For centuries, English bakers’ biggest customers were horses(atlasobscura.com)
atlasobscura.com
For centuries, English bakers’ biggest customers were horses
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-horse-bread
121 comments
Stoneground flour also probably inherently contains some sand, really destroying your teeeth.
Probably contains some particles from the grindstone yes, but I wouldn't think in anywhere enough quantity to have a particularly deleterious effect on people's teeth
Depends on the type of grinder. A saddle-type quern absolutely puts enough rock into the flour to degrade teeth, as seen on ancient egyptian remains.
When I was a child my parents did a brief experiment grinding our own flour with a cheap grindstone. I can clearly remember the sensation of the bits of stone in the bread.
It is possible to make flour without this problem? Almost certainly! But this n=1 anecdote demonstrates it’s a thing that can happen.
It is possible to make flour without this problem? Almost certainly! But this n=1 anecdote demonstrates it’s a thing that can happen.
I eat stone ground flour (in bread form) almost daily and no dentist has ever registered a complaint.
I think GP meant "Primitive stone ground flour" given context of GGP.
They still make it here in our very rural corner of Portugal, although it’s more for the donkeys - they’re used as beasts of burden still, usually for olives in more remote or inaccessible groves - some are on really steep hill slopes, impossible for mechanisation. It’s for the dogs, too. Not 100% sure of the recipe but it’s rye, olive leaves and leftovers from pressing, and I think oat bran - stuff smells awful and has the density of a brick, but keeps for ages and makes for a handy meal on the hoof.
There is literally a legume called horse gram in India, I think livestock eat it though.
Yes, although its Punjabi Name is not literal translation of Horse Gram, but its pretty much known that give this to Horses to give them strength. We people eat it lightly roasted, and munch on it, and in traditional cooking way too. Chana Daal.
But its attached to Horses only, not Buffalo, Cow, Donkey etc.
But its attached to Horses only, not Buffalo, Cow, Donkey etc.
I have never seen it in Pakistani Punjab.
Sholley di daal, ya hindi ch Kaale Chaney di Daal. Horse Gram.
Humans eat it too, and it's my favorite gram!
Does it really take 45 min to pressure cook?
I don't think so..... 2-3 whistles from a pressure cooker is enough to make them really soft
Ok how long is that? Mine doesn’t have whistles. Maybe I need to soak or sprout them first.
Now I’m interested…
I agree.
@GP: Photos? A press article? More details? Why donkeys and not mules?
@GP: Photos? A press article? More details? Why donkeys and not mules?
I chuckled at your request for a press article - part of the reason this corner of the country still has a lot of really old practices is that it’s remote, and the population is tiny. There’s no press out here, and according to the internet there is nothing here. The prime minister was meant to visit a nearby town last year, but cancelled on the day when he realised it would take 2hrs to do the last 40km. Until the 90’s, here was a day by road, minimum, from Porto - usually two, according to locals. Now it’s 2.5hrs. It’s so unvisited that a large ruined 15th c. castle on top of a hill thought long lost was only “discovered” in the 1980s. The locals still laugh about the government men coming and discovering what they already knew was there.
I can’t find anything about the bread - I’ve tried searching previously - it’s just a thing people do here, and always have. There’s a lot of that sort of thing, here. Thankfully there are some efforts going on to chronicle this stuff before the old folks all die - amateur historical society taking recordings etc. which is better than nothing, and I saunter about with a camera. They still have a forge in a nearby monastic village, powered by water-bellows - and it’s not a novelty, it’s where you go for scythes, machetes, etc. The watermills for grain worked until the 90’s, and were then abandoned - we live in one now.
The local breed is “Mirandese” - to be clear, most folks these days have abandoned the awkward old (usually on public land, wildcat) hillside groves, but the ones which are still worked, usually by elderly farmers, are donkey powered. The village near us, there are only three (actually, four now) donkeys, two of them work - but they all munch the pao de burro. Hunting and transhumance with dogs is also a big thing here, and I’m 99% sure it’s the same stuff I see shepherds giving their dogs.
Wikipedia has a bit on the breed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burro_de_Miranda
I can’t find anything about the bread - I’ve tried searching previously - it’s just a thing people do here, and always have. There’s a lot of that sort of thing, here. Thankfully there are some efforts going on to chronicle this stuff before the old folks all die - amateur historical society taking recordings etc. which is better than nothing, and I saunter about with a camera. They still have a forge in a nearby monastic village, powered by water-bellows - and it’s not a novelty, it’s where you go for scythes, machetes, etc. The watermills for grain worked until the 90’s, and were then abandoned - we live in one now.
