SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #1880

[ChannonM@aol.com]

I wrote the following letter to the editor of the foods column in which this 
aticle was printed.

<<Subj: Response to Vintage Cookbooks article from Jan 6, 2000
Date:   2/7/2000 6:15:49 PM Eastern Standard Time
From:   Bronwynmgn
To: smartinson at post-gazette.com, Bronwynmgn

Dear Ms. Martinson,
    I recently was shown a copy of the article "Vintage Cookbooks: Average 
peasant's diet in Y1K marked the gastronomic dark ages", by Alice Demetrius 
Stock, which your paper ran on Jan 6, 2000.  I must say that I was extremely 
disappointed with the article.
     I have been studying medieval cooking for the last five years.  It is 
not uncommon for newspaper articles and television shows on this subject to 
sensationalize the subject and to impart incorrect information, but I must 
say that this is the worst example of this problem that I have ever seen.  I 
do not know where Ms. Stock got her information for this article; it 
certainly did not all come from the book she cites at the end of the article (
Fabulous Feasts, by Madeline Pelner Cosman).  I have just reread this book 
and some of the items that Ms. Stock asserts in her article, such as the lack 
of leavened bread, the scarcity of cooking implements, and the lack of ovens, 
are quite clearly stated differently in the book.  The techniques of 
leavening bread with both yeast and ale barm were known; the oven existed in 
much the same form as the colonial oven (and is shown in numerous medieval 
illustration reprinted in the book); and Ms. Cosman clearly describes a wide 
variety of cooking utensils including various pots and pans, specialized 
varieties of knives, skimmers, slotted spoons, and even balances to weigh 
appropriate quantities of ingredients, from tiny amounts of spices to large 
cuts of meat. Other reading I have done indicates that, contrary to Ms. 
Stock's assertions that everyone's teeth were worn down to painful stubs, 
archaeological evidence shows that teeth were often in better shape than many 
of today's examples, probably due to the much lower level of sugar in the 
diet.
     In short, I find that very little of Ms. Stock's information on this 
subject is accurate.  There is quite a lot of information on this topic 
available on both the web and in books and other printed sources.  Ms. Stock 
apparently did not use it, or used only poorly researched sources.  In fact, F
abulous Feasts is not a book I would recommend as a good example of a modern 
version of a medieval cookbook, as Ms. Cosman does not give any original 
recipes or even the sources of her recipes, so that it is nearly impossible 
to determine if she has followed the medieval recipes accurately.  I have 
been able to locate one recipe which she appears to have used as a source; 
the original manuscript calls for a thick soup of herbs and leafy greens, but 
Ms.Cosman's version is a dish of beetroots in an herbed sauce.  Ms. Cosman's 
general information on feasting and ceremony, however, appears to be much 
more accurate and is heavily footnoted to primary sources; therefore I 
believe that the statements in this section of the book are generally 
accurate - and they contradict Ms. Stock's assertions in her article.  In 
fact, Ms. Stock contradicts herself; she says in the first portion of one 
sentence that they did not have spinach, but in the second section that they 
did.  The second section is correct.
     I am highly disappointed that an article with so little factually 
correct information should have been run in any form of media which is seen 
by the public and taken as accurate.  The article was shown to me at a class 
I was teaching on medieval foods and cooking; the students ate baked pies of 
chicken and bacon, ground meats with fruit and spices, and an egg quiche; 
shrimp; roast beef with sauces; gingerbread; and a form of cherry bread 
pudding, all made from recipes found in documents dated from the 13th through 
the fifteenth centuries.  Your readers would not believe that such dishes 
existed based on the article by Ms. Stock.

The following is the response I received from the author, who appears to be 
convinced that she is in the right with this.

<<Thank you for your comments about my Jan. 6, 2000 article, "Average
Peasant's Diet in Y1K Marked the Gastronomic Dark Ages."

I apologize for the typographical error about spinach that does contradict
itself. We saw it too late to correct it before it went to print.

I'm sure you're aware that the "Middle Ages" is a rather meaningless term
for a scheme of history that attempts to define certain periods within a
limited framework of time. For example, while children are taught that the
Middle Ages extended from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance
(from about 500 A.D. to about 1,500 A.D.), historians have never been able
to agree on the actual dates. Did Rome fall in 250 or 410 or 475?  And when
exactly did the Renaissance begin?
In any case, the term "Middle Ages" encompasses at least 1,000 years. 
During that time, while there were small advances in every aspect of culture
and knowledge, peasants in the northwestern part of Europe and in Britain,
didn't advance as fast as people closer to classical influences  in southern
Europe -- even after the Renaissance began.

My Jan. 6 article is about what life and food was like for the majority of
Europeans in 1000. 
You write that your students' dishes are "all made from recipes found in
documents dated from the 13th through the 15th centuries. Your readers would
not believe that such dishes existed based on the article by Ms. Stock."  

Indeed, Ms. Thompson, the made dishes you describe did not exist for
Europeans in 1000. 
This is the age of Beowulf; not Henry VIII. There wasn't even the beginning
of a civilizing Norman influence in Britain, after the Romans left, until
1066. The First Crusade, that brought  spices to Europe, didn't happen until
1096. 
There is always some carryover, of course, but in general it's absurd to
expect any  culture's food history, in any  year, to be exactly like its
food history 300 or 500 years later.

People have been eating eggs from the beginning of time and they were an
important source of protein in 1000, as they are today. As far as I've been
able to ascertain, there were no "cookbooks"  available to peasants of
northern Europe around Y1K. So, I went a bit forward in history for an
actual egg recipe. 
The Cosman citation relates only to the recipe and not to the article, which
incorporated a variety of sources too numerous to list in the paper.
Nowhere do I describe or recommend "Fabulous Feasts," as you say, "as a
modern version of a medieval cookbook." I found it an interesting read and
hoped our readers would, too. 

You don't mention what your sources are, but I hope you will find the
following ones, that I used, interesting:

For information on calendars, "Encyclopaedia Britannica," vol. 4; for middle
ages, vol. 13.

For world chronology, "Cambridge Fact Finder," David Crystal, ed.

For descriptions of peasants in Y1K; particularly the question of (some; not
all) teeth being worn to stumps see "Ottawa citizen, Dec. 5, 1999 quoting
University of Alaska-Fairbanks anthropologist, Joel Irish and Memorial
University of Newfoundland archeologist, Peter Pope.

For life and culture in Y1K see "U.S. News & World Report," Aug. 16, 1999,
Lewis Lord et al.

For a second, back-up source on the estimation of statistics on life
expectancy of Y1K peasants, "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;
Professor H.H. Binstock, based on U.S. Census Bureau.

See also:
    "The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the first
Millennium," Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger, Little, Brown & Co.
    "A World Lit Only by Fire," William Manchester.
    "Food in History," Reay Tannahill, 1988.
    "Horizon Cookbook, an Illustrated History of Eating and Drinking
Through the Ages."
    "The Festive Board," Thurston Macauley, 1932.
    "Tales of the Table" a History of Western Cuisine," Barbara Norman,
Prentice Hall, 1972.

    Yours truly,
    Alice Demetrius Stock