[Sca-cooks] Rotten meat and spices...

[David Friedman]

William de Grandfort writes

...

>Before anyone tries to 'debunk' the 'myth' that rotten or bad meat 
>was covered up with spices, you
>need to be made aware of several bits from Apicius in which food 
>adulteration is not only
>suggested, but recommended.  In particular I recall a section on 
>making bad honey good, and there
>are others.  I'll post the more obvious ones later this evening.
>
>I also have references in several books which indicate that 'off' or 
>'putrid' meat can be made
>edible with the copious addition of spices or seasonings. 
>
>I'm not saying that this was a common proactice...merely that there 
>is plenty of proof that it
>*was* done, and recipes such as the ones I mention are likely the 
>source of the modern opinion
>that medieval folk ate rotten food covered with spices.  In fact, 
>they did do it, but perhaps not
>as often as modern folk like to think.  Heck, we still do it today...


I'm not sure if you are saying that you have references in period 
books or in modern books to the practice.

With regard to your examples from Apicius ... . As I gather you know, 
the Vehling translation is widely viewed as wildly unreliable--I'm 
sure other people here can give you examples. So I checked the same 
recipes in Flower and Rosenbaum. The results are:

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...

[F&R: "How to purify liquamen."]

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,

[their translation essentially the same as Vehling's]

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

[F&R "How to find out if honey has gone bad."]

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)

[F&R: "For 'high' birds of any kind." It's in a collection of sauces 
for birds, and there is no suggestion that it is  a treatment, just a 
sauce to be used on birds that are high. As you probably know, 
hanging birds for several days was a common treatment up until pretty 
recently.

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.

[F&R: "Another way to cook a bird." Nothing to do with treatment of 
odor at all. The latin is "Aliter Avem"]

That leaves you with one recipe for purifying liquamen and the 
suggestion that spoiled honey can be sold by mixing it with good 
honey. No reference to dealing with spoiled meat by spicing it.

  Unless I missed something, your only evidence so far for the claim 
that there is plenty of proof that making  'off' or 'putrid' meat 
edible with the copious addition of spices or seasoning was a 
practice done in the middle ages is the fact that a book usually 
dated from some centuries before the Middle Ages has two recipes for 
dealing with something other than meat that has gone bad by a method 
other than the copious addition of spices.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com