The local breed is “Mirandese” - to be clear, most folks these days have abandoned the awkward old (usually on public land, wildcat) hillside groves, but the ones which are still worked, usually by elderly farmers, are donkey powered. The village near us, there are only three (actually, four now) donkeys, two of them work - but they all munch the pao de burro. Hunting and transhumance with dogs is also a big thing here, and I’m 99% sure it’s the same stuff I see shepherds giving their dogs.
Wikipedia has a bit on the breed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burro_de_Miranda
Thanks for the reply. A blog with some stories, recipes and photos would be nice. (And some historian in 3000 will be very thankful. Big cities are overrepresented.)
Anecdote time: When I was young, we usually went during the holidays to a house of my grandparents that was 1km away from a small town (1k habitants) that was 15 km away from the capital city of a small province in the north west of Argentina. Only well water. We bought raw milk that we had to boil (and skim) before drinking. The road was fine, but during the summer that is rainy season you may get flooding in some parts. (Now the road is much better and it feels like a highway.) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yala I'm not sure if they had/have a newspaper.
Anecdote time: When I was young, we usually went during the holidays to a house of my grandparents that was 1km away from a small town (1k habitants) that was 15 km away from the capital city of a small province in the north west of Argentina. Only well water. We bought raw milk that we had to boil (and skim) before drinking. The road was fine, but during the summer that is rainy season you may get flooding in some parts. (Now the road is much better and it feels like a highway.) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yala I'm not sure if they had/have a newspaper.
Mules are (generally) infertile. They're viewed as better beasts of burden than donkeys, but not if you need to keep creating them out of separate horse/donkey populations.
Yeah, this. Mules, you’ve gotta buy with money from the rich dude with a horse. Donkeys, you just need two donkeys and a winter and you have three donkeys. You’d be amazed at what they’d stagger around under, particularly when people are getting firewood in. Not unusual to see little donkey-carts on the road, too - usually the man riding/driving and the wife walking alongside picking up whatever falls off, as that’s how they do things here - surprised they don’t feed their wives donkey bread too. I guess it ties to the same thing - poverty, and free labour and energy. Big families back in the day - the younger (60s/70s) generation all have seven siblings and a hundred cousins.
Both replies makes a lot of sense.
Here in Argentina, many stories about the independence war have mules because "they are better in mountain terrain". Reading some material a few years later, IIRC there where big transport business from Argentina to Bolivia/Peru and Chile that have mule breading facilities. If you have a big transport business or military operation, it makes sense to separate your breeding animals and have specialize work animal. But if you are a farmer with only a few animals, you can't do that.
Here in Argentina, many stories about the independence war have mules because "they are better in mountain terrain". Reading some material a few years later, IIRC there where big transport business from Argentina to Bolivia/Peru and Chile that have mule breading facilities. If you have a big transport business or military operation, it makes sense to separate your breeding animals and have specialize work animal. But if you are a farmer with only a few animals, you can't do that.
Korea [North Korea] made food for donkeys too, their salvation from mechanization and therefore depending on imports America could deprive them of. Donkeys? America couldn't deprive them of.
Donkeys?
Loyal.
Donkeys?
Loyal.
The article makes me wonder what the maximum range for a horse would be if carrying its own meals, never grazing, but drinking water along the way as needed.
Seems like it'd sort of be like the rocket equation, but more forgiving.
Seems like it'd sort of be like the rocket equation, but more forgiving.
Like the rocket equation, it'd be a logarithmic function with no upper bound (assuming an unlimited starting supply of horses). You start off with a large caravan and gradually jettison horses as the food runs out. Both food and horse count decay exponentially, but they decay together at the same rate, so there's always the correct amount of food for the remainers.
The same law applies to global fuel transport: can you export oil halfway around the planet, on a boat that itself runs on oil? There's a rocket equation hidden in that. But the constants are really good (oil is energy-dense; planets are small); so it's not an important law that's ever-present in economics, in the way the rocket equation is ever-present in space. (Was it ever, in history?)
I read a short story once about a world where oceans were too large for oil-powered ships to cross. Anyone know which story I'm thinking of? It was an impossibly large planet too vast for humans to comprehend, and we could only just scratch the surface exploring small corners of it. I remember it had nuclear-powered ekranoplans.
The same law applies to global fuel transport: can you export oil halfway around the planet, on a boat that itself runs on oil? There's a rocket equation hidden in that. But the constants are really good (oil is energy-dense; planets are small); so it's not an important law that's ever-present in economics, in the way the rocket equation is ever-present in space. (Was it ever, in history?)
