Can MySQL 5.1 peform multi-table inserts, updates, and deletes?
Yes. For the syntax required to perform multi-table updates, see Section 13.2.10, “UPDATE Syntax”; for that required to perform multi-table deletes, see Section 13.2.1, “DELETE Syntax”. A multi-table insert can be accomplished using a trigger whose FOR EACH ROW clause contains multiple INSERT statements within a BEGIN … END block. See Section 19.3, “Using Triggers”.