--- Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu> wrote: > On Wed, 17 Nov 2004, Howard Brazee wrote: > > > Philip Hart wrote: > > > On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 FRIEDA2133 at aol.com wrote: > > > > > >> "the pastries are venison [...]" > > > > > > This strikes me as an odd ingredient for a street vendor to have > > > easy access to, based on a vague feeling that historically kings > > > or nobility have enforced a monopoly on the hunting of deer. > > > > Historically in England? > > > > Historically, those in power do what they can to own all resources, > > including game, land, and water. But there's nothing special about > > venison, other than in small countries, game preserves are owned by > > the crown. Dragaera seems to have plenty of land. > > The question might be, is there free forested land not overrun by nasty > Dragaeran wildlife near enough to make transport of venison easy enough > to > make it economical for street merchants, even those catering to a > wealthy clientele, to serve it instead of domesticated meat? Deer can be raised domestically. I think that if you try to get venison in America, most of what you find will be from farms. > Also note that > Dragaeran hunters use neither bows/arrows (is this true?) or firearms. > Other forms of deer hunting which I'm vaguely familiar with are > extremely uneconomical. Why do you think they don't use bows and arrows? Something I can't remember? (Quite likely.) Just that Vlad wasn't familiar with them in _Dragon_? > > > Also, is this evidence of strong Dragaeran teeth? > > > > Why? > > The recipe didn't say anything about "ground venison"... Even if the > meat > is marinated, I'd think a venison medallion pastry would be tough going. > Certainly ground venison with mushrooms compensating for the leanness > would make a tasty pastry - whether one loses (any of? too much of?) the > venison distinctiveness in so doing is beyond my meagre game expertise. Ground (or shredded or finely chopped) meat is what I would think of first for the filling of single-serving pastries. Jerry Friedman __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com