sca-cooks Re: Spice Use and Food Poisoning, etc.

[Lenny Zimmermann]

I did want to throw in a small note on the "heavy handed" use of
spicing, especially as might have been regarded for the "covering the
flavor of tainted meat". A good accounting of how any individual
researcher would interpret quantities and types of spices used in a
recipe as "heavy handed" would have to take into account the types of
food that researcher is used to eating modernly.

Ask someone very used to eating blander British Pub foods and compare
their answer to someone from a place like New Orleans, where we use a
great deal and variety of spices, and you will probably receive two
very different answers on what constitutes "heavy handed" spicing.
Indeed, should we say that since folks from Southern Louisiana use a
larger than "average" (in my experience) quantity and variety of
spices that they also use those spices for covering the flavors of
tainted foods? I can tell you their response would be "Of course not!
We add spices to enhance and color the flavor, texture and visual
appeal of our foods. After all, food is an art in itself for all the
senses!"

So I think it quite likely that covering the flavors of bad foods
would not be a primary concern for the use of any large amount of
spicing. (Then again, see my bias compared above as I am originally
from New Orleans. :))


Lenny Zimmermann
zarlor at acm.org