I read a short story once about a world where oceans were too large for oil-powered ships to cross. Anyone know which story I'm thinking of? It was an impossibly large planet too vast for humans to comprehend, and we could only just scratch the surface exploring small corners of it. I remember it had nuclear-powered ekranoplans.
> The same law applies to global fuel transport: can you export oil halfway around the planet, on a boat that itself runs on oil? There's a rocket equation hidden in that. But the constants are really good (oil is energy-dense; planets are small); so it's not an important law that's ever-present in economics, in the way the rocket equation is ever-present in space. (Was it ever, in history?)
Not for oil-powered boats, but for coal-powered steamboats, cargo size taken by coal was a significant factor. Significant enough that sail boats where still the way to get to New Zealand long after coal-power became ubiquitous.
Not for oil-powered boats, but for coal-powered steamboats, cargo size taken by coal was a significant factor. Significant enough that sail boats where still the way to get to New Zealand long after coal-power became ubiquitous.
I like a little too much this morbid idea of a big ball of domesticated horses, passengers and food, slowly cutting loose bits of its horse-o-sphere to reach an absurdly far away destination. The ecological impact of the horses released to fend for themselves would be profound at the outset... But you could just go Mongolian and have the humans make jerky out of and otherwise consume the horses, for extra mileage.
Not just kill them to make jerky, but bring nursing mares along, using them to convert human-inedible plants into milk products. You can also make a small slit and drink their blood for the same effect.
> (Was it ever, in history?)
Oh yeah, the current situation is highly abnormal.
With one giant exception : wind-powered ships do not suffer from this issue !
https://acoup.blog/2020/08/21/collections-bread-how-did-they...
https://i0.wp.com/acoup.blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/orbi...
> Using the figures from the Price Edict of Diocletian, we tend to estimate that river transport was five times cheaper than land transport, and sea-transport was twenty times cheaper than land transport.
(Not sure if that river transport of bulk grains was mostly by boats or by barges pulled by pack animals ?)
In fact, Rome itself not only got started as a cross-roads/waterways/seaways (large enough river for big sea ships to go up) for people to gather and trade, it could never have reached its ancient size of 0.5-1 M people without sea shipping !
Oh yeah, the current situation is highly abnormal.
With one giant exception : wind-powered ships do not suffer from this issue !
https://acoup.blog/2020/08/21/collections-bread-how-did-they...
https://i0.wp.com/acoup.blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/orbi...
> Using the figures from the Price Edict of Diocletian, we tend to estimate that river transport was five times cheaper than land transport, and sea-transport was twenty times cheaper than land transport.
(Not sure if that river transport of bulk grains was mostly by boats or by barges pulled by pack animals ?)
In fact, Rome itself not only got started as a cross-roads/waterways/seaways (large enough river for big sea ships to go up) for people to gather and trade, it could never have reached its ancient size of 0.5-1 M people without sea shipping !
> Was it ever, in history?
Mayan city states were limited in size to how far warriors and their servants could march carrying their own food. No pack animals.
Mayan city states were limited in size to how far warriors and their servants could march carrying their own food. No pack animals.
For land transport, the typical solution is supply dumps over a large number of partial trips.
Your caravan has a max range of N days; you instead go N/3 days, drop 1/3 of your supplies, and then return. Do that twice.
For your third trip, you can load up your caravan, travel N/3 days to your supply dump, and reload using half the cached supplies. Now you travel another N/3 days, drop 1/3 of your load, and then return, stopping for the cached supplies again on the return.
You still consume increasing amounts of resources, but unlike rockets or boats you don't have to carry them all from the start.
Your caravan has a max range of N days; you instead go N/3 days, drop 1/3 of your supplies, and then return. Do that twice.
For your third trip, you can load up your caravan, travel N/3 days to your supply dump, and reload using half the cached supplies. Now you travel another N/3 days, drop 1/3 of your load, and then return, stopping for the cached supplies again on the return.
You still consume increasing amounts of resources, but unlike rockets or boats you don't have to carry them all from the start.
A reasoned book on Central Asian conquest by the Russian made this point over and over. The Russians needed support from their own step allies to handle the large number of camels. The Kazars knew where to put supply dumbs and such.
> Was it ever, in history?
Maybe not boats, but aircraft. Operation Black-buck in The Falklands war:
https://vulcantothesky.org/articles/falklands-war-1982-opera...
as another possible example
> Was it ever, in history?
Perhaps Water + People over Oceans. More sails --> More people --> More water --> Bigger boat --> More sails, etc etc.
