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

[Chris Stanifer]

--- "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius.magister at verizon.net> wrote:
> The difference will be that those who don't live near the water will 
> expect bad liquamen to smell like liquamen, while those that live 
> near the water will expect good liquamen to smell like fish, and bad 
> liquamen to smell like rotten fish.


I think that's an overly presumptuous....well....presumption.  You are assuming that inland cooks
don't know liquamen from rotten fish, and I contend that they very likely knew what 'good'
liquamen smelled like, and could therefore tell when it had gone 'off'


> 
> We can claim not to know what the Apicius author meant by a bad 
> smell, but some on, now, William. You're a food service person. You 
> gonna tell me you can't tell me what a funky batch of mackerel smells 
> like?


No.  On the contrary.  I'm telling you that Apicius *did* know when something was 'bad' or
'spoiled', and used those terms in proper context.  Therefore, if he says something smells 'bad',
he means it smells bad for *what it is*.

> However... I may have missed part of this thread. Were we not looking 
> for evidence that "broken" foods such as questionable meat were being 
> repaired with copious use of spices?

Yes, yes, yes.... and I made the mistake of offering up a few off-the-cuff references for other
forms of food adulteration in antiquity, implying that it might be a good place for a researcher
to start.  That brought out the sharks, who immediately swam right past the point for an
opportunity to stick their 'expertise' into my neck.

I should have known it would happen, and kept my yap shut.

Willy d





>

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


		
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