SC - Kvass.

[melc2newton@juno.com]

Niccolo,

Thank you very much for responding to my post. I am somewhat fascinated by
the bodily differences between "then and now". Not too sure why but it has
always intriqued me.

I heard something the other day that really really hit me like a ton of
bricks. I was told (by a reasonable source) that the stature of middle ages
man was not different than today. ie. they were not shorter than we were!
After viewing the Austrian Armour Exhibit at the museum a couple of years
ago this, I 'm sure you can understand, totally confused me.  Any thoughts?

At any rate, many thanks again and I am responding to a few of your points.

**********************************


>1)  I read the posts along this thread, and seem to see a confusion of
>terms growing as it does each time this thread comes up.  Rancid and
>spoiled are different from aged and a little off.  Rancid/spoiled seems
>very definitely to imply rotten, while old or a little off imply a whole other
>degree.  Aged meet has a tanginess and intensity of flavor that is
>sought by some factions (including myself) and abhorred by others,
>while rancid meat will make your body repulse and purge (unless you
>have survived to acclimate your body to rotten animal flesh?).  If the
>affore mentioned family regularly ate ROTTEN flesh, they are stronger
>men than I will ever be!!

You are absolutely right. I should have made that distinction myself.


>Covering sightly tainted meat, the stuff that just started to get that film on
>it and has a bit of 'aroma', with herbs and spices (salts would kill the
>beasties and prevent further spoilage--heat may destroy some of the
>toxins) could be effective, but there is no covering the stench or flavor
>of full blown rancid meat that I can come up with.  Experimented with it
>last month without tasting it.......no dice.  Let a small piece of chicken or
>beef sit on a counter for two weeks.  Put it in a ziplock, please!!  See if
>you can even force your mind even to consider spicing to 'hide the
>rancidness'.  Please let me know how you turn out.

Not in a million years! If I wouldn't do it in Mexico I wont do it here.
I'll just take your word on it. I have had food poisoning from meat a couple
of times (not at my hand) and I don't wish to repeat the expereince.

>2)  The handling of meat and dsiparagement of laws statements are
>probably true to my estimation.  The use of anecdotal supposition like
>this to characterize an entire era may be overgeneralizing.  When
>describing the practices of a region or time block, we have to stay with
>the majority or most common practice.  To generalize to the middle ages
>from personal annecdote, granted their validity and irrefutability, goes
>beyond logical scope as well.

Yes



>4) "The time line thingy, conditions back a few hundred years and the
>fact that there were not new and improved killer diseases makes for a
>completely different resistance system."..................Two words came to
>mind:  Black Plague.  There were Lots of horrible diseases ravishing
>Europe for many years, centuries, even (leprosy also comes to mind). 
>They certainly had different immune systems.  They also had a different
>sense of paranoia in many places about the plague and other
>epidemics.  The fact that they did not have microscopes and agar to
>study the microbes of the day does not mean they did not have
>pneumonia, chickenpox, or even AIDS.  We do know they had many
>diseases, and people contracted them and people died from them.  

What I meant by that statement was not that they didn't have these nasties
around, just that they MAY have been able to bodily cope with them better
than say, someone from our sterile environment. As I also said, this is not
my genre but do find it interesting.

Thats about all I have to say now but am willing to discourse on this
further as I am anxious to learn more on this subject.

Micaylah

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