p-butchering-msg

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p-butchering-msg - 6/14/01

Medieval meat butchering of hunted or raised animals. How common was the

skill. Was it a specific profession?

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From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu>

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 17:52:54 -0400 (EDT)

Subject: Re: Re(2): Re(2): Re(2): SC - mustard history

Sue Wensel wrote:

> I believe that the common misconception about period food (which I have heard

> the opposite -- that period food was fresher than we eat now) is due to the

> inability of people to image how food would have been kept without

> refridgeration. No one seems to wonder how we discovered such processes as

> salt-curing or smoking meat.

Yes, salt-curing and smoking were both known and widely used in medieval

Europe. But the simplest, and I suspect the most common, method of

preserving meat was to keep it ALIVE until shortly before it was to be

eaten.

Exactly how widespread were butchering equipment and knowhow in medieval

Europe? I've always assumed that both were nearly universal, but

haven't really looked for evidence.

mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib

Stephen Bloch

sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu

From: Gretchen M Beck <grm+ at andrew.cmu.edu>

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 12:38:47 -0400 (EDT)

Subject: Re: SC - Butchering

Excerpts from internet.listserv.sca-cooks: 30-Jun-97 SC - Butchering

Uduido at aol.com (1121)

> There is really no need to look up the "evidence". We tend to forget that

> until the advent of electricity in this century and the advent of canning

> in the 19th century people preserved foods in a more traditional manner for

> 10's of thousands of years.

> Such is also the case for butchering. The advent of the suppermaket ( less

> than 75 years) makes some of us think that meat comes all neatly packaged and

> never do we give a tho't to the source. In extrapolating period culture

> every effort must be made to step away from the modern. There are no

> similarities whatsoever between pre-20th century lifestyles and any

> lifestyles occuring before then, in any way shape or form. To try and figure

> out the cultures and lifestyles of past generations who did not have the

> "wizardry" and "magic" that now have by comparing them to our culture is

> ludicrous and irrelevant, IMHO.

Actually, the question about butchering is quite apt--we know there were

butchers in period, and that there were even regulations governing

butchers and where they set up their shops in period. This suggests

that, at least in urban settings, many (perhaps even most) people did

not do their own butchering. It's also possible that butchers were

like bakers -- some people bought the bread from the baker, others took

their dough to the baker to be baked. So, did butchers do the

preserving, did they sell exclusively fresh meat, or did they do both?

20th C or no, our ancestors didn't ALL do it all themselves, and you

probably have to go back quite a ways to find more than a single

generation (say the first generation of American frontier folk) who did

it all themselves.

toodles, margaret

From: chuck_diters at mail.fws.gov

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 97 08:52:26 -0700

Subject: Re: SC - Butchering

Lord Ras writes:

>There are no similarities whatsoever between pre-20th century

>lifestyles and any lifestyles occuring before then, in any way shape

>or form.

I presume, My Lord, that your fingers outpaced your point, and that

you meant "post-"20th?

The question raised in the original posting is not trivial, however,

at least not if taken in detail. Period butchering was certainly much

different from the modern, not only in mechanical technique but in

concept. The one-serving-per-plate (and one bedroom per person, and

so on) concepts that we find comfortable and familiar would have been

foreign even to our own countrymen well into the 18th century.

IDHMRAW (new acronym: I Don't Have My References at Work), but there

are numerous archaeological studies (one of the Royal Navy's

Victualling Yard in London comes to mind) that speak to such practices

in period. It is a subject well worth investigating.

Bjarni

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Chuck Diters/Bjarni Edwardsson West/Oertha/Eskalya

Shadowood Manor, 9541 Victor Road, Anchorage, AK 99515-1470

ph: (907)344-5753 Email: chuck_diters at mail.fws.gov

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From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 13:19:14 -0400

Subject: Re: SC - Butchering

Gretchen M Beck wrote:

> Actually, the question about butchering is quite apt--we know there were

> butchers in period, and that there were even regulations governing

> butchers and where they set up their shops in period. This suggests

> that, at least in urban settings, many (perhaps even most) people did

> not do their own butchering.

Many (perhaps even most) people neither needed, nor could deal with, an

entire animal, either. Expense and limitations of living space are

obvious issues, and there may be others. This is all part and parcel

with the discussions we've been having on seasonal slaughtering,

preservation, and spices.

