[Sca-cooks] More on rotten meat...

[Volker Bach]

You think you have it bad? OK, I'm working on Carolingiasn foodways right now, so I grabbed from the library: Laudage, J; Hageneier, L; Leiverkus, Y: Die Zeit der Karolinger, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2006. 

That is a very reputable publishing co-op of scholarly books, mainly history and philology, but also philosophy, educatipon, archeology, economics, sociology and theology. I'm actually a contributing member. Anyways, this is what Yvonne Leiverkus (who is employed as a researxcher and teacher at the Medieval Studioes department of a German university (eek!) had to say on page 185:

"Ist ein Fleischstück doch nicht mehr ganz so frisch, dann überdecken die kostbaren Gewürze ausdem Morgenland den üblen Geschmack; die karolingische Küche kennt Pfeffer, Gewürznelken, Kümmel, Galanga, Mastix, Anis und Zimt"

"And if a püiece of meat is not all that fresh any more, precious spices of the orient cover up the bad taste; Carolingian cuisine knew pepper, cloves, cumin, galangal, mastic, anise and cinnamon."

AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!!!!

The footnoting makes it clear that she didmn't actually research this. She is just using it as a throwaway sentence to link the part about preserving meat (which she sources from the capitulare de villis) and the list of spices. It's one of those things everybody knows where she comes from, apparently. 

Another gem that I'm having difficulty sourcing: during Lent, butter was replaced by pig fat. 

I know that university jobs are allocated by strange and mysterious processes, but yikes!

rant over

YIS

Giano

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