Wait, where was the hand washing?

Last page, second paragraph

Ah, I see.

They might rinse their hands to remove obvious dirt but using soap is far off as far as I know.

I think you're putting too much weight on the vocabulary choice, especially given that it's a translation of a Japanese take on medieval European practices. They did in fact rinse their hands with water, and lots of people would probably call that washing, without getting caught up in details of soap use.

E.g. https://www.worldhistory.org/Medieval_Hygiene/ talks about "it was also a common convention to wash hands before and after eating"

"Monks had their own special areas for washing, including at Cluny Abbey in France which had a lavabo or large basin where hands were washed before meals."

"The Great Hall of a castle or manor typically had a similar large basin for visitors to wash their hands"

And before we get carried away with how clean this was: "We know from records that they had towels, which were changed twice a week while the water was changed only once a week."

Rye bread is so good. I've been stocking up on proper german rye breads whenever I can because they're hard to find in the usa. It's crazy how nutritious a single slice is compared to white bread.

It's normally the French stereotyped as serious about bread so this is indeed a fascinating conversation lol

Well, the French have a couple of white breads they're famous for, while Germans have about 300 bread varieties, in every colour and shape you can imagine (well, as long as you imagine different shades of brown and yellow. But you get my point). So there's much more to argue about.

last edited at Nov 18, 2024 10:04PM

Rye bread is so good. I've been stocking up on proper german rye breads whenever I can because they're hard to find in the usa. It's crazy how nutritious a single slice is compared to white bread.

Whole wheat bread is pretty nutritionally superior to white, too.

As a German, I've never felt so insulted in my life as while reading this chapter, and there's a lot I get to hear about my home country. Finally I understand why people waste time on stuff like "sensitivity reading" ...

The idea that a German baker would be impressed be the flavorless sawdust pressed into vague bread shapes over freshly baked(!) real bread defies any reasonable belief. It's like suggestion to an Italian that frozen pizza is just as good, or to a French that processed cheese is perfectly acceptable, or to an American that ... well, forget Americans, they are hopeless, but otherwise!

This must be the most german thing I've read here lol. (The thing with the cutting puzzled me too, though.)

To be fair, Japanese convenience products have a reputation for being rather high quality compared to us. But even so, people have no idea just how serious Germans are about certain foods. Bread, mustard, pickles, etc. Especially anything that's machine-made, partially or not, suffers severe scrutiny here, which applies to most modern bakeries as well. So I've no doubt that a medieval baker in their prime would've been able to turn even the lousiest flour into the stuff of Gods.

Rye is still rather common in all of northern Europe, by the by. I feel like people are really sleeping on it, it's great stuff.

I was not ready for the Bread Discourse.

I know that in the Middle East people used plant oils as soap since ancient times, but no idea what it was like in Europe.

I know that in the Middle East people used plant oils as soap since ancient times, but no idea what it was like in Europe.

"oil as soap", you mean like the Greco-Roman thing of rubbing oil on your body and scraping it off? Medieval Europe knew about real soap, oils+lye/ashes. Really nice soap was from Castile, with an olive oil base. More local soaps used animal fat, and were likely used more for laundry.

Or at least that was my understanding; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap#History is a bit more complex and different. But medieval Europe definitely had soaps.

Yeah soap has been a thing for a while, it's pretty visibly obvious that oily things don't rinse off like normal dirt and so you need something to deal with that. It's use in personal hygiene like routinely washing hands is what's fairly new.

I love how serious Germans are about bread.

From my experience living in Germany, Germans x Bread is OTP. I never heard of anyone else who considers eating bread with butter and tea a proper dinner, but Abendbrot is a thing.

last edited at Nov 20, 2024 7:14AM

I love how serious Germans are about bread.

From my experience living in Germany, Germans x Bread is OTP. I never heard of anyone else who considers eating bread with butter and tea a proper dinner, but Abendbrot is a thing.

As a German, it absolutely is OTP. So much so that German bread culture was declared a UNESCO Cultural World Heritage. We get that bread :D

I look forward to more of our cute modern Japanese engineer who was able to get all of these modern amenities working in the Middle Ages.

I would not have guessed this was yuri if it wasn't for the tag. I didn't see a hint of attraction between the two, even while they were bathing.

this is what I’m afraid, that there is 0 yuri and only slice of life between friends :( really hate the usage of Yuri tags for friendship or subtext

I look forward to more of our cute modern Japanese engineer who was able to get all of these modern amenities working in the Middle Ages.

I would not have guessed this was yuri if it wasn't for the tag. I didn't see a hint of attraction between the two, even while they were bathing.

this is what I’m afraid, that there is 0 yuri and only slice of life between friends :( really hate the usage of Yuri tags for friendship or subtext

The original gives it the Yuri tag on Comic Walker, so we'll see how it goes.

This manga is so cute that I almost forget the premise is that one girl has lost all her friends and family to a plague, and the other girl doesn't know if she'll ever get to meet her own family again. And they're bonding over that.