SC - Quantities of salt and spices used.

[LrdRas at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/31/99 10:04:44 PM Eastern Standard Time,
mlegge at dph.uwa.edu.au writes:

<< What I would like to clear up is whether this heavy use of flavourings was
 an every day occurrance or if it was just to impress visitors/guests? >>

I would say it was more likely the result of someone who doesn't have a clue
about cooking mistakenly preparing what they thought  medieval food was like.
Although medieval cooking used a lot of different spices in certain dishes,
they did not use a large quantity of them. Certainly the variety of seasonings
was no greater than we use in the current middle ages in the preparation of
things like spaghetti sauces, ketchups, stuffings and many other dishes. Bad
cooking is bad cooking the world over. 

<<The other way of thinking of this might be to ask whether the recipies that
 survived for us to read and interpret were the "special" ones, with the
 others being so routine that the cooks of the time did not think it was
 necessary to commit them to paper?>>

I can accept this to a point but don't forget that the foods that we are
trying to recreate are not those that were eaten by the peasants but rather
those eaten by nobility and persons of some means. They are also foods which
were usually prepared and eaten at major social functions rather than everyday
fare.
 
 <<Just thinking out loud. >>

Thinking is good. :-)

Ras
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