Perhaps Water + People over Oceans. More sails --> More people --> More water --> Bigger boat --> More sails, etc etc.
Assume a spherical horse ...
OK are we talking a Mustang or a Shire or Clydesdale? Carrying the food or dragging a wagon?
I don't know enough about horses but a heavy horse (Shirehorse, Suffolk Punch or Clydesdale in the UK) can drag quite a decent load. Granddad's Clydesdale "Damson" could make a furrow with a plough all day, back in the day - bloody hard work. Ironically, that was in Devon - Scottish horse in Shire land! He got a Ferguson tractor later but they kept the horses as well.
I think we would run out of UK for a single horse load unless doing the full Land's End to John o'Groats (or trying to cross the Irish Sea) but a bigger land might need a re-fuel or two.
OK are we talking a Mustang or a Shire or Clydesdale? Carrying the food or dragging a wagon?
I don't know enough about horses but a heavy horse (Shirehorse, Suffolk Punch or Clydesdale in the UK) can drag quite a decent load. Granddad's Clydesdale "Damson" could make a furrow with a plough all day, back in the day - bloody hard work. Ironically, that was in Devon - Scottish horse in Shire land! He got a Ferguson tractor later but they kept the horses as well.
I think we would run out of UK for a single horse load unless doing the full Land's End to John o'Groats (or trying to cross the Irish Sea) but a bigger land might need a re-fuel or two.
> I don't know enough about horses but a heavy horse (Shirehorse, Suffolk Punch or Clydesdale in the UK) can drag quite a decent load.
A heavy horse also needs to eat a lot more than a normal horse.
A heavy horse also needs to eat a lot more than a normal horse.
re: dragging a decent load
My father, born in 1930 in Minnesota, told of watching farmers bringing out a team of horses to help pull stuck tractors out of the springtime mud -- it wasn't only about their not-insignificant strength, but their superior traction. In his teens -- which would have been in the forties, he worked with teams of horses, which seems oddly late in the 20th century, but he did, as did my paternal grandfather. The terms for the various parts of the, to me, very-complicated-looking harnesses were as fresh in his mind in his eighties as they had been in his teens.
My father, born in 1930 in Minnesota, told of watching farmers bringing out a team of horses to help pull stuck tractors out of the springtime mud -- it wasn't only about their not-insignificant strength, but their superior traction. In his teens -- which would have been in the forties, he worked with teams of horses, which seems oddly late in the 20th century, but he did, as did my paternal grandfather. The terms for the various parts of the, to me, very-complicated-looking harnesses were as fresh in his mind in his eighties as they had been in his teens.
... but it can also drag a lot more too.
Now, can our nag drag enough fodder to do the job? I suggest yes.
Now, can our nag drag enough fodder to do the job? I suggest yes.
Yes, a heavy horse can drag more.
But the question here is how far the horse can go on a single load of food. We're purely trying to convert food into work via the horse.
And if you assume that the conversion of potential energy stored in the food to actual energy produced by the horse is less than perfectly efficient, then it will always be better to avoid doing work than to try to make up for doing extra work by starting with more food. That would be true even if starting with more food didn't require doing even more extra work to move the extra food.
Improvements in strength aren't helpful to this problem; what you need is higher efficiency.
But the question here is how far the horse can go on a single load of food. We're purely trying to convert food into work via the horse.
And if you assume that the conversion of potential energy stored in the food to actual energy produced by the horse is less than perfectly efficient, then it will always be better to avoid doing work than to try to make up for doing extra work by starting with more food. That would be true even if starting with more food didn't require doing even more extra work to move the extra food.
Improvements in strength aren't helpful to this problem; what you need is higher efficiency.
A healthy horse just walking (not doing heavy work) can keep going on fat reserves for several days. Just like most other large mammals.
If the horse is spherical, I'm sure he's got plenty more fat reserves than that!
> If the horse is spherical, I'm sure he's got plenty more fat reserves than that!
If we assume a spherical horse, we can also assume lack of friction.
Then for about 50% of the mountainous part, the horse can just roll downhill not even using any of its precious fat!
If we assume a spherical horse, we can also assume lack of friction.
Then for about 50% of the mountainous part, the horse can just roll downhill not even using any of its precious fat!
and for flat areas, it just needs the energy for initial acceleration, then it can continue in a uniform rectilinear motion
With a bit of tuning the oat moped can perhaps recuperate some energy upon breaking too.
+1 insightful!
I am reminded of this: https://youtu.be/ba62uuv-5Dc
Bret Devereaux recently blogged about military logistics and gave some figures: https://acoup.blog/2022/07/15/collections-logistics-how-did-...
