[Sca-cooks] Favorite Healthy period dishes

[Sue Clemenger]

How about getting the best possible food value/nutrition out of your
critter/dish/meal? We're a pretty wealthy society, to deliberately choose to
throw away chicken skin, or less desirable cuts of meat, or egg yolks, or
the cream from milk.  If I were living in the average 14th century
household, I'd be a lot more careful to use everything I could, or to pass
it on to someone else (acts of charity, etc.).
--Maire

----- Original Message -----
From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <dailleurs at liripipe.com>
To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 6:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Favorite Healthy period dishes


> On why fat is in a recipe in period:
>
> I think Adamantius has a couple good ideas:
>
> 1. flavor. Now, marrow doesn't have a lot of flavor (at least not that
> I've noticed) but suet does. Less than butter, granted, but still
> there's a beefy flavor to it. Lard is different... fats also allow the
> flavors to meld nicely. Many spices are fat soluble and without the fat,
> you don't get the same flavors.
>
> 2. texture. Definitely. Especially suet, which would re-solidify nicely.
> Better than butter, even. Marrow? I have to admit I've never let
> anything with marrow sit long enough to cool to find out ;). And cutting
> the fat would seriously change the "mouthfeel" of the dish. Not
> necessarily a bad thing from the modern mindset, but our medieval
> counterparts would definitely notice (whether they would prefer it or
> not I'm not sure)
>
> 3. consistency of the final product. I still think this is the biggest
> reason. Less fat makes a crumbly product, difficult to eat and you end
> up with a bit of meat and then a bit of fruit. Not the fun meat/fruit
> bite all in one. Definitely a different end product.
>
> 4. preservation. You can use fat to reduce exposure to the air and
> thereby protect the contents from spoilage. This is the same process
> that is used in potted meats, pates, etc. reducing the fat would
> seriously reduce the shelf life of the product.
>
> Can anyone think of other reasons?