SC - Re: SCA myths

[Stephen Bloch]

Adamantius quoted someone on the SCA-ARTS list.  For the most part, I
agree with what Adamantius says, so I've snipped it.  Here are some
further comments:

> > Because of the spoilage speed, meat of all kinds was eaten
> > the same day it was slaughtered. Mundanely, we prefer ours to have a
> > slightly "aged" (spelled 'controlled spoilage') flavor. Theirs would taste
> > "gamey" by comparison.

Adamantius, since you know more about meats than many of us, could
you comment on this particular point?

> >  Common preservation technique was by salting, a
> > process which normally required a minimum of three days of soaking in fresh
> > water changed every six hours to remove the salt. Even still, it was overly
> > salty.

I can imagine finding textual support for the first sentence, although
I'm not sure I've actually seen it.  The second sentence, it seems to me,
could be supported only through experiment, and then would be subject
to the criticism that one might have done the salting and/or rinsing
incorrectly.

> > The added spice
> > *would* cover that flavor, but would not cover what even we consider as
> > spoiled. Second, the spices acted to balance the heavy flavor of the
> > preserving salt. Hence the proliferation of fruited meats. Sugars help
> > molify the salt taste, and fruits were the major source of sugar available.

I think the "proliferation of fruited meats" is more due to _Fabulous
Feasts_ than to any medieval dietary habit.  Yes, currants often appear
in the same recipe with pork.  But then, apples often appear with pork,
and pineapple with ham, in modern cooking.  I think Madeleine Pelner
Cosman saw a few recipes calling for fruit where she didn't expect it,
and exaggerated the difference tenfold.

> > Vegetables were ALWAYS cooked, generally boiled, and usually overdone by our
> > standards. Instead of potatoes, they ate turnips. They salt preserved their
> > vegetables too, in the manner of pickling. Even their grains were boiled for
> > eating, flavored with a touch of salt and maybe some butter.
> 
> False. Which I could be more diplomatic about this, but I can't. Some
> vegetables were often eaten raw. It's just that no sensible cook bothers
> to write down a recipe for carrot sticks....

Although I consider it quite likely that "some vegetables were often
eaten raw" (and fruits, for that matter, although medieval medical books
seem to consider both unhealthy), and that the "recipes" were too simple
to write down, I wonder what evidence we DO have for the practice.

> > All in all, a very drab, mostly flavorless *daily* cuisine. The wonderful
> > sauces of the french, like so many other items in our society, came very
> > late in period or just out of it.
> 
> 'Scuse me while I wipe some foam away from my mouth...there's a
> wonderful Irish proverb which says that hunger makes the best sauce. I
> suspect the author of the above paragraph has never been hungry, and
> furthermore, for someone who was previously touting the virtues of
> freshness, and how different many medieval foods were from their modern
> equivalents, seems remarkably ignorant of what can be done with a little
> coarse salt and a dab of real butter.   

I would add that we DO have surviving recipes for lots of interesting
sauces (real sauces, not hunger or freshness) from the 14th and 15th
centuries.  Before that, we don't have many surviving recipes for
ANYTHING (at least in Christian Europe), so we can conclude neither the
existence nor the nonexistence of interesting sauces.

> > The fruit dishes were all highly seasonal
> > and thus more of a treat than expected. And of course, the church placed
> > some highly restrictive laws on what could be eaten at what time of year as
> > well.

Fresh fruit is highly seasonal.  Dried fruit is not.  Hence quince
pastes and all those recipes calling for raysons of Corance.  As for the
church dietary laws, it's not clear that those ever prevented anybody
from serving flavorful food -- just not food containing meat (or
whatever this particular day forbade).

> > The rule I use for my cooking is: Raise the lowest level of knowledge by
> > teaching while utilizing the "CREATIVE" aspect of the SCA to ensure
> > enjoyment by the greatest number.  Same with my bardic work. I do Beowulf in
> > the original old english, but no one understands what I am saying. Its
> > period, its correct, but you won't enjoy it unless *I* make it enjoyable for
> > you. And for that, I must provide a translation into a more modern idea of
> > taste...er, the english language.

A few years ago Benjamin Bagby (of the early music group Sequentia) was
doing a solo tour in which he recited a large portion of Beowulf, in the
original, accompanying himself on the harp.  I didn't get to see the
show, alas, but I've seen him do songs in medieval German, and was most
impressed at how well he can communicate in a language most of his
audience don't know.  Then again, not all of us can be Ben Bagby....

> ... the old line about how we couldn't handle the extreme periodicity
> of someone's cooking, so any attempt is a waste, and by the way: It's
> All Our Fault!

By the way, for those of us in mathematics, "periodicity" really does mean
something repeating itself regularly.  Sorta like this argument :-)

					mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib
                                                 Stephen Bloch
                                           sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu
					 http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/
                                        Math/CS Dept, Adelphi University
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