SC - SC Retard vs Spoil: was Spice, Spicey, and Spicier

[Maryann Olson]

Good Folk, please forgive me for not making myself better understood.  I am
well aware that spices were not used to cover up spoiled food being served
in history.  Mordonna understood me correctly when she wrote, "Not what was
observed at all.  The authors noted that such spices retard spoilage, not
cover it up."  Thank you, Mordonna, for clarifying what I was asking.

One reason for my interest is my own modern experience.  I was raised in
northern Arizona, 7,500 feet altitude, at the foot of the San Francisco
Peaks, 12,000 feet altitude.  When I arrived in southern California and was
warned not to carry foods with certain ingredients in hot weather, because
they would hasten spoilage, I was surprised.  I figured it was something
like the differences in baking at low altitudes and high altitudes.  It was
something I had never concerned myself about, since our temperatures seldom
reached 80 degrees F.

Gertraud    
* * *
(Earlier comments noted in order received below.)

Maryann Olson wrote:
 
 3) My curiosity wonders if the "myth" that medieval food was spiced to
cover spoilage is related to the realities of keeping things edible faced by
different cultures in different climates.
        Any thoughts on this?

* * *
Ras responded: 
        Regarding your observations about spices used to cover up tainted
food. That observation is a hold over from Victorian thinking where variety
of spices used in medieval cuisine was mistakenly thought to mean that a
large quantity was used. Any quick look at household accounts from the
middle ages and a few basic computations later , you will see that the
amounts of spices used were not much more than those used now in a household
that doesn't depend on the preprocessed cardboard garbage available  at
supermarkets and fast food stands everywhere.. 

* * * 
Adamantius responded:
        I'm thinking that if the problem you speak of did exist, that might be
one solution to it, but the evidence seems to indicate it didn't, so no
such solution was likely to have been needed.
        We have enough information about how and when meat animals were
slaughtered, how meat was preserved and stored, and the occasions and
season when meat was not eaten in most of period Europe to show that
there wasn't a whole heck of a lot of spoiled meat to be disguised,
especially when fresh meat was cheaper than the pepper it would take to
cover the taste of the spoiled meat.
        The myth makes no economic sense. If you think in terms of, say, the
problem of loaves of bread getting moldy, you can either go to extreme
measures to disguise or remove the mold, or you can buy a fresh loaf,
but what is most important is that the _baker_ realize the loaves are
moving too slowly, and he should bake fewer.

* * *
Mordonna responded:
Then Ras said:
Regarding your observations about spices used to cover up tainted food. 
        Not what was observed at all.  The authors noted that such spices retard
spoilage, not cover it up.  

Mordonna

* * *

To which Mordonna responded:
        In a message dated 2/16/99 6:47:47 PM US Mountain Standard Time,
maryann.olson at csun.edu writes:
        They also note that "Hot spices inhibit 75-100 percent of the
food-spoilage bacteria against which they were tested, bacteria that are far
more prevalent in hot regions.  Also, hot spices cool people down by making
them sweat."
        Then Ras said:
                Regarding your observations about spices used 
        to cover up tainted food.

        Then Mordonna said:
                Not what was observed at all.  The authors noted 
        that such spices retard

        To which Adamantius responded:
        In fairness, while the authors of the study and article didn't refer to
spices being used to cover up tainted food, the observation was made,
for practical purposes, by a postor to the list, and I believe that was
what Ras was referring to.

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