Man and Economy

Domestic Economics

The eating habits of agrarian society werebased almost entirely on self- sufficiency. Naturedictated alternating periods of dearth and abundance,and people reacted to them by introducing times forfasting and times for feasts. The harvest period in theautumn, and the slaughtering period in the winterwere followed by months of shortage in the spring. Asa result, storing and preserving foodstuffs was amatter of survival to which a great deal of time andskill had to be dedicated.

Even in towns, but principally in rural areas,most of the food products were made and processedat home. The equipment found in older kitchensreflects something of the importance of such unity ofproduction and consumption.

In these kitchens, not only was food cookedand prepared, as is now customary in the smallkitchens of today's market- dependent industrialsociety, but small animals were also slaughtered andsmoked, butter was churned, and lard was extracted.Preindustrial domestic economy meant a complexsystem of practices and utensils available to preserve agreat variety of foodstuffs. Only with modernizationdid many of these procedures become superfluous.

Cabbage Grater

Eastern Austria, early 20th century