[Sca-cooks] Some very modern-sounding warnings about some very old food

[Laura C. Minnick]

On 2/10/2014 12:42 PM, JIMCHEVAL at aol.com wrote:
> In her overview of early Medieval food, Kathy  Pierson writes:
>
> "The lack of refrigeration meant that all communities  preserved meats
> through salting, smoking, or storing in fat. Fat could be used  to cook and
> preserve cuts of meat, sausages, and poultry in the same manner that  comfits
> are still made in rural France. Both the meats and the fats could be  used to
> add savor to stews and beans. Preservation would have enhanced sodium,  fat,
> or carcinogen levels in meats, depending on the method used."

Jim, if you're going to quote something like that, you need to give the 
citation. Others of us might like to read this work for ourselves.

>
> So  were Medieval people aware, if only intuitively, that these
> preservation methods  were not absolutely safe?

Not necessarily. They knew nothing of carcinogens and how they work. 
Unfortunately Pierson is laying a modern understanding over medieval 
food practice, a dangerous habit for even the most experience of food 
historians.

>
> At least one Belgian monk seems to have been;  in the fourteenth century,
> Brother Leonard discouraged the use of fatty, salty  and smoked foods - not
> to mention mixing wines:
>
> A FOURTEENTH CENTURY  DIETETIC: 2. Brother Leonard on diet and  health
> http://leslefts.blogspot.com/2014/02/this-is-one-of-severalposts-exploring.h
> tml

Humoral theory was well known, for many hundreds of years before 
'Brother Leonard'. This is not new.

Liutgard

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