[Sca-cooks] Please help stop the attrocities via Wikipedia!

[Nick Sasso]

I have just looked at the mincemeat entry on our old pal "Wikipedia.org"
ansd nearly passed out at the entry for history of mincemeat.  Here we go
again with spoiled meat!

I just need some quick and dirty references to tiles and dates where we can
find the precursors to mincemeat.  Meat and fruit pies are all around, and I
want to give as many as I can in that entry.

I will also debunk the use of multiple strong spices to mask spoiling meat.
Items I plan to include are:
* popularity of the spices implicated
* potential conspicuous consumption
* combination of dried/preserved meats with dried/preserved fruit in winter,
so need assertive and pleasant flavorings.
* increased availability of spices to more people in later 15th and 16th
centuries to spices made thier use more popular and prevelant
* meat and fruit together was not at all uncommon amongst Western European
medieval cookery
* sweet/tart was all the rage for a period of time in 1400's italian texts
* any other good assertions anyone suggests to make when I go to "man up"
their entry on mincemeat.


pacem et bonum,
niccolo difrancesco
(just served mince tarts yesterday and am offended that I forgot to add that
rotted meat I had sitting on my dashboard all last week)