[Sca-cooks] A horse for a peppercorn-Explanation of a Food Myth
David Friedman
ddfr at daviddfriedman.com
Mon Sep 13 09:47:02 PDT 2010
...
>There is a similar tradition followed to this day by some Southern
>Chinese, possibly others as well. For reasons associated with
>kharma, one does not give certain items as gifts; for example
>knives, weapons, medications, etc., are not considered appropriate
>to give as gifts. When you find yourself wanting or needing to do so
>anyway, it is considered good manners to include with the gift a
>shiny new penny, to be returned by the recipient to the donor, so it
>can be agreed upon that the gift item was in fact purchased, thereby
>changing the kharmic implications.
I'm familiar with that as a current American tradition--whether
derived from the Chinese or not I don't know. It doesn't include
giving the penny, just having a token payment in order that the knife
will not cut the friendship.
>I didn't know about the peppercorn for a horse thing. It might be
>worth knowing as a reference point that for much of Europe in the
>Middle Ages, a cooked capon cost around a penny [which would usually
>have ben a silver coin?], so the two shillings you spoke of -- which
>doesn't seem like so very much -- would buy, what, forty of them?
A penny was a silver coin. In the original Carolingian monetary
reform, from which most of the medieval and renaissance European
monetary systems derive, a penny was one two hundred and fortieth of
a pound of silver. The pound was a unit of account, defined as 240
pennies. Initially it was also a pound of silver, but over time the
penny got debased, at different rates in different places.
The shilling was also (initially) a unit of account, defined as
twelve pennies, and created to provide continuity with the
pre-existing Roman system--it corresponded to a coin in that system.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com
daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
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