[Sca-cooks] Dessert first (was Re: Source information for the make-up of removes?)

[Daniel Myers]

On Feb 21, 2004, at 2:44 PM, Ron Carnegie wrote:

[...]

> 	The bigger question is why do WE feel the need to separate sweets and
> savories?  We feel the need so strongly that some people (this Viking 
> in
> question as example) find it difficult to believe that they would be 
> eaten
> together!  In truth the flavors complement each other, it is only 
> custom
> that dictates that we save our sweets for dessert.  (That and a 
> tyrannical
> method of bribing our children to eat the "healthy" parts of their 
> dinner
> before eating the "reward").

Foods containing large amounts of refined sugar tend to cause a rapid 
spike in blood sugar, which in turn has a suppressing effect on the 
appetite (I believe that there was a brand of "diet candy" that worked 
this way).  If dessert is eaten first it can cause the diner to eat 
less of the food that's actually good for them.

When my nephew was three years old he was brought to the edge of 
malnutrition and anorexia because his mother *always* allowed him to 
eat candy just before meals and did not encourage him in any way to eat 
anything else.  When my mother managed to get custody the boy had lost 
a frightening amount of weight, looked horribly gaunt, and had dark 
rings around his sunken eyes.  It took quite a while for him to learn 
to eat again - his appetite had almost completely vanished.

Separating sweet and savory dishes is not always done in modern 
cuisines, even in the US.  I wouldn't hesitate to serve honey glazed 
beets or a sweet sauce over meat (butter, sugar, and cinnamon taste 
wonderful on venison) as part of the main course of a dinner.  However, 
sugar does not make up the bulk of such dishes.

My children seem to understand just fine why they can't eat dessert 
first.  They also feel that fruit is a perfectly good thing to have at 
the end of a meal.  On the other hand, I've also seen them finish a 
dessert of ice cream and go on to eat any broccoli that would have been 
leftovers.

- Doc


-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
  Edouard Halidai  (Daniel Myers)
  http://www.medievalcookery.com/
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-