[Sca-cooks] The rotten meat thread

Sat Apr 16 11:05:59 PDT 2005

my perspective, Please accept this with all due respect to your thought, mearly my 2 pence.

If one is accoustome to eating rotten meat, it does not make one violently ill. If you self administer a small dose of poisin on a regular basis you build up a tolerance for it.  Such that a normally lithel dose will be just upsetting to ones system.  this was done, though rarely in Victoria times, by those concerned with such thing.

I often eat chicken that is off tasting, I really prefer it that way.  I meerly take the offening meat, soak it in a salt brine at room tempature for 1-2 hours, then in clear water at room tempature for about 1 more hour and cook as if it were right from the store.  I have never become ill from food that I have cooked.  I have worked in greasy spoons that served thing regularly that were too off for me to even what to think of trying, but the regular patrons did not have any problems.

Modern beef is aged only 6-30 days before sale.  pre-1950 beef was aged 90 days or longer.  You could not buy fresh beef. granted it is aged in controlled environments, but it is still not slaughterhouse fresh. I was raised in a small town in Nebraska, the only industry in town was the Hormel meat packing plant.  My parents and grandparents would not buy meat that had not been aged at least 90 days.  and I still keep beef in my refidgerator for 2+ weeks before cooking it<except maybe ground beef, or I do not plan in advance for a steak>. not very tasty if I have to cook it too soon. 

On the farm, it could take more than 2 months to process some meats before they were ready for the smokehouse.  the brineing was done in large barrels in a cool celler, but at far from modern safe tempatures.  I still have the family reciept for corning beef.  makes 1/2 cow, approx 500 lbs, or 1 whole pig.  first ingredient is 50 lbs of salt.  

Time of year the rpocessing takes place is also an issue<at least in northern climates>.  in july 2 days and the meat is already rotten.  in december you might have 2-3 weeks before any changes are appearant. on the farm, slaughter was in early winter.  after harvest you would process meat for the next few months.  

City folk have different ideas, I am sure many are thinking I am dangerous or an idiot, or both.  Maybe, but I am a live idiot.  and if I get food poisining I am less likely to die from it.  "That which does not kill us, makes us strong".

Joy
Radei

----- Original Message -----
From: SEBD at aol.com
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] The rotten meat thread
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 23:02:02 EDT

> 
> Hi. I hope nobody minds if I jump in here, but
> the question interested me, so I went all techie
> and started looking at the web. Here are a few
> short, good articles on the topic:
> 
> 
> _http://home.comcast.net/~iasmin/mkcc/MKCCfiles/MedievalFoodFactFantasy.html_
> (http://home.comcast.net/~iasmin/mkcc/MKCCfiles/MedievalFoodFactFantasy.html)
> 
> www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/  issues97/mar97/around_mar97.html
> _http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20030217medieval0217p3.asp_
> (http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20030217medieval0217p3.asp)
> There are  bunches more. Just Google "spices" and "rotten meat"
> The arguments  go:
> (1) Rotten meat  makes you horribly ill and you can taste it whether you
> spice it or not.
> (2) The law  specified that meat had to be sold within two days after an
> animal was  slaughtered (How about that? A medieval "sell by" 
> date!)> A butcher
> got fined  if he didn't obey the law.
> (3) Spices were  really expensive, so who in their right mind would use spice
> to cover up rotten  meat?
> I personally  like the line in one of the articles that says that the list of
> herbs and spices  were not so much recipe instructions to the cooks (who were
> by and large  illiterate) but to the steward who had to know what kinds of
> spices to buy for  specific dishes. The cooks did then what home cooks do
> now--put in enough  spice or herbs until it tastes good.
> I haven't been  reading medieval cookbooks long, but that's the first
> observation on spices and  their proportions that I've read that 
> makes actual sense
> to me.
> Some cooks had a conversation in a friend's kitchen in  about a chicken dish.
> "Needs mustard," I said, tasting the bland concoction.
> "There's none  listed in the recipe and we want to be authentic," said my
> friend.
> "If there was  mustard in the kitchen, I bet anybody tasting this  dish would
> have  added some," I persisted.
> Next day, I got  an e-mail: "You know, I took some of that chicken for lunch
> and added mustard.  It tastes better that way. It's not authentic, but it's
> good."
> Cheers,
> Elianne
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> Sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
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joy

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