris Stanifer]

--- Stefan li Rous <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com> wrote:
>    William de Grandfort said:
> > The mention of bacon alone indicates that she did
> > have ample pork as a protein source, and if she had bacon, then she
> > likely had ham, and hocks and shoulder and rib as well.
> 
> And Jadwiga replied
> > Gies and Gies and other sources indicate that bacon and other small
> > portions of meat were often given to day laborers as hire or given out
> > among the customary exchanges for harvest help. So she might not have
> > had a pig in order to have bacon.
> 
> In addition, even if you raise the pig, that doesn't mean you keep the 
> ham, hocks, shoulder and rib meats. Depending upon the local economy, 
> those may be salable items. The bacon would have been less so and it 
> might have been kept and eaten by this individual, as it was by other 
> peasants, and the rest of the meat sold. Unfortunately, I can't 
> remember my precise sources for this.


If we take the verse in context (and remember we are dealing with a completely fictional character
here, who is mentioned only in passing), the widow had not only 3 pigs, but also some cows, and I
believe a goat named Molly.  She also had a few daughters whom she would be required to feed, as
well.

Now, if she bred those sows with the local boar, they would have offspring.  Pigs can have a lot
of offspring, by the way (though I'm not sure what the average litter is, or how many times they
can breed in their lifetime).  I find it hard to believe that a widow who makes her money selling
off the litters of three sows would not keep at least a few of them to keep her daughters fed, fat
and happy.  And, if she was so hard up that she would sell off the entire lot just to buy a few
scraps of brown bread and a snippet of bacon, then why not sell the sows alltogether, and purchase
another goat or two???  

I just find it very hard to believe that she would not keep a bit of the meat for herself and her
family, if she had access to it, to ensure their survival.

William de Grandfort




> 
> There are also problems with taking individual peasants and using them 
> as examples of the peasant class as a whole. The economic life of 
> peasants covered a wide span, even within a particular place and time. 
> You could for instance, have serfs which were better off economically 
> than free peasants. And very poor peasants on up to those who had 
> substantial material goods for the times.
> 
> Stefan
> --------
> THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
>     Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
> StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
> **** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Sca-cooks mailing list
> Sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
> http://www.ansteorra.org/mailman/listinfo/sca-cooks
> 

Through teeth of sharks, the Autumn barks.....and Winter squarely bites me.


		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Make Yahoo! your home page 
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs