[Sca-cooks] medieval healthy food (forwarded with permission)

[Ted Eisenstein]

>From: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy at math.harvard.edu>
>Subject: Re: Fwd: medieval healthy food was Re: [Sca-cooks] Tiramisu
>To: Alban at socket.net (Ted Eisenstein)
>Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 11:53:07 -0400 (EDT)
>  It's amazing what shows up hither and yon. . . especially if such things
>  get a good healthy boost from some of us. <grin>
>
>  Got any suggestions?
>
>Well, I had an interesting thought on this, sparked by a side conversation
>with Branguen, and some discussion on the phone with Dante.
>
>The key to health is a balanced lifestyle, both what you do, how you live,
>who you are and (yes of course) what you eat.  It is a darned shame that
>most Americans (blessed with abundance and therefore obesity) choose only to
>modify what they eat in their search for health.  But I digress.
>
>Many Americans tend toward magical thinking and extremism in their diets, as
>in most things.  Pure protein and low carbohydrate (CHO), or no fat and
>vegetarian, or vegan, or whatever.  Supplemented with modern vitamins,
>pharmaceuticals and food-aceuticals, along with the sorts of supplementation
>we see in breakfast cereals, this fadism is possible, and possibly even
>healthy.
>
>Not so for our ancestors: while there are recorded examples of food
>extremism in choice of diet (vegetarian monks, dietary vows such as that of
>Amadeus IV, Lent) by and large it was "eat what you can, when you can".  And
>of course, much of the written works we base our feasts on record the
>exceptional meals and diets of the truly wealthy who aimed to make fabulous
>impressions.
>
>This does not help much when attempting to eat like a food-fadist American.
>
>Nevertheless: vegetarians can certainly enjoy most of the dishes from the
>Lenten side of the menu, protein mongers can enjoy the meat dishes of the
>day.  Low fat people may well suffer, but can pick and choose amongst rare
>low or zero fat dishes, or by making minor modifications in preparation.
>(For veggies, vegans and low fats I can point to Castelvetro: for Atkins,
>almost anything will do. :-)
>
>If you want to lose weight the period way: stop using labor saving devices,
>walk everywhere, and eat as if food was scarce and had to be grown locally.
>(:-)  This will address much of the food extremism I lambasted so well
>above.
>
>Before the bullets start to fly I must come clean.  As a cardiovascular
>patient since the age of 29, I have been following the Dean Ornish program
>poorly for about 4 years, and closely for about 7.  No fat, no fish or meat.
>I don't eat period feasts anymore at events: because I don't eat like period
>people.  Rare dishes may pass muster.  When cooking for myself at camping
>events, I've found that I prefer speed and efficiency to period foods: I can
>simply have more fun doing OTHER period things, than eating a poor
>anachronistic pastiche of period side dishes and pretending it is a period
>meal.  I fuel up, and go.
>
>	Tibor (Hi to my friends on the cooks list....)
>
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