Popish Habits
vs. Nutritional Need:
Fasting and Fish Consumption
in Iberia in the Early Modern Period
Regina
Grafe
Abstract
Studies
of consumption in early modern Europe fall into two groups. Some have looked at
the overall supply of nutritional components to the average consumer in an
attempt to trace standards of living. Others have examined the changing demand
for particular goods by specific consumers to understand the way in which new
goods and cultural and taste changes impacted on the economy. Few have tried to
look at the interactions between both. By combining the contradictory evidence
coming from supply and demand sides, new interpretations of the evidence
emerge. Data on the supply of dried salted codfish (bacalao) to the Iberian markets and data available on the consumption
of this good by specific groups of consumers are used to explain how this fish
became a staple foodstuff in the Iberian diet. The existing literature has
invoked both religion and cheapness as explanatory variables. This paper argues
that both played an important role but that the overall increase was ultimately
driven by the slow but continuous integration of more consumers into the market
between 1600 and 1800.