> It's also possible that butchers were

> like bakers -- some people bought the bread from the baker, others took

> their dough to the baker to be baked. So, did butchers do the

> preserving, did they sell exclusively fresh meat, or did they do both?

Indications are that butchers killed and dismembered animals for meat,

and would have been a town phenomenon. Not all the slaughtering would

have been done by butchers, but it seems likely that farmers would have

done all this in the countryside, rather than a professional specialist.

I further suspect that the majority of salt or other cured meats would

have been made by those same farmers, who would bring hams, bacon, and

salt pork and beef to market in town.

One common factor of virtually every recipe for curing meats I've ever

seen is the need to get the meat into the salt, the brine, or whatever,

as quickly as possible after the animal is killed. So, while I suppose

some pork butchers may have processed hams and bacon, I very much doubt

a local townsman would bring home a side of fresh pork to make his own

bacon.

One interesting monkey wrench thrown into all this logic is the

frequently-mentioned passage on the annual hog-killing in The Goodman of

Paris. He is a townsman who apparently does (that is, oversees) his own

slaughtering and processing of pigs each autumn. I would have thought

this was rare, but the example certainly exists. Possibly this is only

an indication of the size of his household or the extent of his

frugality, indications of which are scattered throughout the text. I

suppose this could be the exception that proves the rule...

Adamantius

From: "Marisa Herzog" <marisa_herzog at macmail.ucsc.edu>

Date: 1 Jul 1997 10:15:49 -0700

Subject: Re: SC - Butchering

> There is really no need to look up the "evidence". We tend to

>forget that until the advent of electricity in this century and

Also, butchering is a fairly specialized skill. It entails knowledge of

bodies and organs, tools and techniques. While jane-average might be able to

pluck a chicken, and joe-average might figure out how to skin a squirrel, much

of it is alot more complicated than that. Considering that jane and

joe-average's knowledge of basic physiology was considerably less than the

modern average (ei.these are lungs, this a heart, this is how they work)... we

have probably at least seen a correctly rendered picture of guts and bones and

such...

From: Ian Gourdon of Glen Awe <agincort at imperium.net>

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 09:00:57 -0400

Subject: SC - Re: Butchery

G'day,

It might be well to assume that the butchering of animals was for them,

normal and commonplace, regular knowledge in the Middle Ages. Most of

them were not urban technophiles, such as we. The quote I have implies a

great deal of familiarity with the animal in question...and the sharing

out of the carcas...(see below)

Ian Gourdon

>Also, butchering is a fairly specialized skill. It entails knowledge of

>bodies and organs, tools and techniques. While jane-average might be able to

>pluck a chicken, and joe-average might figure out how to skin a squirrel, much

>of it is alot more complicated than that. Considering that jane and

>joe-average's knowledge of basic physiology was considerably less than the

>modern average (ei.these are lungs, this a heart, this is how they work)... we

>have probably at least seen a correctly rendered picture of guts and bones and

>such... -Marisa

from Sir

Gawaine and the Green Knight:

And the lord of the land rides late and long,

Hunting the barren hind over the broad heath.

He had slain such a sum, when the sun sank low,

Of does and other deer, as would dizzy one's wits.

Then they trooped in together in triumph at last,

And the count of the quarry quickly they take.

The lords lent a hand with their liegemen many,

Picked out the plumpest and put them together

And duly dressed the deer, as the deed requires.

Some were assigned the assay of the fat:

Two fingers'-width fully they found on the leanest.

Then they slit the slot open and searched out the paunch,

Trimmed it with trencher-knives and tied it up tight.

They flayed the fair hide from the legs and trunk,

Then broke ipen the belly and laid bare the bowels,

Deftly detaching and drawing them forth.

And next at the neck the neatly parted

The weasand from the windpipe, and cast away the guts.

At the shoulders with sharp blades they showed their skill,

Boning them from beneath, lest the sides be marred;

They breached the broad breast and broke it in twain,

And again at the gullet they began with their knives,

Cleave down the carcass clear to the breack;

Two tender morsels they take from the throat,

Then round the inner ribs they rid off a layer

And carve out the kidney-fat, close to the spine,

Hewing down to the haunchm that all hung together,

And held ut up whole, and hacked it free,

And this they named the numbles, that know such terms of art.

They divide the crotch in two, And straightway then they start

To cut the backbone through And cleave the trunk apart.

