In article
,
Salahoona wrote:
On May 12, 11:00 am, jl wrote:
In article
,
Salahoona wrote:
No fridges in those days. Anyway, I lived in such a culture and
cannot remember eating 'meat' - lots of milk and butter though - salt
port was the big treat. I cannot agree your presumption that only the
rich and powerful could afford cattle; perhaps a political pre-
conception on your part. Every family had a cow.
Agreed - generally for milk and butter. As there usually was no fodder
available for winter, most cattle were slaughtered and the meat was
salted.
I hesitate to agree with that. Cattle were also central heating and a
lot cheaper than going to the bog for wet turf in the winter Cow in
the house is no stranger to me.
I agree that it would be feasible to keep one or two cows over the winter,
but they would be no use for meat, just for dairy product. It was
presumably much more important to keep hay for horse or donkey. Large
herds of beef cattle only became available in Europe during the late 18th
century. After the land enclosure animals could also be bred larger.
Modern animals weight about two to three times more than they used to.
After a while it had a terrible taste and spices were used to
disguise this
I'm a bigot, but for most people, except the Christian Ascendency,
didn't use spice. .
Apparently the taste was awful and there is a well established economic
link between spice sales and cattle wintering in Europe.
- hence the spice trade and the outrageous sums charged for spices,
which generally only the better off could afford. Only with the
introduction of root vegetables - turnips and the like - was it
possibly to winter cattle - which put an end to the high profit
margins of the spice trade.
Well, some of us survived the famine.
Famines were very common then as now. You could have starvation in one
part of the same country and food in plenty in the other. Transport links,
organisation and education were the main problems in the famines of old.
Jochen
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Limavady and the Roe Valley
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