SC - jerky documentation?
Robin Carroll-Mann
harper at idt.net
Fri Sep 15 21:12:36 PDT 2000
And it came to pass on 15 Sep 00,, that Wajdi wrote:
> 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? Seems to me as if those areas would
> have had sufficient sun to dry meat.
Dunno. I've seen recipes that use air-dried fish: hake and conger eel.
There's a 1553 Spanish treatise on the benefits of physical exercise that
mentions "tasajos", which the Royal Spanish dictionary says is meat
that has been preserved by drying and salting it, or in oil.
http://www.uida.es/mendez/portada.html
So I searched for "tasajos" at google.com, and found a link to a page
about food in Don Quixote. (Okay, so I'm obsessive. Everyone needs a
hobby.) http://www.jimena.com/cocina/apartados/quijote.htm
It gives a quote from the novel, in which some goatherds are boiling
tasajos of goat meat in a cauldron. The explanatory note says that
tasajos are:
"Carne adobada durante cuatro días y dejada después a secar. Es
como la cecina del cabrero. Se puede hacer con vaca, ternera, venado,
jabalí..."
"Meat marinated for four days and then left to dry. It is the cecina [a
type of hung dried beef] of the goatherd. It can be made with beef, veal,
venison, wild boar..."
I found another online source -- a 16th century commentary on sailing
and life at sea -- and it had some scathing things to say about the
rations for passengers on a galley-ship. Tasajos of goat were
mentioned, along with such delights as rancid bacon.
There was also a quote from a 17th century comedy by Tirso de Molina.
Two laborers are complaining that their employers don't pay well. One
of them says that his rations are badly-seasoned tasajos and coarse
bran bread.
I get the feeling that tasajos were often used as a food for travellers and
the poor.
Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)
mka Robin Carroll-Mann
harper at idt.net
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