SC - Re: SC dried squid

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Ras wrote:
>In a message dated 9/15/00 3:57:33 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
>olwentheodd at hotmail.com writes:
>>  Pure speculation on my part, but has any consideration been given to the
>  > idea that dried meat products may be found in early Spanish or 
>Arab writings?
>
>Not that I am aware of. Remember that both European and Middle Eastern
>cultures were highly developed cultures and well advanced from the subsistent
>cultures that flourished thousands of years before. I think our biggest
>mistake in using 'conjecture' to rationalize period practices is thinking of
>them as primitive. They were no more primitive than we are.

Well in the Maghrib, out in the bled, rather than in the urbs, things 
were a bit rougher and more precarious. Far from the sea, very few 
rivers, dry, arid countryside. Yes, things could be primitive if you 
were a Berber semi-nomadic herder or even the inhabitant of a dry and 
dusty town in the southern mountains of the Maghrib.

Chances are good, however, that this isn't the sort of food eaten by 
the well-to-do in the cities, and so might not make it into cookbooks.

>  > Seems to me as if those areas would  >have had sufficient sun to dry meat.
>
>Probably. But why bother? Meat was abundant in the markets and fresh daily.
>Salt preservation was known and used. As was preservation in honey. Either of
>those methods is infinitely preferable over drying.
>
>Fruits were dried, yes. And in northern climes, fish, Meat is doubtful.

The Near East is not just one big expanse of well-stocked 
sophisticated urban environment. There are plenty of harsh dry 
environments, too, with limited availability of foodstuffs. I realize 
i have no documentation, I can only argue that it is possible.

After all, here in the US we certainly have meat in abundance and 
fresh daily, yet there are people who dry and smoke food regularly.

In Indonesia they even make dried seasoned thinly sliced meat. It 
looks a lot like jerky, but it isn't eaten like jerky. It's cooked in 
a sauce to rehydrate and tenderize it somewhat. I brought a bunch 
back with me when i returned to the US. Probably violated some laws. 
I miss it. I also brought back a bunch of strange little Indonesian 
cookbooks, but there wasn't a recipe for making it in any of them. It 
was seasoned with sugar, salt, hot chilis, and other spices.

And it was a neat trick to make it, too, considering that it rains 
almost every day. But in between moments of rain it's very sunny. 
Families have frames covered with screening or netting up on the 
roof, pulling it in if it begins to rain. They do this because so few 
people have refrigeration in 20th century Indonesia, something they 
certainly lacked in the Medieval Near East.

The level of "civilization" of a culture does not preclude the making 
of dried or smoked or salted or otherwise preserved meat, fish, or 
other products.

Oh, and the sophisticated civilized Japanese have a long history of 
making, not only an incredibly wide array of pickles, but also a 
number of dried foods. And most of Japan is not particularly harsh 
environmentally.

Anahita al-shazhiyya
speaking purely speculatively, of course