With hard strokes they hewed off the head and neck,

Then swiftly from the sides they severed the chine,

And the corbie's bone they cast on a branch.

Then they pierced the plump sides, impales either one

With the hock of the hind foot, and hung it aloft,

To each person his portion most proper and fit.

On a hide of a hind the hounds they fed

With the liver and the lights, the leathery paunches,

And bread soaked in blood well blended therewith.

High horns and shrill set hounds a-baying,

Then merrily with their meat they make their way home,

Blowing their bugles many a brave blast.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

translation by Marie Borroff

From: "Nick Sasso (fra niccolo)" <grizly at mindspring.com>

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 23:37:05 -0400

Subject: Re: SC - Re: Butchery

> Also, my family hunted, butchrered and prepared our own meat for years and

> never felt a need to be familiar with anatomy to eat. We knew what was edible

> and ate it. This insisting anatomical knowledge is a prerequesite to

> butchering is also, IMHO, absurd. Basically, you kill it, skin it and eat the

> parts that are edible whatevcer they are.

The premise is acceptable, but the support a little lacking as you went

on. There is far more to butchering than kill/skin/eat if you want meat

that is palatable and will stay unspoiled long enough to

smoke/salt/preserve (stay away from those adrenal glands!). The

oversimplification of the skills required does the same disservice as

the 'ivory tower' phenomenon :o)

I agree that their must have been some rudimentary knowledge of dressing

animals from the hunt, else many cultures would not have survived a

generation. The specialized skills of limited anatomy would possibly

have been for butchers and meat houses, the professional in cities.

- --

In Humble Service to God and Crown;

fra nicol¢ difrancesco

From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu>

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 11:33:27 -0400 (EDT)

Subject: Re: SC - Re: Butchery

Ras wrote:

> ... for anyone to assume a lack of knowledge

> by medieval folk in these areas is lidicrous and ridiculous to the extreme.

> Why even a child in period could tell the time of day by the position of the

> sun and stars, practical knowledge which is sadly lacking in todays world. Me

> thinks that sometimes we look down from our in\vorytowers and determine those

> that have gone before possesed less than adequate learning in many fields.

> Perhaps this is true but in the areas of survivl knowledge it is we who are

> lacking the knowledge that our forefathers took for granted.

I'm perfectly aware that I don't know how to butcher, and that most

people in modern Western European cultures don't know how to butcher.

Ras is correct in that we can't conclude from this that most medieval

Europeans didn't know how to butcher; neither, however, can we conclude

that most medieval Europeans DID know how to butcher. Nobody's "assuming

a lack of knowledge," but rather looking for evidence one way or another.

For example, if we found court cases in which a man who's shot a deer

complains that the butcher, another man of the same village, took "both

haunches rather than one as is customary", this would tell us there was

a professional butcher in the village who customarily took a cut (as it

were) in exchange for his services, similar to the situation with

millers. On the other hand, if we found frequent references to ordinary

peasants cleaning, gutting, and preserving (as somebody else pointed

out, the finer points of butchery may come out in whether the meat can

be preserved successfully) meat for their own use, we would conclude

that the skill was widespread, not confined to a few people per village.

The quotation from "Gawain and the Green Knight" is informative. It

tells us that the task of butchering deer was not trivial, and that the

servants referred to had the skill to do it. It also tells us that it

was recognized as a skill, that some might be much better at it than

others. It doesn't mention whether the servants were specifically

hired for their skill at butchering, nor does it cast any light on

the prevalence and/or professionalism of butchery among the peasants.

mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib

Stephen Bloch

sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu

http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/

Math/CS Dept, Adelphi University

From: "Sue Wensel" <swensel at brandegee.lm.com>

Date: 7 Jul 1997 11:18:18 -0500

Subject: Re(2): SC - Re: Butchery

>Also, my family hunted, butchrered and prepared our own meat for years and

>never felt a need to be familiar with anatomy to eat. We knew what was edible

>and ate it. This insisting anatomical knowledge is a prerequesite to

>butchering is also, IMHO, absurd. Basically, you kill it, skin it and eat the

>parts that are edible whatevcer they are.

>Lord Ras

As did my family -- those skills were taught generation to generation. Many

factors in these skills affect the edibility of the animal.

How would you go about killing the animal? Ideally, you don't want to run the

animal all over creation before you kill it or you end up with tougher meat

than you might want. You don't want a gut shot animal or the meat will have a

strong taste.

