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

[Chris Stanifer]

The original post which started this topic was a request (I believe by Phlip) for people to post
references which might help a researcher 'debunk' the myth that medieval people heavily spiced
some meats to mask an off (read: bad) odor or flavor.

If the author wishes to understand how this practice came to be, at least in the mind of the
general public, a common belief, then she will need to find a root from which to begin growing her
research.  The Vehling Apicius provides a necessary seed for this growth, in that it describes
several methods for dealing with 'bad' or 'spoiled' foods (even one or two meats) in Antiquity
(unless you are one of the few people who believe that the Apicius tomes were actually written in
the middle ages).  Without regard to how many people on this list wish to discredit the Vehling
work, the fact remains that it is a widely available piece of work, and may account for, at least
in some small part, the reason the general public believes that the ancients ate bad meat covered
with spices.  

Add to this that there are other references in later texts which indicate things like "if the
outside be spoiled, put it to roast again", and you can see how this common belief
(misconception???) is propogated.

Add to this the fact that certain assertions from folks on this list, who are not actually experts
in the field, have been both supported and discredited by other, more learned researchers, and you
have a situation in which any information *we* have extrapolated from the texts we suggest is
immediately suspect.  Therefore, I offered up only the text, originally, as a starting point for
research, not as proof that rotting meats were heavily spiced.

We all know that there have been claims from several people on this list, both in this thread and
others, that the average medieval person ate very little meat, and there are medical experts who
have done clinical studies on the bones and tissues of medieval folks who have determined that
their diets consisted *mostly* of meat.  The researcher in question is going to have to decide
which sources she wishes to put credence in, and which she can safely ignore, or suspect.

It is my personal belief, based upon what I have seen in the texts, that the researcher in
question will find credible evidence of one of two things:

1) There is proof enough in the various recipes for her to make a claim that bad meat was made
good with spices (or other methods), or
2)  These are the reasons it is *commonly believed* that bad meat was made good with spices (or
other methods), even though they may not hold the weight of scrutiny.

And that, I believe, was the reason for the post in the first place.

Now...has anyone seen my knives?  They were stolen out of my VW the day I left for Las Vegas...

William de Grandfort



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


		
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