FW: [Sca-cooks] Too much spice.

[Christine Seelye-King]

I saved this message about the preservative powers of cinnamon from a lady
on this list.
Christianna

-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-admin at ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-admin at ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of Ruth Frey
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 3:53 PM
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Too much spice.



> Also, if Dr. Scully's interpretation is accepted, there could have
> been people whose spice amounts and proportions would have been
> dictated by their personal physician as much as by their cook or
> their own tastes.  In such circumstances the 'medicinal' flavour of
> far too much e.g. cinnamon might have been desirable.

	It is true that food often = medicine in Medieval times.
Diet was usually considered one of the best ways of balancing
one's "humors", and if one was diagnosed as needing more hot and
dry influences in the body, cinnamon could very likely have been
recommended for medical reasons.
	I also ran across an interesting thing in a rather old
(early 20th century) herbal book I have -- the author cited a
supposed scientific study (which I have yet to look up) which
showed that spices, and cinnamon in particular, helped preserve
foods.  As I recall, the experimenter made up beef broth, with
and without cinnamon.  Some of each broth was inoculated with a
few drops of raw sewage (!) and allowed to sit.  The plain broth
spoiled rapidly, while the cinnamon broth resisted spoilage for
a goodly length of time.
	Of course, that's a second-hand report (and third-hand
by the time it gets to y'all), but it's intriguing, and, from
what I know about the antiseptic properties of some spices and
barks, not unbelievable.
	Kinda shoots another hole in the "spices to cover up
rotten meat" -- it might actually have been the case (sometimes)
of "spices to prevent meat from rotting in the first place."

		-- Ruth