[Sca-cooks] Spices and Cooking (oop)

[johnna holloway]

With regard to Spices and Rotten Meat...

FOOD HISTORY NEWS in the summer of 1996 offered this as "an
example of an old saw that we would like to dull..." It's one
of those oft-quoted , generally accepted, unquestioned
assumptions that in light of recent research and reinterpretation
needs to re-examined and dismissed.
The issue then offered an article by Alice Arndt entitled
"They Used A Lot of Spices to Disguise Spoiled Meat." Arndt
points out that medieval markets were regulated. Those caught
selling putrid meat might be fined or even pilloried in front
of their rotten carcasses. She notes that surviving medieval
recipes do not mention that one needs to add extra spices if
the meat is tainted. Much of what we accept in terms of this
accepted truth, she traces to Drummond (The Englishman and His Food),
who got it wrong in his book by misreading a number of recipes.
She notes that the use of spices in tropical cuisines has more
to do with inducing perspiration than with preservation. Lastly,
medieval preservation techniques were effective and remained in
use long after exotic spicing was abandoned.

So, what is one to think? Actually, I think the idea was accepted
by medievalists reading Mead and Drummond and written into
a generation or two of textbooks. From there it made its
way into popular textbooks and children's books and so
now everyone grows up with the idea that meat spoiled & they
needed spices to hide the taste. Afterall every schoolchild
has to learn about Columbus and what drove them westward
but the search for spices.

Other interesting articles/chapters on this question are:

Flandrin, Jean-Louis. "Seasonings, Cooking, and Dietetics in
the Late Middle Ages." appears as Chapter 25 of FOOD A CULINARY
HISTORY, edited by Jean-louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari, 1999.

Laurioux, Bruno. "Spices in the Medieval Diet: A New Approach."
FOOD AND FOODWAYS, v.1, no.1 (1985) pp.43-76.

Crossley-Holland, Nicole. LIVING AND DINING IN MEDIEVAL PARIS.
Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996. See her chapter "Sugar
and Spice..." pages 105-112 wherein she sets out to examine
Le Menagier with regard to his use of spices.  Along the way,
she covers all the bases regarding the old theories of spices,
rotten meat, and unsophisticated palates.

Sincerely,

Johnnae llyn Lewis

Johnna Holloway

















Gwynydd Of Culloden edited posting :
>
> 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.
> >
> '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...
>
> So, what do people here on the List think?
>
> Gwynydd of Culloden
>
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