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The Importance of Having a Pig: Food and Preservation in 1632

Written by Anette Pedersen

The Importance of Storage

Self-sufficiency was the alpha and omega of housekeeping in the 1632 era, and no matter how rich or poor a household was, it was the responsibility of the housewife or housekeeper to ensure the food lasted from harvest to harvest. Even the wealthiest household couldn’t just suddenly order enough flour for the rest of the winter in January. Partly because it wouldn’t be readily available but would take time to find and get delivered, partly because it would make everybody snigger up their sleeves at what a mess that household was. Having the wine run out after an unusually wet Christmas party was a different matter, but—probably as a holdover from feudal times—an amazing amount of prestige was tied to having the provisions in order for your people/household.

Hardly any household—regardless of size—bought all the food "ready for use." If the cost of fire-wood was very high—or for a bachelor renting a single room—it might make sense to buy your meals in a cheap tavern or take-away from a cook-shop, but for an ordinary household of any class the task of managing the food was every bit as important as earning a wage. An experienced housewife or housekeeper was essential.

The most important food products were those which stored well: the grain, the pulses, the salted fish and meat, the sauerkraut (preserved cabbage), and the cheeses. Milk, eggs and fresh vegetables (aside from the winter-hardy kale) were often available only in summer, and fresh meat only for a few weeks after the slaughter in the autumn or early winter.

This article takes a look at which food items would be available and how they would have been preserved. The information is presented in twelve sections:

1. Grain, beer and bread

2. Pulses and other vegetables

3. Meat

4. Poultry

5. Game and game birds

6. Fish and shellfish

7. Dairy products

8. Fruit, sweets and sours

9. Herbs and spices

10. Alcohol and other beverages

11. Famine food

12. Seasonal variations.

As a conclusion, there’ll be a few speculations about the changes brought about by the Ring of Fire.

The Products and Their Preservation

1. Grain, beer and bread

Flour of any kind could be bought in barrels from the millers, but since the whole-meal flour the mills produced tended to get rancid fairly quickly, people preferred to store it as whole kernels, and get it milled as it was needed. Barrels also weren’t ideal for long-time storage, so the grain would be kept in heaps on the attic floor, where it could be stirred and aired to prevent spoiling.

In Germany barley and rye would be the most important crops, and beer, bread and porridge were the three most common ways of getting the nutrients from the grain. Beer was a good way of getting the nutrients from the hard barley, while at the same time providing the sanitary and storable liquid needed due to the heavily salted meat and the scarcity of drinkable water. Rye would be used mainly for baking the coarse daily bread, but both grains would also be boiled and eaten as porridge or gruel. Wheat was much less common in Germany, and would usually be found only in the wealthier households, while oats was regarded as food for horses and the poor.

The three ways—brewing, baking or boiling—of getting the nutrients from the grains were of approximately equal importance to the population as a whole, but the choice between porridge, beer or bread wasn’t always a free choice. Porridge—from milled or un-milled grains—could be made in a simple clay pot, providing you could buy or gather the fuel for the fire. For bread you either bought it baked or had to pay a fee for using an oven—unless your household was so big that you had your own big masonry hive-oven—while for making beer from your grain you needed equipment and space. So how a specific household combined their grain products depended entirely on their resources of space, equipment, money, etc.

The beer commonly brewed in 1632 was not suitable for long-time storage, but this problem has been more closely described in the article "The Daily Beer" (Grantville Gazette, Volume VIII).

Home-baked bread, on the other hand, usually had to be stored for at least some weeks, as only the wealthiest households could afford to heat up the big oven more than once every month or fortnight. In-between the baking days the oven-baked bread could be supplemented by pan-fried items similar to waffles, pancakes, and donuts in the households that could afford them, while the poor households could bake a mix of young beer and flour in a covered clay pot placed in the warm ashes in the fireplace. Wealthy households also baked in the ashes, but they had metal pie pans with lids designed to hold glowing coals for the baking of pies, tarts, and other delicacies.

