FW: [Sca-cooks] Too much spice.

[Pixel, Queen of Cats]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2001, Philip Troy wrote:

>
> Possibly this technology is valid, but whether it was known or practiced in
> medieval Europe is another question. With the possible exception of Lord's
> Salt, which contains no salt, IIRC, but a lot of vinegar and spices,
> including cinnamon, how often were imported spices used by adding them to
> meat for later use? And in the case of Lord's Salt, how much of the
> preservative power was in the vinegar?
>
> Cindy, I'm having a little trouble finding the various references to the one
> or two recipes for the process to keep venison from "restyng", or recovering
> from same. I checked Austin's index to the Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery
> Books, as well as Hieatt's and Butler's index to Curye On Inglysch; I know
> you had spoken about these on the list. Any chance you have access to your
> earlier posts?
>
> This would be a specific example of how medieval Europeans (or at least one
> way in which, etc.) dealt with the problem of saving meat that was going off,
> from going off further, and perhaps of disguising the extent to which it
> _had_ gone off. If any ;  ) . I STR it involved vinegar, and considering that
> the recipe presumably comes from a social strata that had comparatively easy
> access to spices, you'd think if these people knew about it, they might have
> used it. But as has been pointed out, pound for pound, it was far cheaper to
> buy fresh meat than it was to buy the spices that might be required to save
> bad meat.
>
> Adamantius
>

I'm remembering saltpetre, because when I read it, I remember thinking
"mmm, gunpowder", which is not something I usually associate with
vinegar. IIRC it also involved soaking for several days and cutting off
the bad parts.

But, I could also be hallucinating. These things happen. ;-)

Margaret FitzWilliam