SC - In need of a documented Rant on "highly spided spoiled food "

[Jenne Heise]

> 1. Spices were significantly more expensive than meat (check Le Menagier
> de Paris, among other sources, for prices on meats and the spices
> required for their service... Chiquart may have something on this, too),
> therefore it would make very poor economic sense to be profligate with
> spices to save money on meat. I'm not even talking about
> pound-for-pound. Rather, the spices required to "overspice", say, the
> allegedly ubiquitous festering loin of pork would have exceeded the cost
> of the loin of pork. Far better to spend that money on a fresh piece of meat.

C. Anne Wilson gives an example of the household of two priests which
consumed about a pound of pepper a year. This is a half-pound per person,
and pepper was pretty much the most used spice. 

Here's canned rant on the economics of spice consumption from a Canadian
professor: http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/munro5/SPICES1.htm
He compares modern Indian and medieval French recipes.

- -- 
Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at mail.browser.net
disclaimer: i speak for no-one and no-one speaks for me.
"It's no use trying to be clever-- we are all clever here; just try
to be kind -- a little kind." F.J. Foakes-Jackson