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

[Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise]

> 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?

I don't think you can make a connection between changing the odor of 
fish sauce with putting mustard on stanky beef.

> 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.

That's where the translation is a bit important here... What do other 
translators of Apicus say?
 
But my experience with medieval/Renaissance recipe-books is that they 
mostly have recipes for handling burnt items and a lot of recipes for 
fixing bad _wine_ and _beer_. That's a whole topic that would be fun to 
look into-- the use of spices and other adulterants in brewed beverages.

-- 
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net 
"But I am Dragonkiller, the least of my family, and if I have done a 
great thing, then I must die of it." -- Robin McKinley