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

[Jeff Gedney]

Lavender and dill is not sufficent to cover up the smell of Putrescine.
The human nose reacts to that in staggeringly small proportions.
Same for mercaptans and other sulfates produced in animal decay like Cadaverine. If it were, Coroners offices would be strewn with the 
stuff. 

Salt, at least in England was imported from a very early date. the 
Ocean girdling England made "gray" salt, which required a lot of 
boiling and separating to render palatable. And the Climate is not suitable for salt making. 

Salt was traded for from France and Spain. 

Yes you put up the meat as soon as you had it butchered, if you did 
not sell your livestock to the butcher, and did it yourself.
That was, as I said earlier, essential to a well run household.
But you did not wait until the meat was blown and runny before you 
started putting it up. You did it fresh, then as now.

So you salt/spice to PREVENT decay, not cover it up.
And you used herbs and spices to cover up strong natural smells in 
foods, like in wild Duck, Swan, and Goat. 

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!!!

-------------------------------------------------------------
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