[Sca-cooks] Spices and Cooking (oop)

[Elaine Koogler]

That would probably also explain why my grandparents always did their butchering
in late November/early December (Shenandoah Valley of Virginia).

There has to be some kind of difference between the way meat is aged properly
and meat that has been in your fridge for a week.  I'm not a scientist or
whatever so have no idea what the difference would be.

Kiri

ruadh wrote:

> and you worry about week old meat in the fridge >???
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
> To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 2:44 PM
> Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Spices and Cooking (oop)
>
> Leaving the fermenting skate aside, from the description, I would say the
> meat may be "aged" rather than "bad."  Icelanders may be a little extreme in
> the aging process, but I seriously doubt they let the meat get truly toxic,
> since that represents a self-correcting error, evolution in action.
>
> In the modern process of dry aging, a carcass with the outer layer of fat
> intact is quickly chilled to about 40 degrees F, then hung in a refrigerated
> environment between 32 F (0 C) and 38 F (3.3 C) with 85 to 90 percent
> humidity and an air flow of 15 to 20 linear feet per minute (to quote U. of
> Missouri Ag Bulletin G02209).  The carcass is sometimes covered with cloth
> to keep off insects, dirt, etc.
>
> During the first 3 days, the internal enzymes soften the meat bringing it
> out of rigor mortis.  During the next 7 to 10 days, the enzymes soften the
> connective tissue in the carcass.  The process tenderizes the meat and
> increases the flavor.  Beef, for example, may be aged as much as 42 days.
>
> Because the process is expensive, dry aged beef is seldom found outside of
> specialty meat dealers and fine restaurants.
>
> The considerations on aging are a layer of fat to help keep bacteria from
> the meat, cool temperatures, a clean, dry place to hang, and an air flow to
> evaporate moisture escaping from the carcass.  A farm shed in Iceland in
> late autumn just might fill the bill, the same way farm sheds were used for
> hanging the deer carcasses in the US in October and November before the
> advent of the professional processing plants.
>
> Bear
>
> > Don't know about other countries but here in Iceland, many
> > people used to
> > actually prefer meat that had gone "bad". For instance, a
> > common treatment
> > of cattle and horse bones (with some meat attached) in the
> > 18th and 19th
> > centuries was to hang them in the cow shed for a couple of
> > weeks for the
> > desired taste (I'm not making this up); then they were boiled
> > (sometimes
> > after a brief smoking) and the meat was eaten. This was
> > called "hraun" and
> > the fat rendered from it was eaten with bread and highly thought of.
> >
> > I don't know why everybody didn't die of food poisoning but presumably
> > people were much more tolerant back then because of constant
> > exposure to
> > germs. And cooking will kill most of them anyway. Besides,
> > not all bacteria
> > that "spoils" food is harmful to humans - I'm reminded of
> > some very potent
> > surface smear cheeses I've had, for instance.
> >
> > Here, almost all slaughtering was done in a relatively short
> > period during
> > the autumn because in Iceland, it has always been more
> > expensive to feed the
> > animal during the winter than to preserve the meat somehow.
> > Fresh meat was a
> > rarity, and not neccessarily popular - perhaps because it was
> > thought to be
> > bland compared to the usual fare. Fresh meat was more often
> > than not cooked
> > in a soup made with soured whey to liven it up and make it
> > taste more like
> > preserved meat.
> >
> > Spices were rare in pre-20th century Icelandic cooking. Too
> > expensive, and
> > we didn't need them because most of our food was fermented, putrefied,
> > dried, whey-preserved, soured or smoked, and tasted strongly
> > of it - and we
> > more or less preferred it that way.
> >
> <clipped>
> > Now, something like that sure doesn´t need any spice, and no
> > spice in the
> > world would mask the flavor.
> >
> > The point I'm trying to make is that not all meat may have
> > been fresh. But
> > that doesn't neccessarily mean people felt any need to mask the
> > "off-flavor". Some of them may have preferred it; there is
> > ample evidence to
> > show that Icelanders often did.
> >
> > Nanna
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