[Sca-cooks] olive oil too expensive to be used as a cooking oil?

Daniel Myers dmyers at medievalcookery.com
Mon Jan 30 07:44:52 PST 2012


> -------- Original Message --------
> From: Sayyeda al-Kaslaania <samia at idlelion.net>
> Date: Mon, January 30, 2012 5:43 am
> 

[... snip ...]

> These statements don't disagree with Miller (whom I read as saying olive 
> oil was used, just not as the primary cooking fat), but I don't think it 
> says enough to agree either. The one paragraph almost seems to conflict 
> with the next, but that might be 4am talking.

Frankly, I think Miller is whacked on this, and for one simple reason: 
There is plenty of evidence for olive oil being used as a primary
cooking fat in countries in medieval Europe where olives were *not*
grown (e.g. Germany, England, Denmark, France).  They had to be
importing all that olive oil, and from a trade viewpoint it makes little
sense to export the oil from where it is expensive to sell it where it
is cheap.

- Doc




More information about the Sca-cooks mailing list