TMO wrote:


...and then there were the servants of 18th century littoral New England on
several occasions revolting against the practice of being fed on lobster,
then the cheapest of seafood products.



I've read this for years in secondary sources. Anyone ever found a primary
source that said this?

Andy Smith

I have not seen it in a primary source. My memory of the account I did
see was that it was a contract in which A was borrowing B's indentured
servants, and agreeing not to feed them lobster more than X days a week.

--


I've heard a similar story for sturgeon, i.e. loggers signing contracts for
eating sturgeon only three days a week. Don't recall seeing a primary source on
this story either...

Andy Smith

In article , ASmith1946
wrote:


I have not seen it in a primary source. My memory of the account I did
see was that it was a contract in which A was borrowing B's indentured
servants, and agreeing not to feed them lobster more than X days a week.

--


I've heard a similar story for sturgeon, i.e. loggers signing contracts for
eating sturgeon only three days a week. Don't recall seeing a primary source
on
this story either...

Andy Smith
I'm afraid that this exists as a tale in the Uk, too, with both salmon
and oysters.

Lazarus

--
Remover the rock from the email address

I have not seen it in a primary source. My memory of the account I did
see was that it was a contract in which A was borrowing B's indentured
servants, and agreeing not to feed them lobster more than X days a week.
I've heard a similar story for sturgeon, i.e. loggers signing
contracts for eating sturgeon only three days a week. Don't recall
seeing a primary source on this story either...

And there is a similar urban legend about a contract for servants in
London in the 18th or 19th century, the fish being salmon. No primary
source I know of for that one, either.

======== Email to "j-c" at this site; email to "bogus" will bounce ========
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/purrhome.html food intolerance data & recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music.

Lazarus Cooke wrote:

In article , ASmith1946
wrote:


I have not seen it in a primary source. My memory of the account I did
see was that it was a contract in which A was borrowing B's indentured
servants, and agreeing not to feed them lobster more than X days a week.

--


I've heard a similar story for sturgeon, i.e. loggers signing contracts for
eating sturgeon only three days a week. Don't recall seeing a primary source
on
this story either...

I'm afraid that this exists as a tale in the Uk, too, with both salmon
and oysters.

I have had a first-person account of not quite the same thing, for salmon.
A mathematical colleague of mine (Stepan Orevkov, now of the Universite
Paul Sabatier) fulfilled part of his military obligations to the
then-USSR as part of a group doing geodetic surveys in the Russian
Far East (I think the Kamchatka Peninsula, but am not sure). He
told me, one evening when we were dining in Toulouse and he had
declined the salmon appetizer at our chosen restaurant, that for
about three months he had eaten (fresh-caught) salmon at every meal,
and thereafter had never yet wanted to eat it again.

Lee Rudolph

Lazarus Cooke wrote:

In article , ASmith1946
wrote:


I have not seen it in a primary source. My memory of the account I did
see was that it was a contract in which A was borrowing B's indentured
servants, and agreeing not to feed them lobster more than X days a week.

--


I've heard a similar story for sturgeon, i.e. loggers signing contracts for
eating sturgeon only three days a week. Don't recall seeing a primary source
on
this story either...

Andy Smith
I'm afraid that this exists as a tale in the Uk, too, with both salmon
and oysters.

Lazarus

--
Remover the rock from the email address

Here both student and apprentice riots on these issues in the middle
ages are fairly well documented. Lucky buggers! In my day we could
barely afford a cheese butty and pint of Newcastle Brown Ale at 11p a
pint in the college bar! Salmon & oysters! Cor!
--
Kate XXXXXX
Lady Catherine, Wardrobe Mistress of the Chocolate Buttons
http://www.diceyhome.free-online.co.uk
Click on Kate's Pages and explore!

Lee Rudolph wrote:

Lazarus Cooke wrote:

In article , ASmith1946
wrote:


I have not seen it in a primary source. My memory of the account I did
see was that it was a contract in which A was borrowing B's indentured
servants, and agreeing not to feed them lobster more than X days a week.

--


I've heard a similar story for sturgeon, i.e. loggers signing contracts for
eating sturgeon only three days a week. Don't recall seeing a primary source
on
this story either...

I'm afraid that this exists as a tale in the Uk, too, with both salmon
and oysters.

