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Sweetbreads....

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Sweetbreads....
Post by WinterBurn   » Wed May 21, 2014 11:56 am

WinterBurn
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This stopped me dead in the water. I searched the forums to see if it had been raised already and this was the only result I came up with...

runsforcelery wrote:“Good morning, my son.” Maik smiled. The bishop was in his fifties, with a weakness for sweetbreads which accounted for the increased thickening of his midsection.


Now, I didn't grow up on Safehold, so I'm certainly not an expert but where I DID grow up, sweetbreads were very different from sweetmeats. Interestingly enough sweetbreads are (organ) meat, while sweetmeats are pastries or confections - sort of the opposite of what you'd expect from the names.

Contextually I got the impression that our Bishop was eating sweets - not pancreas (or thymus or you name it someone thinks it's a delicacy). Can anyone clear that up? I may have missed something in the text which would have explained.

I know it's a silly minor point but of such things is immersion built...I'm mocking myself a bit as I post this, because I felt strongly enough about it to seek out and register here =) Hello all!
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Re: Sweetbreads....
Post by Spacekiwi   » Wed May 21, 2014 3:01 pm

Spacekiwi
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welcome to the forums Winterburn. first virtual drinks on the longtimers here. :)

Enjoy the discussions.

Might be a typo, or it might just be that he eats a lot of them.
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its not paranoia if its justified... :D
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Re: Sweetbreads....
Post by SHV   » Wed May 21, 2014 3:29 pm

SHV
Lieutenant (Senior Grade)

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Joined: Mon Jan 27, 2014 11:32 pm

Sweetbreads, usually calf thymus, are calorie dense, with a high fat content and the added fat from preparation would easily account for "thickening of his midsection".

Steve
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Re: Sweetbreads....
Post by Larry   » Wed May 21, 2014 7:04 pm

Larry
Lieutenant Commander

Posts: 144
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WinterBurn wrote:This stopped me dead in the water. I searched the forums to see if it had been raised already and this was the only result I came up with...

runsforcelery wrote:“Good morning, my son.” Maik smiled. The bishop was in his fifties, with a weakness for sweetbreads which accounted for the increased thickening of his midsection.


Now, I didn't grow up on Safehold, so I'm certainly not an expert but where I DID grow up, sweetbreads were very different from sweetmeats. Interestingly enough sweetbreads are (organ) meat, while sweetmeats are pastries or confections - sort of the opposite of what you'd expect from the names.

Contextually I got the impression that our Bishop was eating sweets - not pancreas (or thymus or you name it someone thinks it's a delicacy). Can anyone clear that up? I may have missed something in the text which would have explained.

I know it's a silly minor point but of such things is immersion built...I'm mocking myself a bit as I post this, because I felt strongly enough about it to seek out and register here =) Hello all!


Well danged if you aren't correct. I've never used either term on any regular basis myself and would have assumed that a sweetbread was simply a sugared roll or pastry. But Merriam-Webster confirms that a "Sweetmeat" is a sugared candy and a "Sweetbread" is a meat. Thank you! I am now mildly less ignorant than I was yesterday, a position always to be preferred. Now I must go and figure out a way to work these terms into my casual conversation.
Of course it's still not clear if that's what David meant in writing that, but then again, language is sort of his forte so I'm going to assume he meant what you do by it.

Larry
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Re: Sweetbreads....
Post by Aethor   » Wed May 21, 2014 7:11 pm

Aethor
Lieutenant (Senior Grade)

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Thickening of one's midsection is much more likely to be caused by sugared pastry than by meat and fat. Thus I'd assume that sugared pastry is what RFC meant...
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Re: Sweetbreads....
Post by Spacekiwi   » Thu May 22, 2014 3:21 am

Spacekiwi
Admiral

Posts: 2634
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Location: New Zealand

Hey aethor. Yes it may, but if we just assume a sedentaryish lifestyle,plus aging, plus lots of eating, its not too implausible. probably a typo however.
Aethor wrote:Thickening of one's midsection is much more likely to be caused by sugared pastry than by meat and fat. Thus I'd assume that sugared pastry is what RFC meant...
`
Image


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
its not paranoia if its justified... :D
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Re: Sweetbreads....
Post by AirTech   » Thu May 22, 2014 8:23 am

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Spacekiwi wrote:Hey aethor. Yes it may, but if we just assume a sedentaryish lifestyle,plus aging, plus lots of eating, its not too implausible. probably a typo however.
Aethor wrote:Thickening of one's midsection is much more likely to be caused by sugared pastry than by meat and fat. Thus I'd assume that sugared pastry is what RFC meant...

The radius of Henry VIII owed a lot more to sweetbreads than sweetmeats. Historically meat was expensive, so expensive that eating it more than once a month would have been unthinkable to 90% of the population who got by on bread, cheese and beer (two of which meant grains and the cheese meant you got to keep the livestock for tomorrow). If you ate meat daily you were in the top 1% of the population (sugar, particularly refined sugar, was unknown in the general diet until the 1800's and was treated as a rare spice) - sweet meant honey for the majority of the population until then.
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Re: Sweetbreads....
Post by WinterBurn   » Thu May 22, 2014 9:06 am

WinterBurn
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Posts: 7
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I'm glad to see the amount of discussion here. I feel less nitpicky ;) As noted, sweetbreads plausibly work as a fattening food, if not as well as sweetmeats.

Interesting point about the meat diet, though I doubt that it necessarily applies to Safehold.
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Re: Sweetbreads....
Post by saber964   » Thu May 22, 2014 4:51 pm

saber964
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WinterBurn wrote:I'm glad to see the amount of discussion here. I feel less nitpicky ;) As noted, sweetbreads plausibly work as a fattening food, if not as well as sweetmeats.

Interesting point about the meat diet, though I doubt that it necessarily applies to Safehold.


Yes and no, Remember they can't keep meat long term with little or no refrigeration. The only real preservation methods for meat at Safeholds level of tech is probably smoking, pickling, drying and salting.
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Re: Sweetbreads....
Post by Aethor   » Thu May 22, 2014 8:52 pm

Aethor
Lieutenant (Senior Grade)

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Joined: Fri Feb 21, 2014 9:27 pm

Safehold has much better agriculture, and a few other things like medicine, than a comparable society from Earth's history would. Oh, and don't forget genetically engineered animals and plants.

So, thanks Sondheim and Shan-Wei, there's a lot more meat and also sugar to go around than there was in the time of Henry VIII.
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