/ck/ - Food & Cooking

[Anonymous No.19106349]

Why did peasants in medieval times grow food like cabbage and celery when these vegetables contain pretty much no calories? Weren't they always starving back then, and had limited resources and time, so why waste any of it producing vegetables that are basically just filler rather than carrots and potatoes? Same goes for the early American colonists, like they were struggling to get enough food to survive the winter and then wasted how much of their land growing cabbage. It makes no sense.

They apparently did have some conception that food contains energy and different foods contain different amounts of energy, because of the fact that sailors and armies knew to carry hardtack and lard for their rations, which are the most calorie-dense foods you can produce. So did the colonists just grow and eat cabbage as an indulgent treat?

[Anonymous No.19106353]

>>19106349
Cabbage is good and grows easily you fucking clown

[Anonymous No.19106385]

>>19106353
OK, this doesn't answer the question at all does it?

[Anonymous No.19106403]

>>19106349
Were you expecting them to grow soybeans or something?
Maybe they simple didn't have access to higher quality foods. That's probably a more realistic answer, considering shit like semis with trailers, airplanes, and trains didn't exist in medieval times. It's easy to make fun of them, but a century or two ago, most of what we have now simply wasn't available to most peasants.
I mean, you'd probably make fun of them for not even having cell phones, and SHEEEEEEEEIT

[Anonymous No.19106406]

>>19106385

[Anonymous No.19106416]

>>19106349

Describe where "calories" in a carrot come from.

[Anonymous No.19106420]

>>19106416
The sugar

[Anonymous No.19106426]

>>19106349
they cooked them you fuckin mongoloid
do you think peasants were pending all day gnawing on celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins

[Anonymous No.19106446]

>>19106349
You basically answered your question yourself. They didn't understand the energy content of food. The just ate anything they could.

Everyone is so particular on what they prefer to eat these days. From health freaks to g*yslop fiends. Average person doesn't stop to realize that for our entire history of evolution humans basically ate anything they could that wouldn't kill them. Preferences were not even considered. We larp as "hunter-gatherers" but in reality we were more like scavengers who happened to catch a game kill every once in a while.

[Anonymous No.19106448]

All came down to what they had access to, seeds, soil what could and wouldn't grow same as always and always and always

[Anonymous No.19106458]

>>19106349
potatoes are from the new world bud

[Anonymous No.19106464]

>>19106349
Potatoes are from the Americas

[Anonymous No.19106478]

>>19106349
>figured out bonafide medicinal uses for hell of random weeds
>couldn't figure out eating cabbage gave them less energy than a beet
strange stuff

[Anonymous No.19106486]

>>19106446
I kill game all the time, hunt off the land and sea and fill my freezer full of great game and feed my family
also a fun hobby

[Anonymous No.19106496]

They are turnips instead of potatoes FYI for the potato new worlders in this thread

[Anonymous No.19106497]

>>19106486
Ok

[Anonymous No.19106501]

>>19106496
Who are?

[Anonymous No.19106505]

>>19106349
Cabbage stores well for long periods and has enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy, which would've been a real concern when surviving winter on preserved foods.

[Anonymous No.19106507]

>>19106497
OK?
no, it's great. Give it a try... if you have the balls, that is.

[Anonymous No.19106508]

>>19106486
>I kill game all the time

yeah but the point is we didn't have guns until fairly recently.

[Anonymous No.19106509]

>>19106486
NTA but in medieval times peasants were forbidden from hunting and, depending on the king's orders, sometimes they were forbidden from fishing too

[Anonymous No.19106511]

Makes a good hearty soup

[Anonymous No.19106514]

>>19106508
>the point
Is not the point of Dan the Outdoor Man's Blog

[Anonymous No.19106520]

>>19106508
Well then I would of tackled them and choked them out

[Anonymous No.19106525]

>>19106496
Turnips fucking suck cock compared to potatoes, columbus did us a massive favor

[Anonymous No.19106529]

>>19106509
Why we got on ships and left

[Anonymous No.19106556]

>>19106529
how's that corn syrup and mashed cricket, fellow freeman?

[Anonymous No.19106566]

>>19106349
>potatoes

Potatoes didn't exist in Europe back then

[Anonymous No.19106570]

>>19106509
no they were not peasants had artificial ponds and ate tons of fish

[Anonymous No.19106572]

>>19106349
Actually peasant in medieval times subsisted on wheat, barely, and beer (the latter because drinking fresh water was how you died of cholera and dysentery). The average peasant actually got like 3000 to 4000 kcals/day because they spent 12 hour shifts plowing the fields.