2. Pulses and green vegetables

Everybody ate peas, but only the poor ate beans. This was not a matter of flavor as the flavor would depend almost entirely on what had been added during the cooking. Instead it had to do with the prevalent belief that you became what you ate. In other words: delicate and refined food would make you delicate and refined, while coarse and simple food would make you coarse and simple. The basic tenet was that the closer something grew to the ground, the coarser it was, but exactly which food items were considered delicate and which were simple varied beyond all logic—and had nothing to do with digestibility and only some connection to price. And it certainly does not explain why dried peas were considered delicate and dried beans were considered coarse.

The peas would be harvested from the fields when all the peas were mature and the entire plant was dry. The plants would then be threshed until the pods split, and the hard, dry peas could be swept from the floor. The hard outer skin of the peas would allow them to keep for years if kept in dry conditions, and most households would have a sack standing in the attic or larder. Dried peas cooked to a soup or mush was one of the most common dishes in Germany, but where the poor would often make a stew with a few vegetables and perhaps some salted pork, the rich ate the thick mush mixed with cubes of smoked ham and shaped in richly garnished moulds.

The beans, which were the European broad bean types, would be harvested and stored in much the same way as the peas, but since they were regarded as coarse food digestible only by peasants and other hard workers, only the simplest ways of cooking were normally used. Still, beans played a very important role in the nutrition of the time, since they were the best source of protein during Lent for those not able to buy fish.

Chickpeas were not grown in Germany but were imported from the Mediterranean area and considered a delicacy.

The most important of the green vegetables was the winter hardy green kale, which was the primary or only source of vitamins during the winter for the major part of the population. This was grown by everyone with access to a small fenced plot, a kailyard, and was usually harvested on the day it was eaten in a soup, gruel or stew. Head cabbage kept well as whole heads in a cool cellar, or could be stored for years if fermented to sauerkraut. Other vegetables that stored well, such as beetroots, parsnips, swedes, turnips, onions and carrots, were widely grown but used mainly to add a bit of variation to the porridge, pea and kale dishes.

Fresh, cultivated greens—such as lettuce, spinach, green peas and cucumbers—were grown only for the wealthier households, but as soon as spring brought out the first green leaves, everybody would go gather young leaves from dandelions, beech, arugula, sorrel, chicory, and all the other edible wild plants—not to eat raw, which was considered unhealthy, but to stew in the first spring butter or add to their gruel. The northern European custom of serving a stew or soup with seven or nine different greens for Easter is a remnant of this need for fresh vitamins and flavors after the long winter.

Another food gathered from the wild was fungi. These were considered the excrement of the earth, and thus among the most debasing of foods—which didn’t keep the rich from importing truffles, and the poor from gathering mushrooms in the fields. Mushrooms could be pickled in salt or vinegar, but would more often be dried.

3. Meat

A pig was the only large animal you could keep without owning land to keep it on. In the country, the branded pigs with an iron ring through the snout would be let loose to forage in the forest, while in towns they could be feed on garbage, either in a sty behind the house or by letting them roam the streets and feed on the garbage thrown into the open gutters.

The acorn-fed pigs from the country were a very important part of the general economy. When a forest was sold, its value was not calculated on the wood, but on how many pigs it could feed. Usually the pigs would be tied to stakes on the fallow (not cultivated) fields during the summer and only allowed to roam once the harvest was over, but in areas with many pigs a herdsman—or boy—could be paid to look after the pigs. His task would be to keep them in the forest and away from the fields until the harvest was in, and then keep track of them until they were ready for slaughter around Christmas. The pigs didn’t necessarily belong to the person or village owning the forest. Especially near large towns such as Hamburg, and in the large forests of central Germany, merchants would buy up piglets in the spring, and pay villages or estates for the use of their forests. This was an especially lucrative business in the few years every decade when the beech and oak trees would produce many extra seeds. In such years as many piglets as possible would be bred and sent into the forest to fatten.

