[Sca-cooks] Littiu was 12th Night 2007 Stories

[Johnna Holloway]

The Littiu as described on the website 
http://www.geocities.com/ranvaig/medieval/kitchen.htmlas
"The dish is described in books of monastic rules, and is prescribed in 
the Brehon law as the appropriate food with which noble hostages and 
foster sons are nourished by right."

Are we sure that this is correct?
The reason I ask is that Brid Mahon's Land of Milk and Honey
repeats this passage (I think it is the same one)
as

“The children of inferior grades are to be fed on porridge or stirabout 
made of oatmeal on buttermilk or water taken with stale butter and are 
to be given a bare sufficiency; the sons of chieftains are to be fed to 
satiety on porridge made of barley meal upon new milk, taken with fresh 
butter, while the sons of kings and princes are to be fed on porridge 
made of wheaten meal, upon new milk, taken with honey.“ page 64

The source is given as Ancient Laws of Ireland, volume 2 pp 148-151.

So wouldn't oats have been served to the lower class fosterings while 
the sons of
the upper classes would have eaten either barley or wheat?

Johnnae

ranvaig at columbus.rr.com wrote:
> It is the Early Irish word for porridge and this 
> was for the Irish Living History group, therefore 
> the Irish name.
> Ranvaig
>
> http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/MB2/mb24.html
> lit
> porridge, Middle Irish lité, Early Irish littiu, 
> g. litten, Welsh llith, mash: *littiôn- (Stokes), 
> *pl at .t-tiô, from pelt, polt, Greek @Gpóltos, 
> porridge, Latin puls, pultis, pottage.