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

[Chris Stanifer]

--- "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius.magister at verizon.net> wrote:
> I know that there were, in addition to the laws already mentioned 
> about selling old meat, prohibitions about pouring new blood over old 
> meat to make it appear fresher than it was. But that's not a spice.
> 
> And... it was illegal, so that doesn't sound like one of those 
> alleged myths-that-isn't-a-myth-at-all-but-in-fact-quite-prevalent.
> 
> Adamantius


That's how it appears at first glance.  However, if the practice were prevalent enough to warrant
the issuance of a proclamation denouncing it, and the creation of punishments for offence, then it
would stand to reason that it had been going on for some time, would it not?  At least long enough
for people to say 'hey...w.t.f?!?'

The point being....and I do have one..... is that these kinds of proclamations, coupled with food
adulteration passages in widely available texts, may have been the source of the widely held
belief that bad or spoiled meats were often consumed in medieval times. Now, if/when I do pull out
my copies of Le Menagier and Taillevent, I may be able to find the references to covering 'off'
meats with additional spices (and I am not saying that they are in those books, per se...merely
that I do have one or two which mention this practice, and I will have to search for them), and
I'll post them at that time.  It may be that I (or the translator) am misunderstanding the terms
being used ('high' birds = 'bad' birds), but if that is the case, then it is quite possible that
others before me have done so, as well.  And, therein lies the root of the problem, perhaps?

At any rate, if the researcher in question wishes to find the *reason* for the belief, then these
will point her in the right direction, I believe.  Whether or not they *prove* the practice
was...practiced....is another matter.

William de Grandfort

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


		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/