[Sca-cooks] period food salvage

[Mark.S Harris]

Lainie answered my request with:
> On Thu, 17 Jan 2002, Stefan li Rous wrote:
> > Lainie said:
> > > It occurs to me though, that we have recipes in many of our cookbooks,
> > > for among other things, covering the taste when you burn something, or
> > > have oversalted. Does this mean that they are anything but a last
> > > resort? I certainly don't let things burn saying 'oh, I can always fix
> > > it with Aunt Matilda's recipe'. I go to great lengths _not_ to burn
> > > them! I don't think that the presence of such recipes indicates that it
> > > was desirable or even common to attempt to eat tainted meat- on the
> > > contrary, I think they indicate that it was unusual and undesireable.
> >
> > Could you post some examples (including info on where these are
> > from), please?
> >
> > You find such hints on salvaging food in the modern household books
> > and newspaper columns. I don't think this is much different. It
> > certainly doesn't say they used spices to cover bad meat, though.
>
> Um Stefan, that's what I was referring to- the cookbooks we got from Mom
> or from the Church Ladies- they usually have hints in there, like wrapping
> an ice cube in cheesecloth and using it to skim the fat off of soup...

Oops. I realized later that I should have trimmed that first paragraph
down some to better indicate what I was talking about. But yes, I
mis-interpreted your sentance:
> It occurs to me though, that we have recipes in many of our cookbooks,
> for among other things, covering the taste when you burn something, or
> have oversalted.

For some reason I thought you were talking about some period cookbooks.
Wishful thinking, perhaps? I thought it would be nice to see a period
equivalent of these "helpful hints" type things.

Stefan