[Sca-cooks] Dried meat in period?

[Stefan li Rous]

Phlip said:
> >While I tend to agree with Brangwayna, have you
> >considered dried meat, like jerky?

For those looking for directions and recipes for making dried
meats, see this file in the FOOD section of the Florilegium:
drying-foods-msg  (45K)  1/12/01    Drying foods in period and for the SCA.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/drying-foods-msg.html

> To bring this back to questions of historical cookery ...  .
>
> What information do we have on the use of dried meat in period?
> Stockfish was certainly common. Anything closer?

Yes. We've discussed this previously. Here are two messages from the
above file. One of them is even from you. :-)

Have you had a chance to check out Ahsan's referances further? I'd
certainly be willing to add any message that clarifies or corrects
your message below.

--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas          stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****

> Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2000 00:12:36 -0400
> From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
> Subject: Re: SC - jerky documentation?
>
> And it came to pass on 15 Sep 00,, that Wajdi wrote:
> > Pure speculation on my part, but has any consideration been given
> > to the idea that dried meat products may be found in early
> > Spanish or Arab writings?  Seems to me as if those areas would
> > have had sufficient sun to dry meat.
>
> Dunno.  I've seen recipes that use air-dried fish: hake and conger eel.
> There's a 1553 Spanish treatise on the benefits of physical exercise that
> mentions "tasajos", which the Royal Spanish dictionary says is meat
> that has been preserved by drying and salting it, or in oil.
>
> http://www.uida.es/mendez/portada.html
>
> So I searched for "tasajos" at google.com, and found a link to a page
> about food in Don Quixote.  (Okay, so I'm obsessive.  Everyone needs a
> hobby.)  http://www.jimena.com/cocina/apartados/quijote.htm
> It gives a quote from the novel, in which some goatherds are boiling
> tasajos of goat meat in a cauldron.  The explanatory note says that
> tasajos are:
> "Carne adobada durante cuatro dÌas y dejada despuÈs a secar. Es
> como la cecina del cabrero. Se puede hacer con vaca, ternera, venado,
> jabalÌ..."
>
> "Meat marinated for four days and then left to dry.  It is the cecina [a
> type of hung dried beef] of the goatherd.  It can be made with beef, veal,
> venison, wild boar..."
>
> I found another online source -- a 16th century commentary on sailing
> and life at sea -- and it had some scathing things to say about the
> rations for passengers on a galley-ship.  Tasajos of goat were
> mentioned, along with such delights as rancid bacon.
>
> There was also a quote from a 17th century comedy by Tirso de Molina.
>  Two laborers are complaining that their employers don't pay well.  One
> of them says that his rations are badly-seasoned tasajos and coarse
> bran bread.
>
> I get the feeling that tasajos were often used as a food for travellers and
> the poor.
>
> Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
> Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)
>
>
> Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 12:46:01 -0700
> From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
> Subject: SC - Period Islamic Dried Meat
>
>  From _Social Life Under the Abbasids_ by M. M. Ahsan, p. 113
> - ---
> The Abbasids inherited the art of food preservation from the ancient
> east and the classical civilizations. The drying process was widely
> used and the least expensive. Even the Arabs of the remote past were
> fond of dried meat called qadid. ... The common people of the time
> used this method extensively. Like meat, fish was also dried in the
> sun and used throughout the year.
>
> In one process for food preservation, antiseptic agents, especially
> salt and vinegar, were used. The meat thus preserved was known as
> namaksud, a Persian compound word indicative of the Persian origin of
> the method. To make namaksud, the meat was cut into slices, seasoned
> with salt, and left in the sun on a plank to dry. When required, the
> slices were moistened with water and cooked.
> - ---
>
> I should add that Ahsan is not entirely reliable--he repeatedly
> describes murri as "brine," for example, and makes frequent errors of
> arithmetic in doing currency conversions. The book has a tone of
> "paste together all the references you can find to subject X in the
> literature without really digesting or evaluating them." But I expect
> that on a simple point like this he is accurate. He cites a variety
> of sources, of which the most accessible is probably the Encyclopedia
> of Islam; I haven't yet checked it.
> - --
> David/Cariadoc
> http://www.daviddfriedman.com/