SC - spicy subject

[Brian L. Rygg or Laura Barbee-Rygg]

Brendan (Raoghnailt-the-cook's other half) here.
Mordonna did write [& I did snip]:

> let's see if I can start a good passionate discussion or two (since the
list
> has been so dead lately<EG>)

> 2. Why do a lot of people say that medieval food was heavily overspiced?
> Isn't it just possible that medieval palates had not been polluted by
tobacco
> or industrial pollutants, so they would appreciate more subtle flavoring
than
> we moderns would?

    While tobacco & other pollutants <EG of my own> may have their place in
the equation, I'd place more emphasis on the homogenized U.S. diet --
relatively bland, with flavoring primarily from sugars and salts.  [I'm part
of the masses here, as my Lady will attest: good old Oscar Mayer all-meat
bologna, Kraft American cheese-food slice and Miracle Whip on nutritionally
vapid white bread; and outside of the SCA I'm not overly inclined to be
adventurous in food selection.  Within the SCA I'll eat (and even enjoy)
foods I woudn't in other contexts (Raoghnailt's spinach tart, for example)
but still have my own picky preferences -- I dislike pickled whatevers, find
mushrooms a waste of space, and simply don't like fish (unless they're
fishsticks).]

    As has been noted in recent attempts to clarify that period does not
equal indigestible, medieval is a cuisine (or group of cuisines), like any
number of "foreign" cuisines.  And when you introduce a newbie to a
particular cuisine, foreign or otherwise, what will stand out for that
person about the food will often be the spices.  My (very much layman's)
concept of differing Chinese cuisines, for example, is that some are more
spicy/"hot" (by homogenized American standards) than others.  I'll even
venture so far as to say that it is the spicing (which and how much) that
largely defines a cuisine, more so than other ingredients.  [Thought
experiment: Send a flock of emu and a crop of potatoes back to a medieval
England cook; the resulting meal, I wager, will be far more
medieval-tasting, and agreeable-on-first-reaction to medieval England
feasters expecting the norm, than will a meal prepared using period meat &
veggies but spiced to modern American -- or modern (or period) Chinese,
say -- standards.]

    And no, I'm not claiming anything so silly as that the sense of taste
(as in tastebuds) has radically changed since the Middle Ages, but clearly
tastes -- a matter of culture -- do change over time (and community).  Of
course, we have an advantage over that hypothetical band of medieval diners
confronted with an oddly (to them, not us) spiced meal.  THEY aren't in a
Society that seeks to re-create meals as they are going to be prepared
hundreds of years later.  They don't expect the unexpected [OR the Spanish
Inqui- . . . never mind :-)> ].  Coming into an SCA feast, though, we do --
or certainly should -- expect something different from our daily fare, just
as we would/should when entering a fancy French restaurant.  That
preparedness, and willingness, to try something different doesn't mean we
won't  *notice*  any difference, of course -- and again, I believe the
spicing is a primary difference.

    Part of the "overspicing" myth in the Society, then, is, I suspect, due
to the mental exaggeration of that spice  _difference_  by mainstream,
bland-diet Americans.  And if one of the first feasts a new SCAdian
encounters -- prepared, say, by an inexperienced cook, who might even
believe the myth him/herself -- actually  *is*  over-heavy on a particular
spice (or even if just one dish is), that exaggeration can be multiplied
manifold.

    All that aside, however, I actually have ANOTHER, pet theory for one
cause of the overspicing myth, since we know of course that it is not
limited to SCA circles:
    (1) Despite the heavy use of sodium in prepared foods, modern Americans
by and large think of salt not as a preservative, but as a flavoring
agent -- in short, as a spice.
    (2) Modern Americans, by and large, think of "fresh" meat as good,
edible meat, as opposed to old, rotten, spoiled meat (in either case, it's
wrapped in plastic and styrofoam) -- not as "fresh" as opposed to
"preserved."  [Processed meats, including Spam and m-m-m-my bologna, for
whatever reason simply aren't what comes to mind as the opposite of fresh
meat.]
    SO . . .  modern American reads that in the Middle Ages, when people
didn't have fresh meat they ate salted meat, or that their meat was either
fresh or salted.  In the reader's mind -- or in the process of passing along
this information to another modern American -- this becomes translated.  Not
fresh = spoiled, salted = spiced; therefore, when medieval people didn't
have fresh meat, they spiced up the spoiled meat.
    You now have the basic ingredients for any good Urban Legend: a weird
statement ("In medieval times, food was very heavily spiced") "backed up" by
a pseudo-plausible explanation ("This was to cover up the taste of spoiled
meat").  Even when an Urban Legend has one discrete, documentable origin, it
can propagate amazingly; combine that ability with fact that this (possible)
origin of this one can be repeated independently many times.

    Just the 2 cents' worth & perspective of a word-smith. . . .

Brendan Pilgrim                       poet, rogue, scholar, and foole
http://come.to/your.pilgrim       rygbee(at)montana(dot)com
          Cognitio et Cogitatio Vitae Pennas Dant
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