A Plea for Culinary Modernism: The obsession with eating natural and artisanal is ahistorical...

[fasttense]

6. It was a strang way to distribute food

Before major industrialization, the farmer raised beef, lamb, chicken and pork but ate none of it. He was lucky to get boiled potatoes and bitter herbs. Because he was a tenant farmer and did not own the land he wotked to improve. He was told what to raise and grow. There were also strict laws in place that made it illegal for farmers to eat meat.

But if you were lucky enough to own the land you worked you could eat whatever you wanted. The farmrs in western US ate very well as did most farmers who owned what they worked.