sca-cooks Re: New to List

[Mark Schuldenfrei]

  Sue Wensel wrote:
  > Food, especially meat (though I wouldn't trust birds), can taste off before
  > they are actually spoiled.  In fact, with some meats such as venison, people
  > let it "cure" for a few days before they cook it.
  
  Adamantius answered:
  True. Primarily the reason for this was (and still is) for tenderness.
  The fact that this also produces a flavor some people enjoy is
  secondary, although some people did hang their meats for the flavor they
  discovered it produced. Bear in mind that the test for whether a piece
  of game is sufficiently hung relies on testing it for
  softness/tenderness, not on whether it smells bad. Generally it involves
  the ease with which feathers can be plucked.   

Indeed.  Adamantius is right, and the "spoiled meat" canard (:-) is an
enduring myth.

Meat, when freshly slaughtered, is tender.  Fairly quickly, the muscles
develop "rigor mortis" (literally "stiffness of death") and the meat is less
tender.  Both pounding, and aging, can undo that stiffness, aging and
hanging being the more successful.

Some of the things our ancestors did with food, we would not consider.  But
eating rotten meat is not one of them.  (Eating live animals, on the other
hand...)

	Tibor