[LMB] AKICOT:L What's a Coney, was Bambi in Spanish & Italian OT:

[Paula Lieberman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael R N Dolbear" <m.dolbear at lineone.net>


>
>> From: B. Ross Ashley <redlion at sff.net>
>> Date: 13 August 2006 15:18
>>
>> On Sun, 13 Aug 2006 02:04:23 -0400, Elvi Dalgaard <elvi at vl.videotron.ca>
>> wrote:
>>
>>  > I'd disagree somewhat on chicken - "poultry" is clearly related to
>>  > the french "poule". Pigeon is the same word, as far as I know,

Technically the flying mostly-pest that nests on buildings all over the USA 
is a "rock dove."  They've been used for three things since the dawn of 
history:

1.  squab dinner
2.  carrying messages
3.  racing (the "homing pigeon" that carried messages and there are are 
still competitions today for seeing what pigeon gets back fastest, is the 
same species as carries something like 200  (!) noxious diseases... (I 
worked for someone who had to deal with placing antennas and such where rock 
doves were wont to nest and/or defecate.  He said that he'd had a lot of 
injections/vaccinations against various of the diseases they carry or are a 
vector for...)

>>  > and salmon nearly. Maybe rabbit and duck and others were simply
>>  > not frequently eaten by the populations in question?
>

[snip]

> The Normans did eat rabbit which they either reintroduced into England
> (there is evidence that the Romans in Britain ate rabbit, but may have 
> been
> just hutch reared) or at least introduced the keeping of rabbits in
> artificial warrens. Note the meat is rabbit and the French derived word is
> coney which is used only for the creature, fur and by-products. This is,

There's  a complexity, however:

>From www.merriamwebster.com :

Main Entry: hy·rax
Pronunciation: 'hI-"raks
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek hyrak-, hyrax shrew
: any of a family (Procaviidae) of small ungulate mammals of Africa and the 
Middle East characterized by thickset body with short legs and ears and 
rudimentary tail, feet with soft pads and broad nails, and teeth of which 
the molars resemble those of the rhinoceros and the incisors those of 
rodents -- called also coney, dassie

==================================================

There is also the term "hare" and that's a rabbity sort of critter... there 
are differences between "rabbit" and "hare" but they are related animals, 
hyraxes are far far removed from rabbits and hares.

> like poultry, the reverse of the standard.
>
> As for duck, before shotguns lords built 'decoy ponds' to net duck by the
> thousand so it was, like swan, an upper class food.

Duck was I think a standard part of the diet among meat-eaters in East Asia, 
to this day East Asian agriculture has people, ducks, and pigs in close 
proximity (which is why bird flu and other flus that go across 
species -breed- there...)

> http://www.britarch.ac.uk/BA/ba86/news.shtml
> The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), prized for its meat and skin,
> is assumed to have been introduced from the continent after 1066. They 
> were
> reared in artificial warrens (often now called pillow mounds and marked by
> placenames such as "warren" and "coney"), and from the start were also a
> pest that ate young crops.==

The good news and bad news is that they're omniverous...  Geri Sullivan on 
her Live Journal blog a few days ago mentioned a website that sells 
varieties of chickens.  I was astonished to find one breed mentioned that 
has the information on the breed to NOT have that breed of chicken and 
rabbits in a common area, because the chickens will eat rabbit!

> The other meat animals haven't split with different names for meat and
> animal/bird/fish they also show a random split between Old English and Old
> French origins. This too fails to match the 'standard story'. Special 
> terms
> for differently mature animals I suggest don't require explanation though 
> I
> note 'suckling pig' is English not French even though a luxury item.