SC - illusion foods

[Stefan li Rous]

- --- CBlackwill at aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 4/21/00 10:45:23 AM Pacific
> Daylight Time, 
> Seton1355 at aol.com writes:
> 
> > 
> >   We do the same sort of things today, just from a
> different point of view.
> >   How many of us enjoy a cold beer with a bowl of
> hot chili? Or a dry red 
> > wine
> >   with a beef roast? As good as that tastes to us,
> a Medieval person might
> >   well have wanted a different, sweeter wine, to
> balance the perceived hot,
> >   dry nature of mature beef.
> >   
> 
> Granted.  But where is the problem with substituting
> one hot/dry ingredient 
> for another?  How about pork for beef, or duck for
> chicken?  We all know 
> these items are period, right?
> 
> Balthazar of Blackmoor?

Balthazar,

I think that you need to find a copy of "A Medievel
Health Handbook" or "The Four Seasons in the House of
Cerutti."

I am not at home at the moment, so I don't have access
to my copies.  However, in these, certain foods are
listed by their humors and their uses.  These are
actually more of a medical text than a cookbook, but
they still give us a look into the thinking of that
time.  

What I am trying to say is if you looked up chickens
and ducks in these books, you might find that chickens
are hot and dry and that ducks are cold and moist.  I
am just guessing at this.  If they don't have the same
humors, then they are not likely to be used
interchangably by a medieval cook.  And just because
both are fowl, does mean that they were perceived as
being the same thing.  If they were both considered
hot and dry or cold and moist, then, and only then,
they might have been used interchangably.  

Huette

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send online invitations with Yahoo! Invites.
http://invites.yahoo.com