Curmudgeon's Cookery - Punishment Piers Plowman
Ill Eel. Charles Pedrill (London Life in the 14th century) reports that a cook who supplied a bad conger eel was heard by a jury of 12 neighbors, forced to refund the meal charges, and made to "stand on the pillory while the fish was burnt beneath him." For a more severe crime, the ears of the culprit could be nailed to the pillory frame... Ducking Stool. Another punishment
was riding the "ducking stool." A chair was attached to the end of a
long pole. The pole was mounted on an axel with two wheels and could pivot. Sometimes the contraption
was mounted on three wheels so that the miscreant could be wheeled through the town
attended with public derision before he or she was dunked a set number of times in a dirty pond or
river.
Ear for a Loaf. In Turkey the punishment of a baker who did not provide full honest weight would have his ear nailed to his establishment's door post. "If he were out when the officers of justice arrived his son or his servant was punished in his stead, as the authorities were very much averse from making their men do the journey twice." [The account does not state if the baker was still attached to the ear when it was nailed to the door post …] Death by Draft. In 1482 a seller of spirits at Biebrich on the Rhine was condemned to drink six quarts of his adulterated wine. He died. Putrid Pigeon Punishment.. A John Russell at Billingsgate was punished for selling thirty seven pigeons that were "putrid, rotten, stinking and abominable." He was placed into a pillory and the pigeons were burnt beneath him. "Bad Meat Sold Here." "British butchers convicted of selling meat unfit for human consumption may be required on a second offense to put up signs on their shops stating their record." 1891 (James Trager The Food Chronology) California has adopted a similar out-dated law of posting restaurant grade cards. Blame Filthy Lucre. An early American law intended to control "..some evilly disposed persons, from motives of avarice and filthy lucre, have been induced to sell diseased, corrupted, contagious or unwholesome provisions, to the great nuisance of public health and peace… shall be punished by fine, imprisonment, standing in the pillory, and the binding to the good behaviour.." Signed into law March 8, 1785 by Massachusetts Governor Samuel Adams, who is better known today for a brand of ale.
Food as Punishment. In some
societies horse meat is regarded as fine food. This attitude is not shared by
all. During sieges in the Middle Ages, starving people would catch and eat rats before
they would consider horse meat. "Anything but horse. Give me swill! Please, p-l-e-a-s-e give me swill!"... Blue Milk. Adulteration of
milk was so common that recipes of the time would distinguish between ordinary
milk and "blue milk." With its baptism of water, some called it
"Christian milk." Little drops of water added to the milk Blue Milk in America. Profiting from the poor was not just a practice in England. We share a similar American verse from about the same time period: A quart of Milk, good man, I'll take We will close this out with a bit of old humor.
"A milkman was lately seeking the aid of the police to trace the
whereabouts of a family who had left the neighborhood owing him eighteen
dollars. 'Well, I suppose there was nine dollars of water in that milk account'
remarked the policeman.' Kermit McKemie mailto:kmckemie@astound.net |
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