SC - potted meat

[Stefan li Rous]

> potted meat, in my childhood was any of a variety of processed canned meat 
> products.  In this  category could be such favorites as Underwood's Deviled 
> Ham and other varieties, SPAM, canned  corned beef.  Basically cooked and 
> sealed in a tin.  You could serve it at the Y3K dinner ;o)
> 
> niccolo difrancesco

> I have never heard that term before, what is potted meat?
> 
>         Angeline

The period or at least near-period description of potted meat is a little bit
different than this, although there are some simularities.

The best referance I can recommend is: "Waste Not, Want Not" in the Food
and Society series, edited by C. Anne Wilson. 1991, Edinburgh University Press.
ISBN 0 7486 0119 8.

Chapter 3  is: Pots for potting: English  Pottery and its Role in Food
Preservation in the Post-medieval Period by Peter Brears.

Basically he describes the progression from pasties and pies to preserving
food especially meat and fish by sealing them in airtight containers.

"In the late fifteenth century, ... this country's pottery industry entered
a period of prolonged expansion... So useful were these new eathenwares that
by 1569 the term 'potting' had been adopted to describe the whole process.

He then describes the making of pies, as we have discussed here previously,
the top is then punctured and butter poured in.

Apparently early on it was common to cook the meat in the earthen crock,
let it cool and then pour in the butter. It seems to have taken a while
(about sixty years from my previous reading of this. I can't find it right
now) for them to realize that it was much better to pour in the butter and
seal out the air while the meat was still hot.

There is also a mention of potting meat and fish in butter in the previous
chapter (p22).

I seem to remember that at first the meat was just put in the pot and
covered with butter. Later on it was found to be better to shred the meat
up first before pouring in the butter rather than leaving it in larger
chunks.

Peter Brears gives a lot more dates for the 17th and 18th century stuff
than he does the earlier stuff. So I've had some trouble determining
exactly which practices were done prior to 1600 and which weren't.

For those interested in period food preservation techniques I highly
recommend this book even though a large part of it deals with the
time periods after the ones we study.

- -- 
Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
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