[Sca-cooks] Thoughts on food as medicine
Raphaella DiContini
raphaellad at yahoo.com
Thu Jan 13 15:38:16 PST 2011
Greetings,
I'm currently doing research on fertility and childbirth in Renaissance
Italy. This is a slight tangent in the overall focus of the paper I'm working
on that will look at food recommendations for all stages of fertility from
what would supposedly help in getting pregnant (and what would supposedly help
create a much desired male child), through all stages of pregnancy and
finally possibly tying up with the symbolic food related gifts the mother was
given after birth.
One of the things that caught my eye when reading "Diet during Pregnancy in the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries by MICHAEL K. ESHLEMAN" was a mention of
something I had seen before in Italian sources (this article is fantastic but is
focused on English sources). One of the things that jumped out at me in this
article is a list of diet recommendations for women who are weak and thin or
experiencing blood loss (with their capitalization, but my emphasis)-" A
strengthening and cooling Diet, feeding on Meat that breeds good Blood and
thinkens it; as are good Broths made with Poultry; Necks of Mutton, Knuckles of
Veal, in which are proper for her: *Ler her drink the Water in which Iron is
quenched*, with a little syrup of Quince... " From Mauriceau, Diseases.
The part about the quince syrup is new to me, but I've definitely heard
recommendations for water in which a hot iron has been quenched in my Italian
sources. The one I have closest to hand is from Marinello “Wine is beneficial
for the stomach and generates good spirits and heat. A light red is best, and if
you mix it with water, then use water in which you have extinguished a hot
Iron". [Giovanni] Michele Savanarola also mentions both wine and water, but says
that a mother to be should drink red wine that is "subtle, aromatic and well
aged", which could be mixed with a "little water" if it's felt that such a wine
should be an aperitif. White wine should be avoided until the ninth month,
although it's apparently it's more fashionable for ladies as he says "it's true
the white wine looks better in your hand". Most tellingly he says that "Cold
water is not good at all - better to drink wine".
At first I thought this recommendation could be potentially a) to balance the
humors to more hot than the cold nature of water, b) to purify the water making
it safer to drink, or c) to act as an Iron supplement, like cooking something in
cast iron. That this reference specifically calls for it context of women who
are weak or have experienced blood loss it leads me to see this more as a way to
introduce more Iron into the diet, like a supplement.
I've got a couple of potential blacksmith volunteers who will allow me
to fill a quenching barrel/ bucket/ whatever for him and keep a sample of the
water as a control. I'd like to then test the water after the first three
quenches as a baseline idea of the increase per quench (if it's enough to even
register) and then test it again at the end of the day. If we did this at June
Fair I could even potentially test it again at the end of Sunday. I'm also
hoping to test for bacteria at the same time as I do the Iron testing so I can
test both the sterelizing and enriching theories. I've found two options each
for the bacterial and Iron testing, but I have no idea what might work best for
these experiments.
In joyous service,
Raffaella di Contino / Heather Ruiter
P.S. My life is just starting to calm down after returning to work
post-maternity leave. I'll be posting more information about AnTir's upcoming
Culinary Sympsoium very soon!
Two options for testing for bacteria
http://www.filterwater.com/p-42-science-project-kit.aspx
http://www.filterwater.com/p-43-pool-and-spa-bacteria-test.aspx
In addition to the Iron testing kits here- I haven't decided on which I should
get.
http://www.omega.com/pptst/WTS_Series.html
WTS-480125 $20.00... Iron test,30 individual foil pkts: 0, 0.02, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2,
0.3, 0.5, 0.75, 1.0, 2.0, 5.0 PPM (mg/L) qty.
WTS-480025 $14.00 Iron test, bottle of 25: 0, 0.02, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5,
0.75, 1.0, 2.0, 5.0 PPM (mg/L)
More information about the Sca-cooks
mailing list