He also pointed to Wayne E. Lee's article on grass as a limiting factor in Mongol warfare, which I found very interesting: https://www.historynet.com/mongols-on-the-march-the-logistic...
He also pointed to Wayne E. Lee's article on grass as a limiting factor in Mongol warfare, which I found very interesting: https://www.historynet.com/mongols-on-the-march-the-logistic...
I find his writing to be very interesting. I hadn't realize that most types of horses used in Europe had evolved to be large enough to not get enough calories from just eating grass, and needed their food to be supplemented with grain.
That was the very first thing I thought of when I read this article about horse bread.
That was the very first thing I thought of when I read this article about horse bread.
The horse was always evolving. Going into the truly modern wars like the Crimea war (dumb name) the Russians were very impressed with the abilities of British horses. The Brits had really worked on scientific horse breeding and made some really high endurance horses that also reach amazing speeds.
If you had those horses in the middle ages your army would be insane.
If you had those horses in the middle ages your army would be insane.
If a man dragged a little cart behind him, and also wore a backpack, he could go months on dense food.
Even if you just put two 10kg bags of oats in your backpack, that's going to last.
20kg? Soldiers have that much to carry, and often more, with weight of gun, ammo, rations, bedroll, and more... yet march day long.
Even if you just put two 10kg bags of oats in your backpack, that's going to last.
20kg? Soldiers have that much to carry, and often more, with weight of gun, ammo, rations, bedroll, and more... yet march day long.
Long distance hikers do this all the time. I think I carried 50# of stuff including food and water made it around 200 miles with leftovers. If I'd been willing to carry more and started out in better shape and was willing to go a bit slower, that distance could have been augmented significantly
A typical rule of thumb for backpacking is 2lb of food a day. With a 15lb base weight and a maximum of say 95 lbs backpack weight, that’s 40 days worth.
(Yes I have carried a 95lb pack on 2week mountaineering expeditions)
(Yes I have carried a 95lb pack on 2week mountaineering expeditions)
Humans are u uniquely good at covering distance, our only competitors are horses really ‘cos we both sweat effectively. it would be interesting to calculate for a horse.
There’s a lot of variables though!
There’s a lot of variables though!
Indeed. The fall in Canada, cool sunny days, 5C to 10C, is great for a brisk walk, without loads of sweat.
A far cry from 35C, as another option.
35C, you'd almost have to factor in the weight of salt you'd take on a month's trip.
A far cry from 35C, as another option.
35C, you'd almost have to factor in the weight of salt you'd take on a month's trip.
If you allow cold weather to help out (no sweating needed), Huskies are really good at covering long distances too.
Those dog teams they use in the Iditarod Race seem to be able to cover distances that would do man or horse proud. I don't know how dogs would do pulling a sled in a more temperate climate (assuming efficient, wheeled sleds) as their inability to sweat might drastically reduce their output. Years ago I saw a man using dogs to pull a sled at about 6500-ft of elevation in the summer in Southern California (near Big Bear). I suspect it was only for short trips, perhaps just a quirky hobby.
EDIT: Oops! Should have read farther in the comments. FartyMcFarter already mentioned Huskies just a couple of comments down.
EDIT: Oops! Should have read farther in the comments. FartyMcFarter already mentioned Huskies just a couple of comments down.
lookup Colin O'Brady, the dude who crossed Antarctica solo
I would recommend reading this article on Colin O'Brady. His "impossible first" wasn't exactly either of those things.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/the-pro...
I remember that article.
This podcast about the nutrition and planning for an unsupported 100 day crossing of Antarctica was absolutely fascinating but somehow felt nearly useless in terms of things to apply to my own (far far less substantial) trips. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/keto-2700-km-through-a...
This podcast about the nutrition and planning for an unsupported 100 day crossing of Antarctica was absolutely fascinating but somehow felt nearly useless in terms of things to apply to my own (far far less substantial) trips. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/keto-2700-km-through-a...
Not that far, according to another post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32239566
>in practice about a month and a half’s logistics buffer is the maximum that’s possible and even doing that is expensive.
>in practice about a month and a half’s logistics buffer is the maximum that’s possible and even doing that is expensive.
?
My first paragraph is about a man, a backpack, and a little cart behind him ... to carry food.
My last paragraph has nothing to do with food, only to show that a man can march with full kit, all day with 40kg. That it is done all the time.
You response mixes the two, and then replies with a quote about an army, which must drag a full kit and food too.
It is not applicable to this thread...
