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

[Chris Stanifer]

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

> 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.


In this case, so long as the recipes were not written *after* the middle ages, then the argument
for common food adulteration remains valid.


> 
> 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.


Whether they were dining on Bell Peppers or Taco Bell doesn't make any difference in this case. 
The point is that, *whatever* they were dining on, there are obvious instances of spoiled or 'off'
meats and other items being doctored with spices/methods to make them palatable.

> 
> > 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.


Okay.  You're right.  However, if a cook is completely 'okay' with fixing up a batch of spoiled
broth (be it chicken broth, veggie broth, liquimen or Listerine), then we can assume that he'd be
okay with slapping some mustard on a side of stanky beef, no?  The examples I have given are
merely to illuminate that food adulteration, across the culinary canvas, was practiced.... from
meat to vegetables to beverages to cooking oils.

> 
> > 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.


I'm assuming that 'spoiled' means 'gone bad'. And again, this is another example of food
adulteration in antiquity.  No, it's not meat, but it does show that it was done in other areas of
the kitchen/table.



> > 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.


Okay.  I've offered up a few examples.  Apparently anything by Vehling which points towards the
adulteration of food in antiquity is going to be disregarded.  Care to offer up an author whom
*you* trust?  I am assuming, at this point, that any translation of a manuscript is going to fall
under the same incredulosity that Vehling has met with.  Your researcher may find herself faced
with having to translate those texts herself.  Of course...then her own translation will be
suspect.

> > 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.


Right.  Okay.  However, i think that a cook of the time would know, especially if he is
knowledgable enough to compose a treatise on the subject, when he is faced with a gamey smelling
bird, and one which has an off odor.  I could be wrong.


> > 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
> 

Nah.  I'm not in the mood to argue about it.  I was offering up some tidbits for your researcher,
to show that there has been evidence of food adulteration in the past, and it has turned into a
'my favorite translator is better than your favorite translator' situation.  Not that interested
in the topic, to be honest.  You guys have fun with it, though.

William de Grandfort






Through teeth of sharks, the Autumn barks.....and Winter squarely bites me.


		
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