My original question was not about the food preferences of the British
or of the Tidewater's British settlers.  Instead, the question does deal
with what they actually ate.  The issue is not one of cultural ideals,
but of cultural actualities.
 
I'm asking whether the making of soap (using pig bones!?) might explain
the apparent discrepancy between contemporary written accounts of 17th
and early 18th century Tidewater diets, and the accounts of 20th century
archaeologists.
 
Soap-making requires lye and fat.  I have heard of people using pig fat
in soap-making.  Ned Heite's site includes hog's skulls and trotters.  I
believe pig bones are far softer than those of cattle.  Does it seem
likely that whole pig bones (along with their fatty marrow) would have
been tossed into lye pots during the making of soap?  This is a
question, and not a claim.
 
Brian Siegel