SC - Spicing

[Philip W. Troy]

Uduido at aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 97-04-15 20:07:26 EDT, you write:
> 
> <<  I quite understand growing up using what
>  > to some would be "heavy handed" spicing,  >>
> 
> Where did this idea that period foods are heavily spiced come from? India,
> the Middle East, Thailand, Africa and many cultures use LOTS of spices but I
> would not term it's use as heavy handed. The inclusion of lots of different
> spices in a period recipe does not necessarily lend to the idea that they
> were used heavy handedly. What is the source of this, IMHO, eroneous belief?
> Any help would be welcome.
> 
> Lord Ras (Uduido at aol.com)

I wonder if this is a Victorian concept. There was a sort of
neo-medievalism craze going on (Tennyson, etc.). The British had just
been re-introduced to the cuisines of the East in the previous century,
which cuisines they often viewed with some suspicion.

In a Victorian re-examination of something like The Forme of Cury,  they
would have encountered recipes which occasionally mentioned numerous (to
them, anyway) spices, some of which were comparatively alien to a
distinctly salt-and-pepper majority. Never mind the possibility that not
all of the spices mentioned in a given recipe are seriously expected to
be used.But then, we've gone into that pretty exhaustively in the recent
past, so I don't want to go there again.

Suffice it to say that there may have been a perceived kinship between
the cuisines of medieval Europe and the dreaded food of the "wogs". My
apologies for the use of a somewhat offensive derogatory term; it is
believed by some to be an acronym for "Wily Oriental Gentleman", and I
include it only to represent the level of inherent distrust that
probably existed on some levels. Probably pretty embarrassing for good
subjects of Her Majesty to discover such a skeleton in the cupboard.

There are other possibilities. There's a famous monologue in a play by,
I think, Terence, in which a cook disparages the habit of using
overpowering seasonings. I think there is an eighteenth-century satire
of a Roman feast (Goldsmith?) which goes in a similar vein.

These last are, of course, comments on late classical Roman cooking, but
there may have been a carryover of suspicions.

Last, but not least, I could give you a simple, "I dunno", which might
be closest to the truth. If you find out, let me know, please.

Adamantius