SC - I am So Ashamed! (long)

[Christine A Seelye-King]

sca-cooks at ansteorra.org wrote:
<<<<Well, no, I don't think we need to be worried if we are noble or not (although, yes, I get your point, we assume everyone is noble birth in SCA), because even the idea that the peasants didn't grow spices, is a little weird. They carried indoors pots of growing things for over the winter months (you see it in some of the interior home woodcuts of the renn era) and they had root cellars for holding vegees for next years planting and such. One of the ladies in my barony researched and found that there are instances when the spices were dried (many grew wild, too) and hung, and then stored in little fabric bags hanging off a wall--medieval spice cabinet so to speak. 
So, I think this assertion by the reviewer, of what the cookbook author said, is just erroneous on **someone's** part. If the author is basing it on the Hollywood ideal of people grubbing in the dirt in 900 AD, then they are mistaken. I was surprised in my latest classes to learn about all the mechanical technology that existed from 900 on for kitchen work/duties. And as my Baron pointed out, "Period does not equate with Primative".  >>>>>>>>

While less technologically enhanced than we, I suspect that the medieval cooks were more intimately familiar with their foodstuffs and seasonal freshness.

As to peasants growing spices and drying them in woodcuts:  I suspect you miught be confusing spices and herbs.  Herbs are generally leaves and stems of sub-tropical plants while spices are generally tropical in nature.  There is some crossover likely, but we should probably clarify what was being grown and dried.  If Black Pepper would have grown in southern France, I bet money they would have tried it.  Same with other spices continually imported from South and East.

niccolo difrancesco