[Sca-cooks] Spices and Cooking (oop)

[Gwynydd Of Culloden]

I recently opened a can of worms on a message board to which I post by
saying:

'["spices were used to cover the taste of rotting meat by medieval cooks"]
is a fallacy *smile* - the spices used in dish were more expensive than the
meat in the same dish so this would have been a false economy. It is like
using a perfect diamond in a plastic ring, except that in that case, one can
retrieve the diamond. The spices are lost.'

This elicited this reply:

'I just saw that post and was intrigued. I had never speculated about
medieval times, but had done so about more contemporary periods/cultures. I
got the idea that hot spices--curry, chile, those little red peppers in both
Thai & Mongolian food, etc., used in their 'native' habitat--might be used
to cover meat that was going bad, especially since many "hot spice areas"
seem to lack as much refrigeration as we are used to. Comment?'

My response was that this may be true, but that I have some doubts - simply
because it reeks of the arguments I have heard about medieval food.  I also
wondered how well it would work.  If the curry is hot enough, the taste buds
might be less sensitive to the slightly off meat, but it couldn't cover
anything much more than that, surely?

Someone else chimed in with the statement that 'my mother told me about the
"hot-spice-covering-up-rancid-meat" theory back when I was a kid 50 years
ago...This is a well-known theory; as for evidence, it seems so intuitive
evidence hardly seems necessary.'  Frankly, I am distrustful of the idea
that it is intuitive enough not to require evidence (so was the idea that
medieval cooks did the same thing!).

So, what do people here on the List think?

Gwynydd of Culloden