[Sca-cooks] Medieval thinking

[JIMCHEVAL at aol.com]

You mean I assume a highly educated Medieval person who would  have known 
the ins and outs of humoral theory - that is, a slim minority of the  
population. I doubt even the lords eating this food understood much of what  their 
doctors and their cooks worked out for them to eat; they just knew a  
peacock looked good on a plate and spices were what people of their class were  
supposed to use.
 
Most people of course ate with utterly no influence from any of this.They  
caught/raised, then killed what animals they could get a hold of, maybe 
added  some vinegar/verjuice and/or oil to the cooking water or rubbed some 
honey or  whatever few spices (probably in a mixture for economy's sake) they 
could get  into a roasting animal and were glad to have it. Or just ate their 
coarse bread  and peas or beans with some water, milk or beer, and a hunk of 
thick bacon if  things were going well.
 
Even sticking to the first group, trying to think like a Medieval person  
requires a whole constellation of other considerations: fasting limitations,  
loose hygiene, stronger tolerance for odors, willingness to eat far greater 
 quantities at one meal, unquestioning sense of class, comfort with sharing 
 bowls, etc. It's quite a complex exercise if one cares to take it on.
 
Jim  Chevallier
 (http://www.chezjim.com/) www.chezjim.com

Les Leftovers: sort of a food history  blog
leslefts.blogspot.com  

In a message dated 11/27/2013 12:15:35 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
saintphlip at gmail.com writes:

While  much of what we do as Medieval cooks is use Medieval ingredients, to
the  best of our ability, in Medieval recipes, one thing we often neglect  
is
trying to THINK like a Medieval  person. ......

 

Why  don't we try, as an experiment, to USE
these somewhat unfamiliar species as  we think they might have been used in
period, had our Medieval progenitors  encountered them? We can assign them
humoral characteristics,  etc,