medieval healthy food was Re: [Sca-cooks] Tiramisu

[a5foil]

The Mediterranean cuisines are full of low-fat, healthy dishes that taste
good and do not require tweaking. Lots of the recipes in the Catalan works
I'm studying (and so, also in the 15th c. Neapolitan and 16th c. Spanish
cuisines, too) use olive oil or lard for frying. I have found that almost
all of the recipes that call for lard do equally well with olive oil.

One of the green sauces I'm working with is based on herbs, spices, and
vinegar. Another is herbs, nuts, olive oil and vinegar. These sauces were
used on a variety of boiled and/or roasted meats. Yet another adds a single,
raw egg as a binder.

White garlic sauce, served with pork and fish, is based on lots of garlic,
seasoned broth, and bread. The bread I typically use is a basic, fat free,
peasant loaf. It stales quickly, but it is great straight out of the oven
and works well as a thickener.

The one mushroom dish in the collection is parboiled mushrooms lightly fried
in a little grease (I've done it with olive oil, too), served with a
vinegar-based fresh onion, herb and spice salsa.

Lots and lots of fish in this cuisine - boiled, baked in broth, or roasted.

Lots of goat and kid, too, which are relatively lean meats.

One of the things I've thought about adding in my book are the nutritional
values for the recipes. I've received both pro and con feedback on this, but
what do you all think? Would you want to see nutritional values on
redactions?

Thomas Longshanks

----- Original Message -----
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2001 11:15 AM
Subject: Re: medieval healthy food was Re: [Sca-cooks] Tiramisu


> Anne-Marie Rousseau wrote:
> >
> > hey all from Anne-Marie
> > As the medieval concept of "healthy" doesnt fit into the Zone/Dean
> > Ornish/Weight Watcher/etc very well, we've had to do some "thinking
outside
> > the box",but its possible. I'd be delighted to share menus/recipes if
desired?
> >
> > --Anne-Marie, having a lot of fun re-testing medieval recipes with lower
> > fat/salt/carbs/etc
>
> Yep, those period dishes of beans, greens and grains are sure tough to
> turn into healthy forms, aren't they? ;  )
>
> A large part of it is probably image, and then there's the fact that
> when you doctor a recipe to cater to one person's dietary needs, you may
> make the dish inedible for someone else.
>
> The image thing, or perhaps the perceived yuck factor, though, will
> probably be largely reduced by the fact that the people looking for
> these types of foods will more or less be expecting beans, greens and
> grains (respectively) anyway.
>
> I'm talking about, say, beans or joutes without bacon (horrors!) or
> equivalent fat/salt source, frumenty without eggs or almond milk,
> essentially a peasanty porridge-type dish.
>
> I seem to recall that several of the recipes I worked with from Anthimus
> were pretty low in fat, salt, carbs, and other evils, or at least the
> range offered choices in those directions.
>
> I'm thinking, for example, of the steamed beef stew that appears to be
> made without salt, and the lentil and coriander "salad" which is
> decadently spiked with olive oil. I think these made it into the
Florilegium.
>
> Adamantius
> --
> Phil & Susan Troy
>
> troy at asan.com
>
> "It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
> things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
> let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98
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