[Sca-cooks] On the properties of food was RE: Welcome, a birthday party

[Terri Spencer]

--- Phlip <phlip at 99main.com> wrote:

> I'm still working on figuring a lot of it out- would help
considerably
>  if someone could/would collate a list of foodstuffs with their
> humoral properties and the degrees of those properties, but it's not
> something I have time or inclination for.

All you have to do is ask!  

I've posted an excel file in YahooGroups SCA-Cooks called
PropertiesOfFoods, with a list of foodstuffs and a survey of their
properties, degrees and comments from several voices of the times: 

Galen - 2nd c. Greek doctor, 
Tacuinem Sanitatis - based on 11th c. tables of ibn Botlan, physician,
Hildegard Von Bingen - 1155? Benedictine abbess, 
Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum - 13th c. Latin poem,
Platina - 1465, Vatican librarian, and 
Gerard - 1597/1633 Master of Chirurgerie and Elizabethan gardener.  

A secondary source is also included, The Mirror of Health, Food, Diet
and Medical Theory 1450-1660, which summarizes Jane Huggett's research
into these and other sources.

Two caveats:  This is a work in progress. I am still slogging thru
Galen's (many) words and collecting primary sources, and will add to it
as time allows.  And don't expect all these learned opinions to agree. 
That's part of the fun!  

For those who haven't delved far into humoral theory, here is a summary
from classes/papers (yes, I've been prea...teaching this a while :)

The Ancient Greeks saw four elements in all things; earth, air, fire
and water. The writings attributed to Hippocrates of Cos (4th c. B.C.)
classified foods and herbs by their corresponding qualities; hot, cold,
dry or moist.  Pedanius Dioscorides (60 A.D.)  categorized plants,
animals and minerals and their uses as remedies in De Materia Medica,
which became a primary medical text for 1500 years, foundation of
countless herbals.  Claudius Galenus (130 A.D.), physician to Marcus
Aurelius, built upon these elements to codify the theory of humors. 
His work was the standard for Roman, Arab and European physicians
throughout our period of study.

The humors, or body fluids, are blood, black bile, choler (yellow
bile), and phlegm. Each person has a dominant humor or humors which
determine their constitution, complexion, or temperament. These are:
sanguine, melancholic, choleric, or phlegmatic.  

Descriptions of each are online at:

http://www.godecookery.com/regimen/regimen.htm (starts at pg 14)
&/or 
http://user.icx.net/~richmond/rsr/ajax/harington.html (starts at 132)

The balance of humors is influenced by air, exercise, sleep, excretions
and passions.  Age and seasons play their part.  Monastic healers also
recognize the opposing powers of sin and prayer.  But by far the most
important key to even humors and good health is diet, tailored to one’s
temperament and current condition.  The goal is harmonious humors, not
a balanced diet.  So one should avoid foods with the same qualities as
their prevailing humor(s), and eat foods of opposing natures.

Qualities were measured in four degrees, 1 to 4, 4 the strongest. 
Daily food and drink were of the 1st or 2nd degree.  Medicines were 2nd
or 3rd degree, including strong herbs and spices.  Substances of 4th
degree were almost dangerous, and were taken in small doses and
tempered with mild or opposing foods or spices (such as hot/dry mustard
tempered with cooling vinegar).

Foods are sorted by their effect on digestion, an important
consideration because undigested food decays, causing noxious vapors,
bad humors and illness.  The surface nature of a food is sometimes a
good indicator of its properties.  Others are texture, natural
environment, or peak season.

Thus, fish and fruits are cold and damp, and they reduce the heat of
digestion and slow it down.  Berries and beans are cold and dry, and
bind the stomach or produce wind.  Fats and root vegetables are warm
and damp, the best qualities for food, in moderation. Bread and rice,
basic foods for everyone, are warm and dry, easily digested, and
nourishing to all constitutions.  Hot, dry spices are added to other
foods to aid digestion.  

To address the onion with meat question - onions are generally
considered hot & dry to the 4th degree, strong medicine.  Coarse,
phlegmatic peasants could eat them untreated and work off the excess
humors, but more delicate noble constitutions would be harmed.  They
might be used in small quantities to heat/spice a cold meat like beef. 
We probably over-use them when redacting medieval recipes to modern
tastes.  A more humoral use would be similar to that of leeks in one of
my favorite veggie dishes, Funges from Forme of Curye:

Take Funges and pare hem clene and dyce hem. take leke and shred hym
small and do hym to seeP in gode broth. color it with safroun and do
Perinne powdour fort.

The 4th degree hot/dry leeks are balanced by 4th degree cold/moist
mushrooms, saffron and strong spices add a bit of gentle heat to stoke
the digestive furnace.  A tasty and balanced dish for a healthy
constitution.

HTH,

Tara



	
		
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