[Sca-cooks] Salt and pepper

[Philippa Alderton]

--- jenne at fiedlerfamily.net wrote:

> I'm sorry, I would like to see any proof of these
> allegations about the
> use of black pepper and salt. From buying records,
> it looks as if people
> used more black pepper than we do.

Which records are you referring to? And what is the
size of the households involved?

I'm basing my opinion on the absence of evidence- in
short the lack of mentions of the ingredient, black
pepper, in the MA manuscripts which I have available.
Modern recipes almost all specify "salt and pepper to
taste" (except for sweet things), but very few of the
medieval ones do- there are a couple which will say to
add enough salt, but frequently the pepper taste is
supplied by cubebs, long pepper, grains of paradise,
etc. when wanted.

> It's certainly
> true that our prepared
> foods are oversalted. However, it's a gross
> generalization to say that we
> salt food made from fresh ingredients more than
> medieval people did,
> simply because at many events and feasts, people
> LEAVE OUT the salt called
> for or implied in the recipe to suit modern medical
> diets!

Well, you are entitled to your opinion. My experience
is that most people I eat with add much more salt than
I would. Of course, I also have an ex who would salt a
block of salt if you'd plated it for him for dinner
;-)

And, I learned to reduce salt extremely from what most
people seem to use because I was cooking for people
whose Drs had told them to minimize salt as part of
their health care.

> Not to mention
> the fact that foods prepared from fresh by modern
> people don't use
> anywhere near the amount of salt that our
> pre-prepared foods do.

Again, my experience seems to differ from yours.

> > reflecting the fact that folk above the salt were
> > grand enough to be given the luxury of extra salt
> if
> > they wanted it- it was too expensive to be given
> out
> > to mere servants, other than what might be already
> in
> > their food.

> Documentation for this statement? I have never heard
> that salt was not
> available.

Don't think I said it was unavailable, merely
expensive. And I have no doubt that, like anything
else, the price varied depending on your location and
time period, and such things as how close the ocean or
the salt mines were, and how frequently traders came
through with it.

> Certainly in one's own home salt would be
> available, as salt
> was purchased by middle class people, such as
> priests and others.

OK, you explain the usage of the phrase "above the
salt", as well as the little salt bowl and spoon which
was passed amongst the nobler feasters.

> (The solid data points I have on spice purchasing
> come from Anne Wilson
> Food and Drink in Britain but I'd be happy to dig up
> more.)

I'll have to wait until I get all my books unpacked so
I can give you references, but at the moment I'm
simply working from memory of mental notes I've made
while studying the corpus of recipes I have available.

Phlip

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