I have had a first-person account of not quite the same thing, for salmon.
A mathematical colleague of mine (Stepan Orevkov, now of the Universite
Paul Sabatier) fulfilled part of his military obligations to the
then-USSR as part of a group doing geodetic surveys in the Russian
Far East (I think the Kamchatka Peninsula, but am not sure). He
told me, one evening when we were dining in Toulouse and he had
declined the salmon appetizer at our chosen restaurant, that for
about three months he had eaten (fresh-caught) salmon at every meal,
and thereafter had never yet wanted to eat it again.

Lee Rudolph

I felt much the same for over a year after working in a chicken
processing factory for my 16th summer...
--
Kate XXXXXX
Lady Catherine, Wardrobe Mistress of the Chocolate Buttons
http://www.diceyhome.free-online.co.uk
Click on Kate's Pages and explore!

In article , Kate Dicey
wrote:

Here both student and apprentice riots on these issues in the middle
ages are fairly well documented.

Hi Kate. Are you sure? I've always heard it but I'm filled with a
horrible fear that it might be one of those stories....

L

--
Remover the rock from the email address

Lazarus Cooke wrote:

In article , Kate Dicey
wrote:

Here both student and apprentice riots on these issues in the middle
ages are fairly well documented.

Hi Kate. Are you sure? I've always heard it but I'm filled with a
horrible fear that it might be one of those stories....

L

--
Remover the rock from the email address

Both my long departed dad and Big Sis read history at university. First
time I heard about this was when they were discussing it. I can't
remember the references after 20+ years, but you need to dig into court
rolls and the like and see who was brought before the courts for riotous
behaviour and assault. Oxford and Cambridge both suffered, and some of
the older colleges have accounts in their documents, I think.

My grandmother lived next door to one of the girls who gutted the
herring catch in the little coastal fishing villages of Fife in the
early 20th C, and she used to tell tales of having fish fights, when
there were so many herring everyone got sick of them and used them as
ammunition in local disputes! YEKK! Tired ole herring STINKS!

I wish I had time to look into this more fully, but I'm just taking a
break from bridesmaid outfits and a sewing machine on the fritz!
--
Kate XXXXXX
Lady Catherine, Wardrobe Mistress of the Chocolate Buttons
http://www.diceyhome.free-online.co.uk
Click on Kate's Pages and explore!

"Kate Dicey" wrote in message
-

early 20th C, and she used to tell tales of having fish fights, when
there were so many herring everyone got sick of them and used them as
ammunition in local disputes! YEKK! Tired ole herring STINKS!

"Fish fights"... The idea is entrancing. I see a movie: "Gangs of Fife".

Could "fish fights" be the antecedents of today's "food fights"?

--
Bob
Kanyak's Doghouse
http://kanyak.com

On 4 Feb 2004 11:08:16 GMT, (bogus address)
wrote:


I have not seen it in a primary source. My memory of the account I did
see was that it was a contract in which A was borrowing B's indentured
servants, and agreeing not to feed them lobster more than X days a week.
I've heard a similar story for sturgeon, i.e. loggers signing
contracts for eating sturgeon only three days a week. Don't recall
seeing a primary source on this story either...

I have read in a history (secondary source) that apprenticeship
indentures in archives up and down the Connecticut River contain
clauses limiting the frequency of salmon servings. This was during
colonial times. The river was dammed and otherwise closed to salmon
before 1800.

Everything tastes better when it gets scarce and expensive. We happily
pay 10 USD for a pound of fresh codfish these days. I can remember
when almost all of it would go to canneries and drying facilities.




And there is a similar urban legend about a contract for servants in
London in the 18th or 19th century, the fish being salmon. No primary
source I know of for that one, either.

======== Email to "j-c" at this site; email to "bogus" will bounce ========
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/purrhome.html food intolerance data & recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music.


Rodney Myrvaagnes NYC J36 Gjo/a


Capsizing under chute, and having the chute rise and fill without tangling, all while Mark and Sally are still behind you

On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 22:41:24 +0200, "Opinicus"
wrote:


"Fish fights"... The idea is entrancing. I see a movie: "Gangs of Fife".

Could "fish fights" be the antecedents of today's "food fights"?