How do you dress the meat? Knowing what parts of the animal to cut and not to

cut, how to tie off the orifices, etc. was vitally important so as not to

render the entire animal inedible. I have a memory of my brother being

careless and rupturing the bladder of a rabbit he was to kill and butcher.

The rabbit tasted vile; but he was required to eat the entire animal so as to

learn from the mistake.

How do you cut the carcass? Which joints do you want? Cut with the grain of

the meat or against it (depends on the cut of meat)? How do you get rid of

the membranes that cause some of the strong flavor?

How do you preserve the meat? What meat is better fresh and what meat will

survive preservation? What do you want smoked, salted, frozen, preserved in

honey/lard, etc?

Let's not forget how to cook it. But that is not the butcher's purview.

Lots of questions here besides kill it, cut it up, and eat it. This

philosophy might pass for birds and small game, but won't give you decent

venison, beef, or other large game.

I have a more than passing familiarity with this process, having taken part in

the various aspects of it, but I would not presume to say I know how to do it.

Derdriu

From: rousseau at scn.org (Anne-Marie Rousseau)

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 22:23:55 -0700 (PDT)

Subject: Re: Re(2): SC - Re: Butchery

Hi all from Anne-Marie (who knows how to butcher and used to invite her

high school boyfriends home on Chicken killing day :D)

In the 12th century, common peasants knew how to butcher. Alexander

Neckham (_Daily LIving in the 12th Century_ by Urban Tigner Holmes Jr)

carefully lists all the things that a peasant should have. This list

includes many kinds of livestock, many of which (except the mules) we

have recipes for their use as food. I find it very unlikely that the

peasant would have livestock and then call in a butcher from the city to

kill and dismember said beasties. The same treatise discusses the

butchers in Paris, though, so one thinks that perhaps city dwellers

didn't raise their own livestock and so bought already dead meat bits.

Livestock, according ot Holmes, were driven into town and then butchered

as needed by professional guilded butchers. I guess this means that some

city slicker could go through life without ever killing a chicken of

their own, but most people in the middle ages were not city slickers, and

so most would have been responsible for the butchering of their own

livestock.

In the 14th century, a middle class merchant knew

how to butcher. _le Menagier a Paris_ gives great detail on this matter.

In the 15-16th centuries, peasants butchered their own meat as is

evidienced by the Books of Hours illuminations on this subject.

Killing animals is easy. I did it when I was a kid. We didn't have any

fancy anatomy lessons first...we just had someone show us once how to do

it.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Anne-Marie Rousseau

rousseau at scn.org

Seattle, Washington

From: "lwperkins" <lwperkins at snip.net>

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 11:46:11 -0400

Subject: Re: SC - Re: Butchery

Not to beat a dead horse, but when I lived briefly in York as a college

student there was an area by the market called the "Shambles" where the

butchers hung out from c1300 until the 19th century, when an open-air

butcher shop began to be considered something of a public nuisance.

I was told that most towns had their own "shambles" where meat could

be bought or your antiquated cow could be minced up fine, and that was

where the term "this place is a shambles" came from. York, by the way,

should be on every SCA visitor to Britain's list of Plases that Must Be

Visited--especially in April, when the daffodils are in bloom.

- --Ester du Bois

lwperkins at snip.net

From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 09:45:49 -0400

Subject: Re: Re(2): Re(2): SC - Re: Butchery

Sue Wensel wrote:

> Anne Marie wrote:

> >Livestock, according ot Holmes, were driven into town and then butchered

> >as needed by professional guilded butchers. I guess this means that some

> >city slicker could go through life without ever killing a chicken of

> >their own, but most people in the middle ages were not city slickers, and

> >so most would have been responsible for the butchering of their own

> >livestock.

> I am afraid I can not agree with this premise. To take this further, we must

> then assume that because farmers grew wheat, they all did their own milling,

> when we know this not to be true. Undoubtedly, some farmers grew their own

> livestock and butchered it and some grew their own grain and milled it.

> However, I also think it likely that some took livestock to butchers to be

> killed and/or cut up.

So, after what seems like weeks of debate, we have evidently concluded

that some people in medieval Europe knew how to butcher larger animals,

and some didn't. I can live with that.

Adamantius

From: James May <robmay at erols.com>

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 17:45:39 -0400

Subject: SC - Re: Butchery

>How do you dress the meat?

