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

[Jeff Gedney]

>I would point out that the regulation could be aimed at the 
>deceitful practice of selling bad meat as good meat.  The idea of 
>being cheated might be more abhorrent than the idea of eating 
>rotten meat..

If the premise held that people routinely ate spoiled meat covered with spices, why would selling spoiled meat be "cheating"?
They paid for meat they could still eat.

HOWEVER, If they could not bear to eat the food when they discovered it to be spoiled, then I can see why they would feel cheated.
They paid for meat they could _not_ eat.

So the rules still do not support the stated notion that people ATE the spoiled meat.

The fact that they had to sell spoiled meat in a segregated location, and not in the same butcher stall as the regular food, says to me: "non-food use".

I rather think it was sold as dog/bear food or for pillory insults.
I know lots of dogs who prefer their meat somewhat "ripe".
(To judge from the regular knocking over of my trash cans by local strays)

Capt Elias
-Renaissance Geek of the Cyber Seas

- Help! I am being pecked to death by the Ducks of Dilletanteism! 
There are SO damn many more things I want to try in the SCA than I can possibly have time for. It's killing me!!!

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If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather 
wood, divide the work, and give orders.  Instead, teach them
to yearn for the vast and endless sea. 
  - Antoine de Saint Exupery