[Sca-cooks] A question about meat-

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Feb 16, 2010, at 2:14 PM, Laura C. Minnick wrote:

> As I mentioned just a minute ago, I'm rummaging around in Carolingian France, and I saw something interesting that sort of piqued my curiosity. Apparently, Charlemagne's doctors were after him to eat only boiled meats, but he loved roasted meat so that's what he ate, dammit! So I'm wondering, does boiling vs roasting change the fat and/or cholesterol etc ratios? Were his doctors actually on to something? I haven't been able to find any sort of answer here. (And I'd bet Bear knows where to find out...)

Scully talks about it a lot in his books. It's [very] probably humoral, as Margaret says. In general, meats of the kind that you roast in big hunks are to some degree hot and dry in character, which is, in humoral theory, why they are so often parboiled, larded and _then_ roasted... basically to "zero them out", or bring them as close to a humorally neutral or balanced state as possible. Verjuice, vinegar, parsley, and ginger are generally also considered cooling, IIRC.

Now, whether this is closer to the humoral theory of Tacuinum Sanitatis or the humoral theory of Anthimus (they seem to disagree, occasionally, on specifics), I couldn't say.

Adamantius, who is not supposed to stir-fry beef with black bean sauce for the same reason... chicken and seafood, yes, even pork, but not dark red meat...






"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