My first paragraph is about a man, a backpack, and a little cart behind him ... to carry food.
My last paragraph has nothing to do with food, only to show that a man can march with full kit, all day with 40kg. That it is done all the time.
You response mixes the two, and then replies with a quote about an army, which must drag a full kit and food too.
It is not applicable to this thread...
Is the man with the cart going on a road, or cross-country? Do we count the caloric cost of building/maintaining the road in this equation? Is it a dirt road, a paved road, cobblestones..?
How long are expeditions to the south pole? Seems like they are at least a month and a half long.
Expeditions can set up supply depots along the route, to be used for the final push, so it's not quite a fair comparison.
If you can carry enough food for X days, you could travel out X/4 days, leave a cache with enough supplies for X/2 days, then travel back with the last X/4 days of supplies. During the actual push, take X/4 from the cache on your way out, and X/4 from the cache on your way back. By using the cache, your range has increased from 0.5X to 0.75X. (This is a simplified example that assumes only a single cache of supplies is being used, and that the same size party is used for both trips.)
More extreme resource planning can also be used for expeditions, though can raise questions of ethics. The first successful expedition to the South Pole [0] set off with 52 sled-dogs, 45 of which survived the first month of the expedition. At that point, the supplies were light enough that they only required 18 dogs for the final push. The remainder were killed and butchered, both to reduce the number of mouths to feed and to provide food for the humans and remaining dogs.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amundsen%27s_South_Pole_expedi...
If you can carry enough food for X days, you could travel out X/4 days, leave a cache with enough supplies for X/2 days, then travel back with the last X/4 days of supplies. During the actual push, take X/4 from the cache on your way out, and X/4 from the cache on your way back. By using the cache, your range has increased from 0.5X to 0.75X. (This is a simplified example that assumes only a single cache of supplies is being used, and that the same size party is used for both trips.)
More extreme resource planning can also be used for expeditions, though can raise questions of ethics. The first successful expedition to the South Pole [0] set off with 52 sled-dogs, 45 of which survived the first month of the expedition. At that point, the supplies were light enough that they only required 18 dogs for the final push. The remainder were killed and butchered, both to reduce the number of mouths to feed and to provide food for the humans and remaining dogs.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amundsen%27s_South_Pole_expedi...
Amundsen famously used his sled dogs to feed both the other sled dogs and the men of his expedition.
It was a real morale hit to the men as they had grown to really like the dogs. I guess the lesson is to never to make friends with something you are going to have to eat. Though the effectiveness is indisputable given Scott's failure.
On the use of dogs as an expendable resource, Scott said "One cannot calmly contemplate the murder of animals which possess such intelligence and individuality, which have frequently such endearing qualities, and which very possibly one has learnt to regard as friends and companions.", poor guy. Quite the gentleman.
On the use of dogs as an expendable resource, Scott said "One cannot calmly contemplate the murder of animals which possess such intelligence and individuality, which have frequently such endearing qualities, and which very possibly one has learnt to regard as friends and companions.", poor guy. Quite the gentleman.
Yeah. Then Scott let his ponies starve to death in miserable conditions. Gentleman indeed.
Well, he was of his time of course. It's not realistic to expect him to have an anachronistically enlightened view of animal rights (beyond what might be considered common even today). It wasn't anything he wasn't prepared to do himself for that matter. I think his general standard of interpersonal behaviour more than allows him the descriptor of gentleman - by the standards of his day, naturally.
(As an aside, he did pioneer the use of motor sleds for antarctic expeditions, but that was a disaster for him too.)
(As an aside, he did pioneer the use of motor sleds for antarctic expeditions, but that was a disaster for him too.)
> never grazing
Ha! Good luck. Horses are masters at sneaking a graze wherever and whenever, the instant you stop paying attention.
Ha! Good luck. Horses are masters at sneaking a graze wherever and whenever, the instant you stop paying attention.
> Seems like it'd sort of be like the rocket equation, but more forgiving.
You're absolutely right:
https://acoup.blog/2022/07/15/collections-logistics-how-did-...
> The problem in a nutshell is that anything available to these armies prior to the advent of the railroad that can carry food, also eats food (except for boats, but rivers and coastlines may well not go where you want to go). We may call this problem the ‘tyranny of the wagon equation’ as a number of readers have noticed the similarity to the tyranny of the rocket equation.
You're absolutely right:
https://acoup.blog/2022/07/15/collections-logistics-how-did-...
