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Beef

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1893 text

Boiled salt beef. To powder was to sprinkle with salt, and the powdering tub a vessel in which meat was salted. [One form of beef, from 22nd February 1659/60 entry, PG]

This text was written as a footnote in the 1893 Wheatley transcription of the diary, the same one that is used for the diary entries on this site.

Annotations

  • N language hat on Sun 23 Feb 2003, 01:02am. Flag this

    powdered beef:
    From Latham’s Companion:
    “Fresh meat is said to have been difficult to obtain in the winter, because cattle, for lack of winter feed, were killed off in the autumn, so that housewives had to preserve their meat in brine or by powdering it with salt. But Pepys mentions eating salted or powdered beef only very occasionally

  • N Grahamt on Sun 23 Feb 2003, 02:50am. Flag this

    Loathe as I am to disagree with Latham, I would question the statement that cattle were killed off in Autumn. Autumn, harvest time, is a time of plenty. Cattle, fowl and swine were traditionally killed in midwinter when forage was getting scarce. Thus the midwinter or Yule festival, to take advantage of the glut of meat. Preserved food would then last almost to Easter, (Lent) when people would fast until the new season’s meat became available (lamb, chicken, veal, etc.)
    By Pepys time, husbanding cattle by storing winter feed was probably becoming more common, especially to feed the better off in the cities throughout the year. If the less well off ate meat at all in late winter, then it would have been preserved by salting or smoking.

  • N David Quidnunc on Tue 9 Dec 2003, 03:02am. Flag this

    Nissenbaum: FRESH meat in December

    “December was the season

  • N David Quidnunc on Wed 10 Dec 2003, 06:56am. Flag this

    Prime Chine Time

    Copy of my entry from 8 December 1660 entry (where there’s more discussion on the topic):
    http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1660/12/08/index.php#c9348

    Nissenbaum certainly seems to exaggerate by saying early winter was the

  • N David Quidnunc on Wed 10 Dec 2003, 07:01am. Flag this

    Chine of Beef: Statistical Overkill

    ADJECTIVES PEPYS LIKES TO USE WITH “CHINE OF BEEF” (17 mentions, total):

    “good chine of beef” — six (35 percent)
    “brave” — once
    “most brave” — once
    “great” — once
    “lovely” — once
    “rare” — once
    no adjectives — six (35 percent)

    # “CHINE OF BEEF” MENTIONS EACH YEAR:
    1660 — 2
    1661 — 4
    1662 — 3
    1663 — 2
    1664 — 2
    1665 — 2
    1666 — 2
    1667 — 0
    1668 — 0
    1669 — 0

  • N David Quidnunc on Sat 13 Dec 2003, 07:48pm. Flag this

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References in the diary

A graph of all the references in the diary

1660
Jan: 3
Feb: 22
May: 25
Aug: 9
Sep: 10
Oct: 22
Dec: 8, 19, 29
1661
Jan: 1, 2
Mar: 17
Sep: 9
Nov: 4, 21, 23, 24, 26
Dec: 23, 30
1662
Jan: 4, 5, 6, 25
Apr: 9
May: 11, 29
Jul: 20, 30
Oct: 13
Nov: 3
Dec: 15, 24
1663
Jan: 4, 13, 15, 16
Aug: 29
Oct: 13, 30
Nov: 23, 29
1664
Aug: 4
Sep: 25
Oct: 6
1665
Feb: 18
Aug: 5
Sep: 13
Dec: 21
1666
Jun: 2
Nov: 2, 16
Dec: 25, 27
1667
Feb: 24, 27