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

[Charles Dean]

Hi all,
This posting prompted me to expound a pet theory of mine.

> But more crucially: what makes you think that medieval dishes were heavily 
> spiced?
> 
> Every study I've seen that purports to support that conclusion does so
> by looking at household accounts, and distributing total spice purchases
> over kitchen purchases.  But that's nonsense, for four separate reasons.  
> First, spices were also used in the bakery and brewery.  Second, spices
> (especially salt and pepper) were used in preserving -- and soaked out
> before eating.  Third, whole spices were sometimes burned on the fire for 
> scent.  Fourth, food that comes in as local produce or as rents will not 
> appear in the purchases, but constitutes a large part of what was eaten
> in non-urban upper class settings.
> 
> Every study that actually looks at the spices used for a particualr meal
> and the food in it reaches the opposite conclusion: that medieval spicing
> was not particualrly heavy handed.

Warning Charles' pet theory on spices follows:

I believe that medieval cooks did use more, in quantity, of spices in
dishes than we do today. There is good evidence that their spice
consumption was higher that is now current by volume. We do have some
recipes that give spice quantities that seem excessive to our modern
tastes. I also believe that our cooking ancestors had a very similar
palette to our modern one, in what was an acceptable amount of spicing. 

Two factors are also not taken into account when looking at medieval
spicing. Firstly most of the spices we taste today have had 400+ years
of plant breeding to make them taste stronger. You can see shifts in
amounts of spices called for in recipes between Mrs Beaton's cooking
book and modern versions, a much smaller period than 1200 to today.
Secondly medieval spices were (often) transported over large distances,
often for more than a year. In most cases they were kept in non-air
tight containers. Most spices loose flavour when exposed to air.
Spices were often stored longer then as is done currently as supply
was more infrequent or spasmodic. Given the above reasons it is
reasonable to assume that the spices available to the medieval cook
had considerably less flavour than the modern versions that we are
using for comparison.

If you accept my premsies above then end the result is that our
medeival cook could produce a result in flavour intensity that was little
different to the effects we create today in modern cooking but using
more in quanity of spice to achieve it. I am assuming that is is far more
likely that spice flavour intensity varied rather than some sort
of genetic shift changed our modern palatte from our medieval ancestors.


Charles

- ---------------------------------------------------------
Charles Dean    charles at macquarie.matra.com.au
Matra Internetworks - Internet service providers.
Ph (06) 251 6730  Fax (06) 253 4840
PO BOX 714, Jamison Centre, ACT 2614 AUSTRALIA
- ---------------------------------------------------------