[Sca-cooks] Food for a Demo

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius adamantius1 at verizon.net
Thu Apr 3 21:41:23 PDT 2008


On Apr 4, 2008, at 12:01 AM, otsisto wrote:
> to clarify, Gyngerbrede was served at a demo and the spices brought  
> up the
> subject of spices and someone (a student) was heard saying that back  
> then,
> they used spices in EVERYTHING to hide rotting and rancid foods. I  
> have come
> to understand that this incident was not the first time it was heard  
> when
> gyngerbrede was served at a demo.

I see. Well, to counter that one, the best arguments seem to be that  
we do know that since transport and refrigeration were always issues,  
foods were eaten in season and probably much fresher than they are by  
most of us now, and anything that had to be preserved by salting,  
drying, pickling, etc., was so preserved, and these people would have  
had to be incredibly stupid (which they obviously were not) to spend  
the equivalent of hundreds of dollars to disguise a bad two-dollar  
piece of meat when it would have been cheaper to just buy fresh meat  
(or bread).

>  Perhaps if it is not a "to much info", a list of food myths to be  
> available?

Let's see...

1. Spices used to disguise flavors and smells of decaying meat.  
Massively debunked.

2. Spices, often dozens of them, were thrown together haphazardly in  
all medieval food.

3. Peasants never got to eat meat.

conversely...

4. Nobles never ate vegetables.

5. Beer, wine, cheese and bread have remained unchanged for over two  
thousand years, so if you want to recreate a medieval meal, get some  
of all of the above. Any combination of any type of these items will do.

6. Marco Polo brought spaghetti from China to Italy.

(I'm trying to isolate and omit the Roman-themed food myths concerning  
garum, vomitoria, pasta, etc.)

I'm sure others can add to this list... I'm hittin' the sack, myself...

Adamantius






"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,  
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's  
bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter




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