[Sca-cooks] spoiled meat

[James Prescott]

At 5:18 AM -0500 7/21/09, otsisto wrote:

>  2. She states: "In renaissance dishes from many cultures, meats and fruits
>  were often combined. Originally, the sweetness of the fruits was used to
>  hide the acrid smells of spoiled meat and/or to remove the saltiness of
>  preserved (salted) meat. The fruits...."
>  Now I know that the use of spices to cover rancid meat is a myth but what of
>  her statement of fruit to cover spoiled meat?

Nonsense.  The recipe books that survive were for the upper bourgeoisie,
or for the nobility.  They could afford fresh meat all the time, any time.

You don't become rich, or stay rich, just so you can buy tainted meat
and then play games trying to disguise the bad flavour.

In the Paris of about 1395 (the time of Menagier) the butchers were
required by law to sell only meat slaughtered that same day.

So anyone well off enough to afford meat at all in Paris in 1395 would
be ensured of getting it fresh.


Sure, in some extreme circumstances people might have eaten tainted meat
heavily disguised, but only when desperate.  But you don't create recipe
books out of such experiences.


Thorvald