> The problem in a nutshell is that anything available to these armies prior to the advent of the railroad that can carry food, also eats food (except for boats, but rivers and coastlines may well not go where you want to go). We may call this problem the ‘tyranny of the wagon equation’ as a number of readers have noticed the similarity to the tyranny of the rocket equation.
Well, no amount of weight can make the horse slide backwards and there's no cost to taking more time. So under a simple model, you just want to add so much food that the horse can barely move.
If the horse eats 20lbs per day (as noted in the article), say it can barely pull 2000lbs on a good quality cart. So 100 days of food. Then just figure out how far it can go in 100 days.
In one day horses can go 80-160km, but they need rest after a few days of this. So say it can do 50km per day sustained and unweighted, 25km at high weight (early in the journey).
Split roughly in half into weight/unweighted days, we get a total distance of about 3,750km for a self-powered horse.
That's almost Lisbon to Moscow, or almost New York to Seattle.
If the horse eats 20lbs per day (as noted in the article), say it can barely pull 2000lbs on a good quality cart. So 100 days of food. Then just figure out how far it can go in 100 days.
In one day horses can go 80-160km, but they need rest after a few days of this. So say it can do 50km per day sustained and unweighted, 25km at high weight (early in the journey).
Split roughly in half into weight/unweighted days, we get a total distance of about 3,750km for a self-powered horse.
That's almost Lisbon to Moscow, or almost New York to Seattle.
Horses can pull significantly more than 2,000lbs on good roads, though it’s dependent on how steep the hills are. Horse pulls use sleds rather than carts and break 5,000 lb per horse.
Pulling a cart on level ground should allow for almost arbitrary weigh as shown by people pulling trains with their teeth etc. The most extreme version of this historically is horses pulling boats through canals, which could hit 50+ tons of cargo per horse across very long distances.
Pulling a cart on level ground should allow for almost arbitrary weigh as shown by people pulling trains with their teeth etc. The most extreme version of this historically is horses pulling boats through canals, which could hit 50+ tons of cargo per horse across very long distances.
Good info! So I guess the answer depends entirely on the precise journey you want the horse to take - specifically the terrain, elevation, surface, and cart wheels/bearings.
Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part I: The Problem
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32239566
That earlier submission has the data.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32239566
That earlier submission has the data.
"Tyranny of the wagon equation" ?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32239566
Note how non-steppe horses were too big to subsist on grazing alone !
P.S.: Typically *less* forgiving because it's easier to dump parts of the rocket, especially for a return trip ?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32239566
Note how non-steppe horses were too big to subsist on grazing alone !
P.S.: Typically *less* forgiving because it's easier to dump parts of the rocket, especially for a return trip ?
Horses are easier to eat than rocket parts if you can afford them, too.
idk if you're joking or what but there was literally on article about exactly this on the front page today.
[deleted]
More forgiving? Sounds rather morbid to me, at least at the end stages.
There's a reality show, Alone, where the contestants compete to see who can survive the longest in the wilderness. One of the strategies is to come in heavy and hope the additional fat you're carrying gives you the runway to beat the people with lighter frames. It's very morbid, contestants are disqualified every season for health reasons when they start starving with no fat reserves.
Yeah I really liked the show until I saw the starvation pattern being repeated.
"Horse bread also allowed professional bakers to turn their leftovers into a commodity. [...] The most sought after form of bread was white bread, which required that a baker sift the whole-grain, stone-ground wheat they received from the miller, removing the grain’s hard outer layer, called “bran,” from the white flour. After turning the white flour into expensive white bread, bakers could recycle their leftover bran to make horse bread"
Makes a lot of economic sense - what they don't mention is that horses can get energy from fibre, while people can't, so this is biologically efficient as well as economically.
Makes a lot of economic sense - what they don't mention is that horses can get energy from fibre, while people can't, so this is biologically efficient as well as economically.
I think some of my first baking experiments during pandemic came out a bit like "horse bread".
I gave up shortly thereafter and returned to the glory of old trustworthy maltodextrin-enhanced, vitamin-enriched sliced white bread and found other equally unsuccessful hobbies for those extra 2 hours per day.
I gave up shortly thereafter and returned to the glory of old trustworthy maltodextrin-enhanced, vitamin-enriched sliced white bread and found other equally unsuccessful hobbies for those extra 2 hours per day.
In light of this, the whole thing about "Pumpernickel" meaning "pain pour Nicol" (where Nicol is a horse) (1) makes a bit more sense. I don't mean that it's necessarily true, just that it's a less of an absurd, nonsensical claim.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pumpernickel/
https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/pumpernickel
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pumpernickel/
https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/pumpernickel
Did the English eat horse meat historically? In the north of France where I grew up, it was still on the menu in the early 90s at my grandparents’ and I honestly didn’t mind it. I’m not sure if it’s still popular, but beyond the work done by horses, if you could turn your bad tasting food into meat, then it makes even more sense.
