SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #2962

[Craig Jones.]

>Mordonna22 at aol.com wrote:
>> 
>> In a message dated 2/7/2001 2:10:13 PM US Mountain Standard Time,
>> owner-sca-cooks at ansteorra.org writes:
>> 
>> <<
>>  Just casually looking at the chemical formulas without a clear idea of the
>>  process, it looks like mustard gas is a cocktail of diphosgene and sulfuric
>>  acid. >>
>> There is a polemic making the rounds on the internet about how evil Canola
>> Oil is because it is made with genetically altered Rape.  They claim that
>> Rape was the original basis for Mustard Gas, and that it causes all sorts of
>> respiratory problems, and besides it is genetically altered and that is a
Bad
>> Thing (tm). And anything called Rape has to be bad.
>>  At first I tried talking reason and logic to the relative who sent it to
me,
>> then I gave up.  If she wants to try avoiding Canola Oil on this basis, it
>> should keep her too busy to bother me with such garbage.
>
>It's my understanding that rapeseed oil has been used for centuries, and
>that calling it canola oil is largely the result of marketing resistance
>to a food product thought by some to be named after an act of violence.
>Whether or not it is genetically altered rape I don't know, but it
>certainly doesn't need to be. Canola oil is an older tradition than corn
>oil is, anyway, a fact I'm glad of since I hate corn oil.

My understanding is that Canola is Rape that has had several nasty habits bred
out of it (Not GM, just heavily in-bred ) such as the nasty red colour (that
stains a treat) and a slight mustardy flavour.  It's grown a lot here in
Australia and 50km north of here in summer there are alternating fields of
yellow (canola) and purple (a weed, echium vulgare).  Very pretty...

Some imported indian spice pastes will contain rape oil still.

What fats/oils were used for cooking in period anyway.  I can think of:

Meat: Chicken Fat, Lard, Dripping
Veg:  Sesame Oil, Olive Oil, Almond oil, Walnut Oil, Poppyseed oil.

I assume that rape and sunflower oils were not used in period?

Drakey.