rotten-meat-msg – 5/19/06
Counter examples and commentary on the "they used spices to cover the taste of rotten meat in the Middle Ages" myth.
NOTE: See also the files: spices-msg, meat-aging-msg, pickled-meats-msg, roast-meats-msg, meat-smoked-msg, Preservng-CMA-art, food-storage-msg, drying-foods-msg.
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Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 10:46:13 -0400
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
From: "Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Food Myths
Also sprach Generys ferch Ednuyed:
>I'm doing a class next week for a canton meeting on various food related
>things (it's an overview of a lot of things rather than going really indepth
>on anything, just to keep non-foodies interested... :-) ) and one of the
>subjects I wanted to spend 5 minutes on was various commonly-held (by
>SCAdians and non) beliefs about medieval food that just aren't true, or are
>distortions of fact, etc... (i.e. I'm going to talk about the
>spices-to-cover-rotten-meat thing, of course, but when I do so I'm also
>going to mention that one recipe that I believe we talked about on this list
>(have to find it again) for burying rotten meat to make it good again...) I
>was wondering if you all had any favorite myths to contribute - esp. if they
>have interesting bits to them like the burying rotten meat thing.
You know, I thought about this a bit more, and realized perhaps you
may be misinterpreting the recipes for rescuing venison that is
tainted, rusted or "restyd" (there are a few such recipes out there).
The process isn't a magical, but ineffective, method of restoring
putrid meat to a state of freshness.
What it is designed for is salvaging meat that has _begun_ to go bad,
but is not actually rotten, yet. Not unlike (well, okay, here's where
I embarrass myself because I'm a barbarian and all) when you look in
the fridge and see that that package of ground beef has gotten a
little brown around the edges and is sitting in brown, bloody juice
when you bought it two or three days ago, and shoved it to the back
of the fridge, and you say, "I'd better use that up tonight, or throw
it away tomorrow." Or when you see the little rainbow pattern on that
slice of deli ham, or note a peculiar texture to those slices of
salami. Do you use them up quickly and make time in your busy
schedule to be near a bathroom, or just pitch them?
These are foods that are considered by most people "on the edge". No,
I really don't need to hear from all two hundred of you that you'd
never eat food like that, or, for that matter, that you would without
a second thought. The point is that this concept is one which both
we, now, and medieval people, then, have faced occasionally.
Now, the recipe for rescuing venison (any of several, or at least a
couple, of such) seems to involve washing the meat, probably cutting
off the worst and most affected parts, rubbing it down with salt
(both a preservative and an abrasive to remove slime and decaying
tissue), vinegar (changing the pH, possibly killing or disabling
surface bacteria, and either masking sour flavors such as lactic acid
produced by bacteria, or offsetting bitter flavors associated with
mild decay), or ash (pH adjustment, again, as well as repelling
insects _and_ possibly the abrasive action mentioned as for salt).
As for burying the meat until you're ready to use it, well, it may be
that a hole in the ground is cooler than just hanging it in a larder,
and will slow down the process of decay that much more.
In short, I don't know that the recipes you mention are really good
examples of myths.
Adamantius
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
To: "'sca-cooks at ansteorra.org'" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Food Myths
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 11:03:08 -0500
Be careful that you don't create your own myths at the same time.
The recipe for recovering "tainted" meat is not meant to recover meat that
is "rotten."
The recipe is in Markham (IIRC) and is obviously not a commonly followed
practice from the wording. As I recall, the recipe is for a haunch of
venison, which is a rather large piece of meat. Large pieces of meat may
experience localized decomposition rather than general decomposition.
Obvious tainted areas are removed and the bones and tissue around them are
removed. Bones and connecting tissue tend toward early decomposition. The
meat is then buried for a time, which exposes it to various nematodes to
remove any remaining decomposing meat (think of treating a wound with
maggots to remove gangrenous tissue). After being dug up, the meat is
cleaned, trimmed, and cooked (which kills off parasitic nematodes). As long
as the meat isn't too far gone to begin with, the recipe might work.
Bear
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 12:46:42 -0400
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
From: "Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Food Myths
Also sprach Generys ferch Ednuyed:
> > The recipe is in Markham (IIRC) and is obviously not a commonly followed
>> practice from the wording.
I think there's at least one or two earlier, but similar, recipes, in
English, from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
> As I recall, the recipe is for a haunch of
>> venison, which is a rather large piece of meat. Large pieces of meat may
> > experience localized decomposition rather than general decomposition.