In town, bakers, brewers, mills, butchers and taverns would often raise a few pigs in a pen behind the house as a sideline, feeding them on the organic leftovers from the main business. Town-pig from smaller households, on the other hand, would be allowed to roam the streets and find their own food in middens and gutters. This caused a lot of complaints, and from time to time various councils and rulers tried to forbid free-roaming pigs in towns. That never really worked, as those pigs were too important a part of the economy—and in many towns were also the only garbage-removal going on.

Pigs would usually be slaughtered at the household rather than by the butcher. It was a major undertaking, starting with the buying of salt and cleaning the big tubs and barrels to hold the meat. The pig would then be tied and placed over a bench with the head hanging over the side, so that the blood could run into a tub once the throat was cut. The blood would immediately be taken to the kitchen and stirred with water and barley or rye flour. Once it had cooled it would be mixed with cubes of suet, dried fruit and spices, before being stuffed into cleaned intestines and boiled to black-puddings.

While this went on the pig would be scalded, scraped and the organ meat removed. The intestines and suet would be sorted and cleaned for immediate use, and the belly lard cut to pieces and started rendering down to lardons and melted fat. This fat would be used both for frying and to spread on bread for entire winter, and—as butter wasn’t commonly available even in summer and oil had to be imported from the Mediterranean—it was quite normal that no other fats would be available until the next autumn. Keeping the fat from getting rancid was of major importance. After some months the fat in the jars would often have gathered bits of soot, etc. from the open fires, and would have to be cleaned. This was done by placing the fat in a big bowl and pouring boiling water over it, so it melted. Once it had cooled and solidified, any impurities could be scraped off the bottom of the layer of fat which floated on top of the now cold water.

Once the slaughtered pig was cold, it would be placed on a table and cut into the desired parts. The sides, shoulders and hams would be carefully rubbed with salt and placed in the tubs and barrels, only to be removed and cleaned again the next day, before getting yet another salt-rub, and being packed with more salt and placed under pressure. A brine now had to form to cure the meat and preserve it until next year. If a brine did not form, salt would be dissolved in water until the solution was strong enough to float an egg with a heavy coin on top, and this would be added to the tubs and barrels. If smoked meat was wanted, some pieces were removed from the tubs after a few weeks and hung in the chimney or smokehouse for two to three weeks.

The organ meat could not be stored by salting or smoking. The heart, liver, lungs, kidneys—along with some of the bits and pieces of meat and fat not suitable for curing—would be boiled and finely chopped before being mixed with spices, and often dried fruit as well. This organ meat paste would sometimes be stuffed into intestines as a kind of liver sausage or haggis, but most often it would just be stored in a jar and sealed with fat to preserve it. These lumps of fried meat paste, called faggot, had to be eaten within a month or two, usually for breakfast along with the porridge and beer.

The rest of the small bits and pieces of meat would also be finely chopped, but stuffed into intestines, cured in salt and smoked. These cured sausages had the advantage of being not only suited for storage, but also needing no further preparation before eating .

The tenderloin was not suitable for salting whole, but it could be smoked to make it keep a little better. Usually, however, it was scraped to a very fine tartar-like paste, mixed with grated fat, herbs and spices, and either turned into an especially fine cured sausage or used as the filling in a pie to be eaten fresh.

Another part of the pig that would not keep for long was the tail and backbone. This was usually chopped into hand-sized pieces, along with any other removed bones, and boiled for several hours, before the soup was sieved and chopped cabbage and barley grain added. When served, the soup would be reheated, and the bones either scraped for any remaining meat or broiled on a grid, before being served with bread and mustard.

The head, shank, tail and trotters would be cleaned and boiled with onion, herbs, spices and vinegar until the meat could easily be picked off the bones. This would be either pounded to a paste in a big mortar or chopped more or less finely, before being turned into brawn (head cheese) with an aspic (jelly) made from the reduced cooking liquid. How long a brawn could keep depended largely on the salt and vinegar content of the aspic, but even in cold weather it had to be eaten within weeks.

