In article ,
Jaques d'Alltrades writes:
| The message
| from (Nick Maclaren) contains these words:
|
| No, what I wrote is correct. As both of your examples show, there
| is a certain amount on what the richer people ate, and what the
| peasantry ate for feasting, as well as some rude remarks (verging
| on propaganda) about the common diet. But there is effectively
| damn-all on either the details of the latter or sufficiently
| unbiassed evidence to just what it was really like.
|
| As a modern example, I know some of those 1940s and 1950s cookbooks,
| and none of them include the food that was routinely eaten in areas
| that I know, and communication with other people indicates that it
| was generally true. Most of them were written as attempts to get
| the peasantry to improve its diet, after all!
|
| I have begun a repy to this, citing Elizabeth Craig (1948) and when the
| right shaped tuit appears, will look for other old cookbooks I have
| somewhere.
|
| I can assure you that some of the recipes are very basic indeed!

Oh, I know that - I have seen and even used such books - but I
suggest that you reread my posting. Most such books were not
written as a DESCRIPTION of what the peasantry ate, but as EXAMPLES
for the peasantry. And, because many authors had a very low view
of the intelligence of said peasantry, the recipes were often kept
very simple and even dumbed down. In other cases, the authors were
so ignorant that they produced recipes that used ingredients that
were unavailable.

There are, of course, exceptions - but here is what I said:

Try and find anything written about how the poorer
people (or even somewhat richer people in poorer areas)
cooked in even 1950, for example, and it's hard.

I didn't say that such descriptions didn't exist, whereas I would
say the same for any date before (say) 1750.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.