[Anonymous No.19106576]

>>19106556
Delicious

[Anonymous No.19106583]

>>19106556
We can't complain

[Anonymous No.19106596]

>>19106349
I don't think medieval peasants knew what calories were, they just eat food they had

[Anonymous No.19106603]

Somebody mention pheasant? I love that lil bird fun to hunt better to eat

[Anonymous No.19106624]

>>19106349
The real answer OP is that cabbage is a cold weather crop that has vitamin c and as many calories as a medium potato (which they didn't have until the colombian exchange) so it's better than nothing and is easy to preserve. It's not like they were growing cabbage in lieu of a more energy dense crop like wheat, it's that wheat doesn't grow in March. You plant cabbage early, harvest it then plant rye in the same field in the summer. You ever notice countries with a lot of rye products in their cultural also have a lot of cabbage? There's your answer

[Anonymous No.19106994]

>>19106349
Because if you don't have vegetables over winter you get scurvy, all your cuts reopen, and your teeth fall out. Preserving cabbage takes a tablespoon of salt per pound and a clay jar. You don't even need extra water.

Someone is going to say muh Inuit or some other meat based diet, but they were so eager to get greenstuff that they'd eat partially digested chyme from reindeer stomachs.

[Anonymous No.19107002]

>>19106349
OP sounds like a Sour German!

[Anonymous No.19107024]

I crave cabbage sometimes, just boiled cabbage I'll cook it up and eat it with nothing else

[Anonymous No.19107067]

>>19106349
Old world crops were pretty shit especially in variety. It was mostly grains, some beans, and shit like cabbages/onions. Well grains are a warm weather crop, and beans don't have as good of yield. So you get cabbage and onions as a food source. It's actually pretty interesting how we survived for so long considering that we really only farmed about 10 vegetables for the longest.

[Anonymous No.19107068]

>>19106446
I think they might have noticed you can eat 3kg of cabbage and feel more hungry than when you eat one egg, though.

[Anonymous No.19107083]

>>19107068
One egg is easy when you have 20-30 chickens, but winter came early this year, you have a family of 7 to feed, and you have maybe 5 chickens. People were really, really, REALLY fucking poor. Cabbage were cheap and easy to farm.

[Anonymous No.19107107]

>>19106349
you remind me of Americans who don't understand why Napoleonic era warfare wasn't entirely cannons

[Anonymous No.19107155]

> American colonists, like they were struggling to get enough food to survive the winter

Aside from the first few years of arrival, this is not the case. Early Americans were producing large surpluses of food. Making space for cabbage was no big deal.

[Anonymous No.19107175]

First of all, grains were like 80% of their caloric intake.

As for the cabbage, the most important factors are
>price
>availability
>resilience
>suitable climate and season
>regulations
>taxes

[Anonymous No.19107236]

>>19106349
Most vegetables are pretty low calorie. With that in mind, other than a small handful of certain grains it would be a waste to farm?

[Anonymous No.19107237]

>Weren't they always starving back then
no

[Anonymous No.19107574]

>>19106349
This thread again.
Why anon?

[Anonymous No.19108221]

I always that it was because you could grow it in the fall-winter when you coun't plant much else

[Anonymous No.19108253]

>>19108221
OP is unaware of the concept of seasons I guess. Medieval peasants in Europe ate a lot of bacon, bread, fish and beer.

[Anonymous No.19108263]

>>19107107
Ok

[Anonymous No.19108266]

>>19106349
WHY DIDN'T THE PEASANTS CHECK WIKIPEDIA TO SEE THE CALORIC INTAKE LEVEL OF A CABBAGE?!?!?!!?! WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST GO TO MCDONALDS?!

[Anonymous No.19108275]

>>19106486
>Hunt in medieval times
>The king sends his armored goons i.e fuedal lords knocking down your mud hut
>strung up in the town square to make an example of you

[Anonymous No.19108394]

>>19106349
sauerkraut to put back for winter and for it to be a side for other foods

[Anonymous No.19108423]

in an era of obesity cabbaged is based af. it's the only reason i'm managing to lose weight. thank you peasant ancestors.

[Anonymous No.19108427]

>>19106349
They probably didn't know. Pretty sure they got most of their calories from weather and protein from beans.

[Anonymous No.19108437]

>>19107067
There was a reason everyone was so short.

[Anonymous No.19108441]

>>19106349
Fiber is good.

[Anonymous No.19108517]

>>19106349
Cabbage specifically was good for fermentation and most traditional food preparation around the world involved some kind of fermented probiotic staple whether it was a drink like kefir or a food like saerkraut.