The town-households not raising their own pigs would buy a whole or half pig from a nearby farm, but still had to do the cutting and preservation. In households where such an undertaking was impossible—whether due to lack of finances, facilities or skill—the winter meat instead had to be bought from the merchants as pieces or barrels of salted pork plus, perhaps, some smoked ham or bacon.

By 1632 the most common way of preserving pork was by salting it, but the old method—from before the salt from the salt-domes at Luebech became available—of drying the meat was still used in the inland mountain areas where the air was dry. Smoking for preservation had to be done in such a way that the smoke had lost its heat before it reached the meat—or else the meat would cook and quickly spoil. This could be done by hanging a few pieces of meat high in the chimney, but if more than this was to be smoked, a tall smoke-house had to be build. Such smokehouses were usually build on an estate, or owned in common by a village, and people would pay a fee for its use—with or without being charged for the firewood for the smoke. In town the professional butchers might have a smokehouse, and in some areas—such as Westfalen—such acorn-fed, mountain-cured hams became an luxury export item. Another commercial pork production—in, for example, Hamburg—specialized in making much cheaper barrels of salted pork to sell to the ships and armies.

Cows at the time were small, only around four feet to the shoulder, and would usually be slaughtered only when they grew too old to breed—and thus produce milk and calves. The castrated bulls kept as draft animals would be slaughtered when they grew too old to work. This meant that beef would usually be from old and stringy animals, and as it was difficult to digest, beef was considered a low class food except for boiling for soup stock. Beef kept fairly well once salted, but it was much less common than pork.

The calves born to the small cows were little larger than a mid-sized dog, and as veal doesn’t keep well no matter how it is preserved, most veal was eaten as fresh meat. It was considered a most healthy food, but the price would be much too high for most households. How many animals a farm or estate kept alive over the winter was determined by the —usually very limited—amount of fodder available. As a result nearly all bull-calves—as well as any heifers not need to replace an old milking cow—were killed or sold in their first autumn, and veal was usually only available in that season.

Horses were generally too valuable as working animals to slaughter, and would be kept alive for as long as they could work. If the necessary fodder for the winter was not to be found, a horse would normally be sold rather than slaughtered, as it would fetch a much higher price alive than its meat would be worth. That eating horse-meat had also been prohibited in Catholic countries since the early Middle Ages was apparently of less importance than the monetary value the horse represented, as meat from an old or wounded horse was occasionally sold and eaten.

Sheep were very important and valuable animals, not only for their skin and wool, but also for milk for cheese making and fat for candle making. As with cattle, most of the males would be slaughtered come their first autumn, but since sheep could find their own food almost all winter, some extra males would also be left alive until the next spring or summer. How available—and at what price—mutton would be depended entirely on the location. In the coastal areas, where large herds of sheep could grass on the big marshes, the meat would be as common and cheap as pork was elsewhere, but aside from smoking the legs, mutton wasn’t easy to preserve, and thus rarely left the local area.

4. Poultry

Chickens, ducks, and geese were not kept just to supply eggs and meat, but also for feathers and down for pens, pillows, comforters, etc. Naturally the meat would be eaten once the birds had been killed, and even a poor household could often afford to keep a few birds around to slaughter for fresh meat on special occasions.

Of these three domestic birds, it was the chicken that was valued the most. It was considered the healthiest meat, and the need to supplement the feed with grain during the winter also made it the most expensive. Young chickens were a spring delicacy only available in May-June, when most of the cockerels would be killed as soon as they could be identified, but a few might instead be castrated and allowed to fatten during the summer. Such capons were priced much higher than the small cockerels, and some farms near the major towns would buy up cockerels from their neighbours, and have an actual capon production to sell at the markets.

Ducks, on the other hand, found all their own feed in the muck of the ponds, and were believed to pass the baseness of their fodder on to those who ate them. But as ducks were also a fine source of feathers and fat, as well as being cheap and easy to raise, they were the most common poultry at central European tables.

