SC - Medieval spice use vs. bad

[Mark Harris]

Last Wed., Oct 1, Aine of Wyvernwood said:

>>>>>>
although I have no basis in fact, I would sort like to dispute that...you seem to
forget that refrigeration was not in existance until this century.
I have cookbooks from the last century... foods may have not been ''highly
spiced'' - and that depends on one's definition of spiced - but spices were used
frequently to hide the tast of food that was in the process of spoiling.
<<<<<<<<

Argh. In the short life of this list, the question of medieval foods being over spiced
to cover the taste of spoiling food has come up at least twice.

Since this was last discussed here, I have added this file to the FOOD section of
Stefan's Florilegium:
spice-use-art     (18K)  6/ 9/97    ÒThe Question of Heavy Spice Use and Rotten 
                                       FoodÓ by Lord Xaviar the Eccentric.

I think this article gives a good summary of the case against spices being used to
cover the taste of bad food in medieval times.

My files can be found at:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/rialto/rialto.html

Stefan li Rous
markh at risc.sps.mot.com


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