User talk:Doc halidai
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[edit] Legume percentages
I had a look at your medieval cookery page, and checked out the stats page. I think it might be relevant to the debate we're having over at talk:medieval cuisine to note that beans and chick peas only appear in something like 1% of the recipes in the collections you've compiled statistics on.
Peter Isotalo 07:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
- Reply moved from User talk:Peter Isotalo:
- No, the 1% occurrence of legumes in medieval cookbooks is not relevant to the issue, considering the fact that other foods that the article (cabbage, turnips) appear with similar frequency, and some foods with an assumedly higher status (cherries, grapes, damsons) appear much less often. The fact that these foods are listed in cookbooks for the upper class is significant, but the frequency is much less so (it implies consumption, but does not necessarily correlate with consumption amounts) --Doc 16:04, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
So if a 1% occurance in recipes isn't a dead giveaway for lack of prestige, then how exactly is the frequency of consumption supposed to be calculated?
Peter Isotalo 18:15, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
- As I said above, the 1% occurrance of beans is the same as that for other vegetables that you don't state are low prestige, and higher than that of other items like cherries. Are you saying that all these other foods are low prestige as well? I have a 1928 cookbook at home that makes only one reference to caviar. Am I to conclude from that that caviar was a low prestige food in the early 1900s?
- If you really want to determine frequency of consumption, you either need to locate and analyze medieval accounting records, or find someone who has (and be careful to check their analysis that they support their claims). If you want to determine the attitudes of medieval people towards different foods then you need to look at multiple primary sources (because on some matters the authors of medieval dietetic texts frequently disagreed), or again you need to find someone who has done this (and check to make sure they've looked at more than one source). --Doc 18:55, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Christian influences on medieval cuisine
I recently added a paragraph on the influence that Christian culture had on medieval Europe, particularly the northern parts. I think it might address some of the concerns you had about bread being a staple. You can find it under Medieval cuisine#Dietary norms.
