[Sca-cooks] meat pasties and their longevity outside moderncooling

[Olwen the Odd]

>Actually, the store pies were not kept in a cooler. Quoting the
>article: "Three meat pies were purchased from the local service station and
>kept at room temperature in the paper bags in which they were purchased."
>(Elston, Del. "Pyes de Pares." _Medieval History Magazine_, February 2004,
>p. 16). The test pies were also kept at room temperature, but in wooden
>bowls and covered with a cloth. It was the author's opinion that the
>purchased pies would not have been safe to eat after one week. The first
>purchased pie was tested one week after purchase, and presented bacteria at
>an unsafe level (1,000,000 cfu/gram). The second pie was tested after two
>weeks and presented a level greater than this.
>
>Of also interesting note was the comment by a senior microbiologist that
>certain oils in the spices, particularly the cinnamon,
>are 'bacteriostatic,' meaning they inhibit the reproduction of bacteria.
>Ginger was one of the other spices used, and I recall from an article on
>sushi that it has anti-microbiologic properties, along with rice vinegar
>and wasabi (wasabi kills cholera almost immediately).
>
>This might suggest 'heavily spicing food' not to cover the taste of
>spoilage, but because they noticed heavily spices food did not spoil as
>readily.
>Edouard
>
I wonder if the wooden bowls contributed to the attributes of the test pies.

Wasabi kills cholera?
Olwen

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