[Sca-cooks] Spices and the Irish Common folk

[Tom Vincent]

I doubt much seafood was exported in the 14th century. :)

In 1999, I took my then-girlfriend on a vacation tour of Irish castles 
that have been converted into hotels for her birthday.  The quality of 
dining had increased significantly since the last time I had been to 
Ireland -- it's title as the Celtic Tiger is richly deserved.  A lot of 
European chefs and a focus on local seafood & lamb.  One beautiful 
castle/hotel in NW Ireland (Belleek - 
http://www.hotel-ireland.com/belleek-castle/index.html) is right on a 
salmon-rich river and had spectacular local lobsters, a skilled German 
chef and Cuban cigars.  Now, *that's* roughing it!

Anyway, we were talking about food preparation methods for 14th century 
common folk:  I'll stick with my earlier conclusions.  Common folk in 
the 14th century were essentially subsistence farmers with little to no 
access to spices or herbs as such or beef or cookbooks or recipes.  They 
scraped together what they could and stretched it into as many meals as 
they could until it went bad.  If they found some vegetable matter that 
was edible, they'd throw it in the pot without a thought as to whether 
it was a herb, fruit, berry, leaf, stem, root, flower or pod.  They 
couldn't read, weren't educated and didn't travel. 

That isn't speculation, pure or adulterated, or even 'prejudice' against 
14th century common folk.  It's the result of education, research and 
maybe even a bit of common sense. 

Your mileage may vary!

Duriel

Have some dairy today!

Sue Clemenger wrote:
> Not just a lot of seafood gets exported <g>.  During the Potato Famine in
> the 1800s, Ireland actually produced enough food to feed everyone living
> there, but much of it was exported by the landowners (gotta make a profit,
> you know....)
> One of my sincere regrets was not being able to get some good seafood when I
> was in Dublin, but the restaurant I'd wanted to visit was closed for
> renovations, and I wasn't there long enough to hunt down another one.
> Closest I came to it was eating fish-and-chips on the ferry between Holyhead
> and Dublin.  I did have the most amazing Indian cuisine there, though.
> Twice.  <weg> Curry heaven!  And some interesting potato dishes (for
> breakfast).
> In this discussion about foods-Irish-historical, I'd like to point out that
> there would have likely been distinct differences in what was eaten,
> depending on when/where you lived.  I'd imagine that early in SCA period, if
> you lived in/near the towns established by the various Norse
> invaders/settlers, your foods would have reflected those cultures.  Ditto,
> if you lived in the area around Dublin, later (known as "The Pale"), which
> was strongly English-influenced.  My persona is 14th century Irish, living
> in Dublin, and I'm using English sources for my Lenten fast, since Irish
> sources are so lacking....
> Colcannon sounds wonderful....*sigh*
> --Maire, counting the days until she can have dairy again....
>
>   
>