255 comments on horse meat from 11 days ago: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32116413>
As we know all too well in the world of enterprise software, customers and users aren’t always the same mammal.
My brother had a bakery and my parents had a farm. The leftover bread from the bakery was fed to the cattle. I joked: We should market the meat as croissant beef.
Important note : fresh bread can kill horses.
Only hard, dessicated bread can be given. But even that is not ideal.
Generally speaking, don't feed animals that are not yours, please :)
Only hard, dessicated bread can be given. But even that is not ideal.
Generally speaking, don't feed animals that are not yours, please :)
Many modern horses have easily upset digestion; which can indeed be a serious medical issue.
A horse raised with or adapted to a more varied diet will be a bit more robust. I've known a horse that was fond of sausage and stripped fruit trees and blackberry bushes at every opportunity, her digestive distress after those episodes was never that serious for her. Bystanders may have suffered some.
A horse raised with or adapted to a more varied diet will be a bit more robust. I've known a horse that was fond of sausage and stripped fruit trees and blackberry bushes at every opportunity, her digestive distress after those episodes was never that serious for her. Bystanders may have suffered some.
> Bystanders may have suffered some.
Ouch!
Ouch!
It's actually a lot more stupid than that: fresh bread can get stuck in their throats or elsewhere in their digestive tract.
Surprised bakers didn't do regulatory capture to ban cars.
While not by bakers, the Red Flag laws did significantly slow the car progress.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotive_Acts
>It has been claimed that the restrictions in the earlier act were advocated by those with interests in the UK railway industry and horse-drawn carriages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotive_Acts
>It has been claimed that the restrictions in the earlier act were advocated by those with interests in the UK railway industry and horse-drawn carriages.
It’s very interesting that they made bread for horses even! It is pre digested, so that does help!
What I find even more interesting is that we bred horses to be so big that they can't survive on grass (their natural food) alone.
>Now the small native ponies of the Steppe can subsist entirely off of grass, but the sort of horses available in the agrarian world are bred too big and strong to eat entirely grass. Their nutrition requirements are too high and so they require feed, at least some 4.5kg of it per day assuming local grass is available along with time to let the horses graze it (during which the wagon is, of course, stopped).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32239566
>Now the small native ponies of the Steppe can subsist entirely off of grass, but the sort of horses available in the agrarian world are bred too big and strong to eat entirely grass. Their nutrition requirements are too high and so they require feed, at least some 4.5kg of it per day assuming local grass is available along with time to let the horses graze it (during which the wagon is, of course, stopped).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32239566
An old bug in Dwarf Fortress had large grazers unable to eat fast enough to not starve. It still amazes me Elephants, Rhinos, Hippos, and Giraffes can eat enough to survive in real life.
In the past, white, refined bread might mean keeping your teeth intact. Sifted flour meant no sand or gravel that could crack them.
Picture caption:
"In pre-industrial England, horses took the place of cars, trucks, and trains."
That sounds weirdly Time's Arrow ...
"In pre-industrial England, horses took the place of cars, trucks, and trains."
That sounds weirdly Time's Arrow ...
I mean, you could replace it with the caption "War. War never changes,"
No daughter of mine is going to marry a hose bread eater!
That makes sense. Horses are quite large.
> “I consider that horse bread is the period analogue for the pellets we use today.”
very interesting
very interesting
Pellets today are beet mostly pulp afaik. Protein (flax) prices have gone through the roof in the last few months, so we've been seeing more whole soy (cheaper) in the feed mix, and pellets of pulp. It's still high in sugars, and too much beet pulp can be like having a 1200lb toddler tweaking on ketchup (red dye and sugar).
Very interesting. I would be would be too concerned about colic to try it.
better than beefaroni, one assumes
Pepys, you rapscallion, what are you doing here? How is the stone?
Imagine the queues Sainsbury's...
Now the biggest customers for horse bread will be furries
Worth pointing out that both grain crops and the processing thereof have changed significantly in recent centuries, resulting in a tastier (and generally more nutritious, in the case of whole grains) product. Wholemeal flour used for horse bread would have probably been lower both in protein and digestible carbohydrates right from the start, and that's before accounting for indigestible grit and chaff left in it from the grinding process. Grinding was also less consistent, which further degraded the texture of the finished loaf. The exact same ingredients on paper are fundamentally different today than they were in the past -- sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.