[Sca-cooks] Nutrition based on the four humors

Raphaella DiContini raphaellad at yahoo.com
Wed Nov 3 16:13:12 PDT 2010


I believe it was just one of the article published from the Oxford Symposium on 
food from 1997, I believe. Unfortunately this means that it's protected by 
copyright and isn't available online, however you can find it on Amazon, and I'm 
sure other book sellers as 
well: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0907325890/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=


Balancing the humors was also mentioned in Platina (which in many ways was 
Martino re-presented with Platina's additional commentary). Scappi, Messisbugo, 
the anonymous Venetian and Tuscan manuscripts offer variations to many recipes, 
often to accommodate food availability (sometimes mentioning specific seasonal 
variations) or religious dietary restrictions like lent- but don't seem to 
specifically mention re-balancing the humors like Platina does consistently. 

However Italian health manuals of the time that talk extensively about diet 
also, naturally focus on the humoral balance and appropriate 
preparation techniques, e.g. this advice given to pregnant women: 
"fruits, like fish are cold and humid; moreover, many of them are gassy, so 
generally you should avoid them altogether or eat them only in moderation." " 
When you crave a piece of fruit, just think that the most noble and beautiful 
fruit in the world is the human creature in your womb, so surely you can resist 
the vituperative claims of your palate for a vile, ugly, bad piece of fruit that 
will harm what you carry inside yourself" -Savanarola


In joyous service, 
Raffaella 




________________________________
From: Euriol of Lothian <euriol at yahoo.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Wed, November 3, 2010 3:40:11 PM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Nutrition based on the four humors

Is that article online? and is there a link to it if it is?

Euriol




________________________________
From: David Walddon <david at vastrepast.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Wed, November 3, 2010 6:38:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Nutrition based on the four humors

Martino also speaks about adjusting the main ingredient in a dish with a sauce 
to correct the humors. 

See Fish: Food From the Waters Oxford 21997(?) Pesce Cane article by David 
McDonald. 

Also known as David Walddon and Eduardo Lucrezia. 
They certainly were aware of humoral theory sometimes explicitly other times I 
am sure less so. 


Eduardo 


________________________________________________________

Food is life. May the plenty that graces your table truly be a VAST REPAST. 

David Walddon
david at vastrepast.com
www.vastrepast.net



On Nov 3, 2010, at 3:13 PM, Euriol of Lothian wrote:

> I would have to disagree and say that the Great Cooks were acutely aware of the 
>
>
> four humors. Terence Scully mentions in, The Art of Cooking in the Middle Ages, 
>
>
> the following:
> 
> "“In choosing or in elaborating a sauce a cook accepted an enormously serious 
> responsibility. At this time an
> ignorance of the humoral complexion of any ingredient could easily lead to a 
> charge of inadvertently undermining
> someone’s health, or even murder. A cook’s job was in many respects an offshoot 
>
>
> of that of a physician; he had
> almost as much responsibility.”
> 
> I would also that Martino in Libro de Arte Coquinaria mentions in a number of 
> his recipes the suitability/unsuitability of a dish for particular types of 
> people. The humoral theory was so ingrained in European cultures, and really 
> only was replaced by modern nutrition in the late 19th/early 20th century. 
> 
> 
> Herbals that were printed in the 16th & 17th centuries will note the humoral 
> quality of most of the plants listed in them. In fact there was a push in the 
> 16th century to write herbals in the language native to a region (as opposed to 
>
>
> Latin) so that the apothecaries were sure to have the correct information about 
>
>
> the humors of the various herbs that were now more available to them.
> 
> Euriol
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Suey <lordhunt at gmail.com>
> To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
> Sent: Wed, November 3, 2010 5:51:54 PM
> Subject: [Sca-cooks] Nutrition based on the four humors
> 
> Here there is a lot I do not understand. Yes, I have tried to study the 
> ancients and of course paid a lot of attention to Maimonides, Averroes 
> and Avenzoar. I find I cannot grasp the four humors. When I plan a menu 
> I am not thinking: Sanguine, Choleric, Melacholy or Phegmatic and I 
> don't think any medieval cook was either unless he was a PhD in nutrition!
> 
> I understand Maimonides when he prescribes chicken broth! - Grammy and 
> mom did too. Today, we understand Avenzoar with his use of aloe vera but 
> I am overwhelmed with medieval menus - to me they are common sense 
> prescribed by Ziryab.
> Suey
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> E.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ------------------------------
>> 
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 17:08:07 -0400
>> From: Elaine Koogler<kiridono at gmail.com>
>> To: Cooks within the SCA<sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] another spam or hijacked e-mail
>> Message-ID:
>>    <AANLkTikf-Hq36mXOZr5CD3TJYPPp=JOiPnFVp8Eym+Kp at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>> 
>> I do know Mistress Olwen and I have sent her a message regarding this, but
>> it's been going on for some time...I've not received a response from her but
>> will try again.
>> 
>> Kiri
>> 
>> On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 10:15 AM, Susan Lin<susanrlin at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> 
>>> In my spam folder I just found an e-mail from someone called Olwin the Old.
>>> The body of the e-mail looked suspect so I just deleted it but it came into
>>> the SCA-Cooks group.
>>> 
>>> Don't know if anybody knows this good gentle but they might want to give
>>> him
>>> a heads-up to check that his e-mail account has not been hacked.
>>> 
>>> Shoshana
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Sca-cooks mailing list
>>> Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
>>> http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org
>>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
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