[Sca-cooks] Dried meat in period?

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

From: david friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>
>What information do we have on the use of dried meat in period?
>Stockfish was certainly common. Anything closer?

I haven't seen any European references, but, then, i haven't looked.
Anahita isn't European.

However, i've seen references to dried spiced meat in the Middle
Eastern corpus - not eaten as jerky though; it's carried around
dried, but it eat it, it's cooked in liquid. There's a recipe or two
for making it and another few recipes for using it lurking in
"Medieval Arab Cookery". I'll have to look and see what it's called
and which of the several translated books it's in...

There's a really delicious and rather similar thing in Java. I'm not
claiming Medieval heritage for it. I used to see folks drying it on
their rooftops when i lived in Java. The meat was sliced really
really thin, cooked with salt and spices until all the liquid cooked
away, then put in screen-covered frames (covered again with more
screen to keep out the flying insects), and put on the roof in the
sun for several days. Because of the ambient humidity, the frames
were brought in when the sun began to go down and of course if there
was the threat of rain. To eat it, it was cooked in liquid.

Anahita