[Sca-cooks] Leftovers, questions and discussion [long]

[Terry Decker]

> Good answers/rebuttals to each of my hypotheticals.
>
> I was thinking of butchers and cattle, as most people can't slaughter 
> their
> own cow (I can't, and I raise them for slaughter - it takes a heavy winch
> and support system that I don't have).  Or horses.  Weren't horses
> occasionally eaten too?
>
> But I'll admit to ignorance of how the butchering and/or sale of cows or
> horses occurred, or if it even occurred much in period.
>
>
> Hrethric

Take a look at the work of Vicenzio Campi (later half of the 16th Century). 
The Poultry Seller and the Fish Seller are of particular interest.

For a look at the packing industry of the 15th and 16th Centuries and for 
information about driving cattle, pigs, sheep, etc. to market I recommend 
Ferdinand Braudel's three volume set Civilization & Capitalism 15th-18th 
Century.  IIRC, the greatest information can be found in Volume 1, The 
Structures of Everyday Life.

Most towns had ordinances to enforce food purity laws and very often it was 
the local guild who did the enforcing.  An interesting exception to the laws 
found in one town's set of ordinances was that rotten meat could be sold as 
rotten meat but only before the city stocks.

Bear