[Sca-cooks] Rotten meat and spices... (a few excerpts fromApicius)

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> These are just a few of the food adulteration sections from JDV's text
'Apicius: Cookery and
> Dining in Imperial Rome', which may lend a bit of credence to the idea
that, yes, bad food was
> commonly made 'good' during our period of study.  And, while Apicius
pre-dates the medieval period
> precisely, it is at the very least a starting point for the researcher.

Um, well, Apicius does, in theory, pre-date the MA, but there's quite a bit
of question as to when those recipes were actually written. You really need
to compare manuscripts.

As for Vehling, while I think he's an excellent cook, I tend to be a mite
leary of any translator/author who has the ancient Romans dining on green
beans and bell peppers.

> 1. pg 48 - VI [9] To Improve a Broth
> If broth has contracted a bad odor, place a vessel upside down and
fumigate it with laurel and
> cypress and before ventiliating it, pour the broth in this vessel...

If I may point out, broth is not meat. Regardless, there are other ways for
broth to acquire a bad odor than by going rotten. Adding cruciferous
vegetables is one way.

> 2. pg 51 [17] Spoiled Honey Made Good
> How bad honey may be turned into a saleable article is to mix one part of
the spoiled honey with
> two parts of good honey,

Again, not a meat, and I'm wondering if this might be a method of liquifying
crystallized honey, by dilution. Again, there are many ways that honey might
acquire a bad odor, other than by spoilage- one being a disease in the
hives, another being access by the bees to certain plants. There's a reason
that honey is sold as "buckwheat" or "clover" or "fruit tree" or whatever
honey. Beekeepers I know, have told me that having a hive anywhere near
blooming marijuana plants will give the honey an absolutely horrible odor
and taste.

> 3. pg 51 [18] To Test Spoiled Honey
> Immerse elencampane in honey and light it;  if good, it will burn
brightly.

Always good to have a method of testing things...

> 4. pg 147 [229] Treatment of Strong Smelling Birds of Every Description
> For birds of all kinds that have a goatish smell, pepper, lovage, thyme,
dry mint, sage, dates,
> honey, vinegar, wine, broth, oil, reduced must, mustard.  The birds will
be more luscious and
> nutritious, and the fat preserved, if you envelop them in a dough of flour
and oil and bake them
> in the oven.  (note:  Vehling notes that this probably refers to animals
in an advanced state of
> mortification)

This may be Vehling's opinion, but he, too, may have subscribed to the
theory of rotten meat and spices- after all, he was a man of his times, the
20th century, and as we all know, there's been a tremendous amount of
research done in the intervening time.

That said, there are any number of ways that poultry of all varieties may me
made strong smelling, which have nothing to do with spoilage, and everything
to do with diet of the birds before death. We know, for example, there's a
distinct difference between young birds and old birds, in flavor and
texture, as well as between battery birds and free range birds. I am
reminded of a quite modern recipe for duck ( I think it's from the LL Bean
Game Cookbook, but am not sure) which instructs that in order to remove the
fishy smell and taste from fish-eating wild ducks (ducks are omnivores,
unlike geese which are vegetarians), you roast them with an apple and an
onion, quartered, inside, and throw the stuffing away when the bird is
cooked. This doesn't mean LL Bean (or whoever) is telling us to eat rotten
ducks, merely how to remove one variety of strong flavor. I've also seen
soaking in milk used in modern cookbooks to help remove off or strong
flavors.

> 5. pg 148 [230] Another Treatment of Odor
> If the birds smell, stuff the inside with crushed fresh olives, sew up and
thus cook, then retire
> the olives.

OK, similar to what I was saying above, about the apple and onion.

> Anyway, those were just the ones I was able to find readily in the Vehling
Apicius.
>
> There are others in the more modern manuscripts, which I will have to dig
out.
>
> William de Grandfort

OK, please do. The recipes above give some support to your thesis, but not
enough that I would consider them evidence that "Medieval people ate rotten
meat and disguised the flavor with lots of spices".

Saint Phlip,
CoD

"When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a hammer."
 Blacksmith's credo.

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....



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