I suspect that food fights go back a long, long way. There's a great
passage in Castiglione's "The Courtier":

Many times they shoulder one another downe the stayers, and hurle
billettes and brickes, one at an others head. They hurle handfulles of
dust in mens eyes. Thei cast horse and man into ditches, or downe on
the side of some hill. Then at table, potage, sauce, gelies, and what
ever commeth to hande, into the face it goith. And afterwarde laughe:
and whoso can doe most of these trickes, he counteth himselfe the best
and galantest Courtyer, and supposeth that he hath wonne great glorye.

Baldassare Castiglione, "Il Cortegiano", 1528
Translation by Sir Thomas Hoby (1561)
http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/courtier/courtier2.html


Robin Carroll-Mann
"Mostly Harmless" -- Douglas Adams
To email me, remove the fish

I have not seen it in a primary source. My memory of the account I did
see was that it was a contract in which A was borrowing B's indentured
servants, and agreeing not to feed them lobster more than X days a week.
I've heard a similar story for sturgeon, i.e. loggers signing contracts
for eating sturgeon only three days a week. Don't recall seeing a
primary source on this story either...
I'm afraid that this exists as a tale in the Uk, too, with both salmon
and oysters.
Here both student and apprentice riots on these issues in the middle
ages are fairly well documented.

Show us the documentation, then.

I have read some primary sources on student riots in the Middle Ages
and I don't believe you.

======== Email to "j-c" at this site; email to "bogus" will bounce ========
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/purrhome.html food intolerance data & recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music.

My grandmother lived next door to one of the girls who gutted the
herring catch in the little coastal fishing villages of Fife in the
early 20th C, and she used to tell tales of having fish fights, when
there were so many herring everyone got sick of them and used them as
ammunition in local disputes! YEKK! Tired ole herring STINKS!

Herring are money. People in a fishing village don't get sick of their
primary source of income. But there is at least one well-known case
from the period of fish being thrown as weapons, simply because they
were the handiest available - look up the recent book on the Eyemouth
disaster. There had been an acrimonious dispute about the Church of
Scotland collecting local taxes for its ministry, when most of the
locals didn't belong to it (they were typically Brethren). So the
Kirk's minister and his bailiffs got bombarded with fish when they
turned up to exercise their authority, and in that situation you're
hardly likely to make sure that every fish you biff at the opposition
is within its sell-by date.

We used to drop spleens in each other's boots or hurl rectums across
the factory floor when I worked in a New Zealand slaughterhouse. The
sensation of a lukewarm rectum wrapping itself round your neck like a
scarf is one you don't forget in a hurry.

======== Email to "j-c" at this site; email to "bogus" will bounce ========
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/purrhome.html food intolerance data & recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music.

bogus address muttered....


I have not seen it in a primary source. My memory of the account I
did see was that it was a contract in which A was borrowing B's
indentured servants, and agreeing not to feed them lobster more
than X days a week.
I've heard a similar story for sturgeon, i.e. loggers signing
contracts for eating sturgeon only three days a week. Don't recall
seeing a primary source on this story either...
I'm afraid that this exists as a tale in the Uk, too, with both
salmon and oysters.
Here both student and apprentice riots on these issues in the middle
ages are fairly well documented.

Show us the documentation, then.

I have read some primary sources on student riots in the Middle Ages
and I don't believe you.


Absent "evidence", the anecdotal accounts of discord among the small
servant class of New England over too much lobster and/or salmon and
similar tales from the UK remain quite credible. A semester or two in the
dormitories of my youth provide all the confirmation of "student reaction"
required.

Why, in 1957, the tuna and noodles in the Wll Rice College Commons had the
students marching on the President's home demanding relief...

The stories are too frequent, too reasonable and so well attuned to
observations of human nature today to have much deniability on the grounds
of "lack of evidence".

I find the tales as credible as my sincere belief that many/most/some of
mine and thine ancestry were adept at picking their noses (although little
documentary or graphic evidence of same is available).

I used to be fascinated by constant references to "pemmican" as a foodstuff
enjoyed by Native Americans. After actually trying some, I better
understood that AmerIndians (along with every one else) ate what was
available and like students, sailors and most others, complained loudly and
often about it. I suspect that boiled lobster gets old after daily doses
for a few weeks. I'd like to try, but will admit to once having tired of
beefsteak after two meals a day for 10 days.

Enough to make me desperately desire a bowl of grits, even without
butter....

.....and I've known merchant mariners, sailors and officers, who would never
eat any seafood of any sort...

TMO