RE: Re: Backstory skills

From: donald_at_...
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 21:26:09 GMT


In message <BAY110-F12F08BD42B75E05A74A48A8AB0_at_...> "Mike Holmes" writes:
>>From: "Joerg Baumgartner" <joe_at_...>

>>Must be a re-discovery of medieval and classical conditions, then. A
>>craftmaster able to afford a cook in his retinue (could be a wife
>>unfamiliar with the craft, or a maidservant) would have his own table, but
>>a lowly cobbler with only a tent on the market as his workshop and a
>>tenement room somewhere else likely would heat with a brazier when
>>absolutely necessary, and grab his food from the prepared food vendors
>>that make up much of the city traffic.
>
>This is correct. The shift in the last fifty years that has less people
>knowing how to cook is precisely because they've become more urban over the
>last century. That is, urban people in ancient cultures were a tiny fraction
>of the population. So, yes, most people knew how to cook. But that's because
>most people didn't live in cities. Those who did live in cities had even
>worse problems than we do today finding time to cook.
>
>Cities both afford and demand specialization. Which leads to bakeries,
>amongst other things.
>
>It's amazing sometimes to look at ancient Rome, and the similarites to
>modern cities. Not only did they eat "fast food" (and by that I mean pizza),
>the vast majority lived in four-storey tall apartment buildings.

However I can remember when almost all women could and did cook on a regular basis *in cities*. And these aren't rural people who moved to the city but those whose families have lived there for generations. Sure there was takeaway food but it was a weekly treat not a daily practice. After getting paid on Friday night the family went to the local chippy. The rest of the week the mother or grandmother prepared meals for the family. The reason for this is cost, pre-prepared food is expensive. You are paying five quid for a meal which costs less than a pound to make yourself with a minimum of time, effort and skills. For the urban poor that's rarely a practical option.

As for the time issue, without modern labour saving devices housework and child care is a full time job. Not always for the wife, but usually some woman in the extended family. It is only the growth in women's wages and mass production techniques which has made pre-prepared food a viable option in recent decades.

Certainly there are some things which require particular equipment. For example breadmaking requires an oven but I'm sure the historical cooks among us can produce an alternative which can be cooked over an open fire.

-- 
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/

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