>How do you cut the carcass? Which joints do you want? Cut with the grain of

>the meat or against it (depends on the cut of meat)? How do you get rid of

>the membranes that cause some of the strong flavor?

>How do you preserve the meat? What meat is better fresh and what meat will

>survive preservation? What do you want smoked, salted, frozen, preserved in

>honey/lard, etc?

>Lots of questions here besides kill it, cut it up, and eat it.

> Derdriu

Though it is not period, a very good book answering all of these questions

on a variety of meats is: Butchering, Processing and Preservation of Meat

by Frank G. Ashbrook ISBN 0-442-20377-2

Jean-Evvess de Chateau Thierry

Date: Mon, 04 Aug 1997 20:45:41 -0400

From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>

Subject: Re: SC - Re: SCA myths

Stephen Bloch wrote, quoting somebody or other:

> Adamantius quoted someone on the SCA-ARTS list. For the most part, I

> agree with what Adamantius says, so I've snipped it. Here are some

> further comments:

> > > Because of the spoilage speed, meat of all kinds was eaten

> > > the same day it was slaughtered. Mundanely, we prefer ours to have a

> > > slightly "aged" (spelled 'controlled spoilage') flavor. Theirs would taste

> > > "gamey" by comparison.

> Adamantius, since you know more about meats than many of us, could

> you comment on this particular point?

Some game could have been eaten the day it was killed, but not all.

Also, since the term used is "slaughtered", rather than "hunted" or

simply killed, I feel it is fair to assume the writer is talking about

domestic animals. Larger animals like beef and mutton would almost

certainly have been hung: extant slaughtering accounts suggest that

there was a standard operating procedure regarding what would be eaten

first, and how. The various viscera, blood, etc, would have either been

eaten almost immediately, or processed and cooked in the form of

sausages and such. Even then they wouldn't have been expected to keep

more than a few days.

The hanging, or aging, of meat has more to do with rigor mortis than

with a taste for controlled spoilage. Depending on various factors,

rigor mortis, the stiffening of certain muscles after death, will set in

within about eight hours or less. Meat in rigor mortis is referred to as

"green", and is EXTREMELY tough.

Animals to be roasted whole, or broken up and cooked immediately after

slaughter, don't need to be hung. This might include the animals listed

in the beginning of Chiquart's "Fait du Cuisine". On the other hand,

butcher's meat, with an uncertain time and date of purchase, would have

had to be hung. As for the question of spoilage, it's no accident that

farmers seem to have done the majority of their slaughtering in the late

autmn and early winter, putting up much of the meat in salt for use at

other times of the year. When meat was allowed at all, those who could

get it had a choice of things like salt beef or pork, or a supplement

of freshly slaughtered smaller animals like lamb, veal, and chicken.

Other possibilities include freshly captured game and locally raised

coneys, killed to order in a market stall or shop.

I just don't buy the whole spoilage argument.

Adamantius

Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 14:00:49 -0000

From: "Yeldham, Caroline S" <csy20688 at GlaxoWellcome.co.uk>

Subject: SC - Question concerning meat

In reading around cooking, I came across some legislation (English) which

said that butchers were not allowed to hold meat over the fast days, indeed

their premises were liable to be inspected to make sure they didn't keep

meat. By the late 15th century you weren't supposed to be eating meat on

Wednesdays Fridays and Saturdays. Surely this would mean that on Thursdays

and Sundays you would be purchasing freshly slaughtered meat for consumption

that day? Or were people expected to buy their meat on Thursday for Sunday

and keep it? Which would be added temptation to eat meat as well as

potentially problematic in hot weather.

So, does this mean butchers didn't hang their meat, it was eaten fresh, or

only on those days?

Any thoughts or information, anyone?

Caroline

Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 22:23:08 EDT

From: LrdRas at aol.com

Subject: Re: SC - organ meats and anthelmintics??

CBlackwill at aol.com writes:

<< It seems that,

if it was as much of a problem then as in our time, wouldn't it have been

risky to ingest raw bacon? >>

So long as the pig did not have sores in it's mouth then it was allowed to be

butchered and sold. That was the extent of medieval worry. Any worry beyond

that is a modern worry. Considering several thousands of pigs were

slaughtered and sold DAILY in Paris alone, I suspect that pigs with sore

mouths were not a problem on most days.

Ras