Depends upon how you define "efficient. To a farmer who might be far from the market, having the corn effectively walk there on its own, or significantly reducing the bulk by making it into liquor would significantly reduce the cost and trouble of getting it to market. From his standpoint, that’s very efficient.
And you could get the corn from people who didn’t have to bring it as far.
Until the coming of the railroads, virtually all agricultural surplus was routinely transformed into alcohol for local consumption, and the United States was a nation of drunkards. Children would be given hard cider starting around the age of five, and at least one US president (Buchanan, I think) was a notorious lush.
It was still* safer than drinking the water, though.
*No pun intended
We have several markets in my city that cater to African and Asian immigrants and refugees. One thing they sell that other groceries don’t (that I’ve seen, anyway) are stewing hens, which they shrink-wrap and keep in the freezer case. They look like prank rubber chickens, and are probably about as tough, but like you said, I’m sure they do make very tasty soup or broth.
(Never bought one myself.)
Anecdote: A while back on another board, somebody who worked at a nursing home told the story about a resident who, come springtime, said it was time for “mud chicken.” What was that, you may ask? When she was a child, she lived in a heavily wooded area, and her father and uncles would tap the maple trees, and on the day they boiled down the sap, they would slaughter the hens that were no longer laying, and the kids would roll the birds around in the mud and toss them into the fire under the vat. After an hour or so, the men would retrieve these things and let them cool for a while, and then they would crack off the mud, which took all the feathers with it, and have the most delicious chicken.
The misuse of antibiotics (ABX) in agriculture is a major factor in ABX resistance. It’s OK to use them to treat a sick animal; it is NOT OK to use them as a growth enhancer. “No antibiotics” is as impractical as “vegetarian fed” if it’s pork or poultry, because for those animals, that isn’t their natural diet either.
Somewhere along the line, it was discovered that a basically-homeopathic dose of tetracycline makes chickens grow slightly faster - in other words, they reach market weight a few days earlier. It also leads to resistant organisms.
Stewing chicken trivia: in the poultry industry they are called spent hens.
It may not be better for a person who eats it, but it’s probably better for the cow. Corn is not a natural component of their diet, and cows often get bloat, which can be fatal (and the treatment is not pleasant either).
I found out recently that some farmers on the Plains raise sunflowers, for silage. Didn’t know that.
A low dose of tetracycline also has an effect on canine tear and saliva, altering porphyrins so that they do not stain white fur.
Some breeders use this effect so that their dogs look better in the ring, ignoring the long term effects on the animal’s health.
Yep, any plant matter that grows quickly and has enough moisture content so that fermentation occurs can be used as silage!
At first glance, when I saw that your link referenced European practices, I wondered if these were truffle pigs, but the story doesn’t mention them.
Wild pigs are an invasive species in Texas, and they were a pest, but not quite to invasive species status, in the Ozarks. I did hear that it nearly took a bazooka to take one down, but the meat was worth it. I worked with a man who hunted, and was teaching his then tween sons, and one of the in particular really, really wanted to bag a wild hog.
Perhaps you should read again the posts about the “efficiency” of walking pigs even small distances. An education opportunity for you about animal husbandry. As distinct from pastoral recollections from a Warner Brothers cartoon. The practice was a necessity. Requires almost one person per pig. Pigs don’t have a strong herding instinct. And just in case you have never see or stood beside a full grown pig, they aren’t cute, little or obedient.
Nitpick: Wagyu beef
I’m going by Harris’ writings – he claimed it was the practice to walk the pugs to market on the hoof.
Yup, I know.
No routine antibiotics is entirely practical for both species, if they’re not overcrowded.
I agree that a fully vegetarian diet isn’t natural for either, but I don’t know that it’s “impractical”. I’m not sure, but I think that one reason some marketers are making a point of it is that some feeds had been including meal from the same species – chicken feed containing chicken meal, and so on – which is a genuinely bad idea due to possible disease transmission. I don’t know whether that’s legal any more; I have the impression that it was banned a while ago, but am not certain.
I thought that Wild Westers ate a lot of beans, supplemented with salt pork. Salting helps preserved food but I do not know if this was used with beef. At some point people started drying salted beef. But I suspect corned beef was not as popular as pemmican on the frontier.
Was the practice, certainly. Was done by necessity, certainly.
But methinks you are the one who overegged the pudding by claiming it was the most efficient method.
BY the way, “swineherd” is a word, wgich indicates that you certainly can herd pigs.
Per this website:
Here’s an article on large-scale pig herding in the 19th century
actually, broadway in NYC was originally created as a street so people could run their animals (mainly pigs chickens, and the occasional sheep) to the markets/slaughterhouses which is why it was wider than a normal 18th/19th century street in NYC
Something I’ve read in foodie mags and sites is if you want the closest thing to old west meat try Argentinian beef as 80 percent of their meat is grass-fed but they were having a culture issue as they were using corn fed beef for imports and keeping the grass fed beef for the home market …
Interesting. I did not know this. Still, that’s a relatively short distance and is entirely feasible.
I know from doing living history that both beef and pork were packed in brine for shipping. (Whether they’d still be edible when they reached their destination was another matter.) Smoked meats were also a thing.
I don’t agree. Food preservation was a big deal, and quite a lot of things were dried/smoked/salted/canned/potted.Dried grain and pulses keep for a long time. At least until the next harvest. Sure, there would be places where drying wasn’t practical, and jars were in short supply, but turning everything we can’t eat right now into booze wasn’t the only, or standard, way to preserve things.
A lot of agricultural product was turned into booze, I’m not disputing that, but I don’t think it was as a preservation technique (even an unconscious one). It was because we really like booze.
And the idea that water wasn’t safe for drinking is a bit of a myth.