HIST-102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 66: Lard, Putrefaction
14 Oct 2020
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A few herbs dotted household gardens and offered some relief from the general tedium of the diet, but not much. Fruits could be gathered again usually by women and children in the manors" forests and meadows, but few places in the north actually cultivated fruit trees. Sugar was unknown at this time but honey was cultivated on a broad scale. Chickens provided eggs the commoners" most consistent source of protein and some meat, while cows and goats provided milk. But since no means of preserving the milk existed, it usually ended up as butter or cheese. Only aged and sickly animals fell to the knife, usually in the autumn when peasants had to grimly assess each animal"s chance of surviving the winter. The most common form of meat was the tough, stringy flesh of the wild pigs that inhabited northern europe"s forests.