In marshy areas large flocks of geese would be kept for the purpose of selling their down and feathers. The plucked birds from these flocks would be salted in strong brine and smoked before being sold, and were the only poultry that was not always eaten fresh. These geese were especially popular in Jewish households, where preserved goose took the place of the forbidden pork. Elsewhere a small flock might be kept at a pond along with some ducks for local consumption, pens and pillows. Geese tend to start laying their eggs as early as February, and in the Protestant areas where Lent wasn’t kept, these early eggs were highly priced. Some of these early egg-layers could also be allowed into the farmhouse and provided with nesting boxes so the eggs could hatch as early as possible—and the resulting offspring be ready for slaughter as early as possible.

Eggs were a very popular food item, but as soon as the number of daylight hours dropped the number of eggs available would drop as well. Taking geese or hens indoors for the winter, and keeping them in a bench-like construction with holes for their heads, would expand the egg season considerably. It did, however, mean than they had to be fed with the expensive grain, rather than letting them find their own fodder, so most households simply accepted that eggs were available only in spring and summer. If, during the egg-laying season, more eggs were available than the household needed at the time, it was possible to preserve the excess production. This could be done in various ways, but the most common would be boiling and then either salting the whole egg in a strong brine, or removing the shell and pickling the egg in vinegar.

The American turkey had been imported to Europe in the previous century and had immediately become very popular. In 1632 turkey was still fairly much reserved for the upper-class tables, where it was slowly replacing the peacock and swan as the most elegant party dish.

Pigeons and doves were kept in coops and dovecotes on farms and estates as well as in the attics of town houses. As with the turkey they were raised for their meat and the young squabs were considered a delicacy in spring. Mature birds were also eaten, and had the virtue of being available everywhere and all year round.

5. Game and game birds

Big game meat such as boar and venison was generally reserved for the nobility, who held the right to hunt on their estates closely. The ability to serve venison at a feast—or send it as a gift—was a sign of high status.

Smaller game such as rabbit and hare could be caught in snares, and—whether or not this was legal—would be found on a much wider range of tables. Other small animals such as hedgehog, squirrel and dormice would regularly find their way into the cookpots in the country, but would be fairly uncommon in the towns.

Among the game birds, pheasant and partridge were considered the most refined and fashionable, while quail was believed to eat poisonous plants and thus could be dangerous. Wood pigeons, grouse, and many other wild birds of various sizes would be caught and were especially popular baked into pies.

Neither game nor game birds were usually preserved, but were simply hung in a cold place until the meat had matured.

6. Fish and shellfish

Fresh fish was usually available only in coastal areas and on the major estates, where the right to fish in the lakes and streams was often rigidly guarded.. It was possible to order fresh sole, flounder, shrimp, lobster or oysters from the coastal harbors, but—unless the weather was cold and the roads good—it was probably wiser to stick to the local salmon, pike, perch, trout, bream, and crayfish. Fish ponds for carp were also dug, especially in Catholic areas where meat was forbidden during Lent and on fasting days and more than half a person's yearly meals thus might have to be meatless.

Fresh fish such as salmon and trout would be more readily available along the major rivers, like the Rhine. These were not considered as refined as the fish with white flesh, but was considered more so than the dark and oily eels and herring.

Another fresh source of protein, which at the time was considered a shellfish, was the big snails found—or sometimes deliberately kept—in the gardens. As these were not considered meat, they were widely popular in Catholic areas, and also eaten in the rest of Germany.

Fish and shellfish spoil very easily, and with no way of keeping them frozen—or even cooled—it was necessary to conserve them in some way immediately after taking them from the water. Salting was the most common method, and salted herring from the Baltic or Holland was by far the most common source of animal protein all over Europe.

The method for salting herring was quite simple: the head, gills and innards were removed in a single movement by cutting the backbone and ripping everything out and off. The fish were then layered with salt, and could ...