Anybody needing support for this statement can talk to the staff of a
good steakhouse that does their own butchering, or even the butcher
in the finer markets that sell dry-aged beef, about the amount of
moldy surface material they have to trim off before sale. Now, or
course, that meat is refrigerated, but refrigeration slows down
decomposition, and doesn't eliminate it, so there are likely some
major similarities to the process.
Adamantius
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 13:10:38 -0400
From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Food Myths
Plat's Jewell House from 1594 has a recipe
"To helpe venison that is tainted."
We discussed this last August on the list--
from Wed, 22 Aug 2001 21:09:39 -0400
I wrote then:
"Actually, the quotation continues after
"and it wil bee sweet enough to be eaten"
with the words
"as I am enformed by a Gentlewoman of good
credit, and upon hir owne practise."
recipe 16 pp.22-23 of the 1594 edition.
Note that Plat is just reporting on someone's
report and he doesn't tell us to then spice it
heavily and serve for supper.
Johnna Holloway
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
To: "'sca-cooks at ansteorra.org'" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Aging Beef was [Sca-cooks] Food Myths
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 12:47:48 -0500
As I recall, butchers like to leave a layer of fat on the outside of a
carcass they are aging for several reasons including to serve as a
protective sheath to reduce the penetration of mold into the meat.
Something about having more saleable product and better flavor.
Bear
> Anybody needing support for this statement can talk to the staff of a
> good steakhouse that does their own butchering, or even the butcher
> in the finer markets that sell dry-aged beef, about the amount of
> moldy surface material they have to trim off before sale. Now, or
> course, that meat is refrigerated, but refrigeration slows down
> decomposition, and doesn't eliminate it, so there are likely some
> major similarities to the process.
>
> Adamantius
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 12:37:29 -0700
From: david friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Origin of the "spice to hide taste of rotten
meat" myth?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
In the course of a Usenet discussion, someone raised the question of
when and where the belief that medievals used lots of spices to hide
the taste of rotten meat originated. The best I could do was point at
the reference to the strong stomachs of our ancestors in the
introduction to _Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books_, done about
1890--but that says nothing about rotten meat. I said I would put the
question to this list.
--
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 20:05:05 -0400
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <rcmann4 at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Origin of the "spice to hide taste of rotten
meat" myth?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
On 24 Jul 2003, at 12:37, david friedman wrote:
In the course of a Usenet discussion, someone raised the question of
when and where the belief that medievals used lots of spices to hide
the taste of rotten meat originated. The best I could do was point at
the reference to the strong stomachs of our ancestors in the
introduction to _Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books_, done about
1890--but that says nothing about rotten meat. I said I would put the
question to this list.
<<<<<<
I looked around on the Web. The only explanation that I could find for the origin of the myth came from The Jargon File, which atrributes it to Samuel Pegge.
http://www.elsewhere.org/jargon/html/entry/saga.html
(Scroll to the bottom of the page)
I've looked through Samuel Pegge's introduction to his 1780 edition of "The Form of Cury". It says nothing about rotten meat, but does promote the idea that medieval people ate highly-spiced food, and rarely ate plain roasted meat.
Here are a few relevant quotes:
"My next observation is, that the messes both in the roll and the Editor's MS, are chiefly soups, potages, ragouts, hashes, and the like hotche-potches; entire joints of meat being never _served_, and animals, whether fish or fowl, seldom brought to table whole, but hacked and hewed, and cut in pieces or gobbets [77]; the mortar also was in great request, some messes being actually denominated from it, as _mortrews_, or _morterelys_ as in the Editor's MS."
"Many of them are so highly seasoned, are such strange and heterogeneous
compositions, meer olios and gallimawfreys, that they seem removed as far as
possible from the intention of contributing to health; indeed the messes are so
redundant and complex, that in regard to herbs, in No. 6, no less than ten are used, where we should now be content with two or three: and so the sallad, No. 76, consists of no less than 14 ingredients."
"But then it may be said, what becomes of the old English hospitaliiy in this case, the _roast-beef of Old England_, so much talked of? I answer, these bulky and magnificent dishes must have been the product of later reigns, perhaps of queen Elizabeth's time, since it is plain that in the days of Rich. II. our ancestors lived much after the French fashion."
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext05/8cury10.txt
I've read through the whole preface, and it doesn't seem that Pegge held to the rotten meat theory. (I have not read any other writings by him on the subject.) However, it does show that the notion of "highly spiced" medieval food goes back at least a century before your Victorian example. Someone reading Pegge's preface would be presented with two "facts":
1. Medieval dishes were "highly seasoned".
2. Meat was usually served in stews and potages, rather than as plain roasts.
From this point on, I can only speculate. Someone may have taken Pegge's
research, and jumped to the conclusion that there was only one reason that
Englishmen would eat spicy stews instead of good honest roast beef.
Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 23:37:54 -0400
From: "a5foil" <a5foil at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Origin of the "spice to hide taste of rotten
meat" myth?
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
>>>>
In the course of a Usenet discussion, someone raised the question of
when and where the belief that medievals used lots of spices to hide
the taste of rotten meat originated. The best I could do was point at
the reference to the strong stomachs of our ancestors in the
introduction to _Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books_, done about
1890--but that says nothing about rotten meat. I said I would put the
question to this list.
--
David/Cariadoc
<<<<
In the introduction to Stere Hit Well (1972) which is an edition of Pepys
1047, a late 15th century English compliation, Delia Smith -- who apparently
despises medieval food, and certainly does not understand it -- says, after
commenting on the "totally indiscriminate use of spices and herbs" that "It
is commonly thought that such heavy seasoning was essential to disguise the
smell and flavour of decaying flesh." Now I don't know where *she* got the
idea, but it is definitely there, in print, in 1972.
Cynara
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 10:46:30 -0500
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Origin of the "spice to hide taste of rotten
meat" my th?
To: "'sca-cooks at ansteorra.org'" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
IIRC, there is a reference to spicing rotten meat in Alexis Soyer's The
Pantropheon (1853), but it has been over a decade since I read it and I
don't have a copy in the library, so I may be confusing The Pantropheon with
another work.
Bear
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 14:41:55 -0400
From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Origin of the "spice to hide taste of rotten
meat" myth?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Johnnae llyn Lewis sends greetings.
Regarding this topic which seems to bounce around
every summer of medieval spices used to disguise rotten meat and
was this folklore or not?
I've come across these sources, starting with this one by Andrew Dalby.
Dalby writes:
"It is also necessary to look critically at what earlier historians
have said. It is easy to perpetuate errors. At some time in the
twentieth century, a British historian unfamiliar with foreign food
was told (possibly by his mother) that spices serve to mask the
flavour of rotting meat. This assertion is now made of medieval
cuisine in several otherwise well-researched histories written in
Britain. It is undocumented, and, in general, for ancient and
medieval cuisines, it is most unlikely to be true. Spices were a
luxury item, affordable only by those who could afford very good food.
No recipe or household text recommends them to mask bad flavours. On
the contrary, spices are called for liberally in ancient recipe books
for their positive flavour, their aroma, their preservative and dietary
qualities."
This is taken from page 156 of Andrew Dalby. Dangerous Tastes.
The Story of Spices. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
(In the UK by the British Museum Press, 2000.)
Also With regard to Spices and Rotten Meat...
FOOD HISTORY NEWS in the summer of 1996 offered this as "an
example of an old saw that we would like to dull..." It's one
of those oft-quoted , generally accepted, unquestioned
assumptions that in light of recent research and reinterpretation
needs to re-examined and dismissed.
The issue then offered an article by Alice Arndt entitled
"They Used A Lot of Spices to Disguise Spoiled Meat." Arndt
points out that medieval markets were regulated. Those caught
selling putrid meat might be fined or even pilloried in front
of their rotten carcasses. She notes that surviving medieval
recipes do not mention that one needs to add extra spices if
the meat is tainted. Much of what we accept in terms of this
accepted truth, she traces to Drummond (The Englishman and His Food),
who got it wrong in his book by misreading a number of recipes.
She notes that the use of spices in tropical cuisines has more
to do with inducing perspiration than with preservation. Lastly,
medieval preservation techniques were effective and remained in
use long after exotic spicing was abandoned.
The Oxford Symposium on Food Cookery 1992 which was entitled
Spicing Up the Palate Studies of Flavourings – Ancient and Modern
offered up several papers including:
ÒTainted Meat,Ó by Gillian Riley. It was subtitled ÒAn attempt
to investigate the origins of a commonly held opinion about the use
of spices in the cooking of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.Ó Pp. 1-6.
Riley admits that she thought it would be a simple task to work
backwards until she found Òsome pompous eighteenth-century antiquaryÓ
that was the origin of the idea. But it was not that simple a task.
See her paper for all the details. She mentions Richard Warner and
Austin, but also notes that several Italian authors in the 19 th
century who were working with the Italian manuscripts were not taken
with spicing and write about its "uncouthness." There's a bibliography
for further reading.
Other interesting articles/chapters on this question are:
Flandrin, Jean-Louis. "Seasonings, Cooking, and Dietetics in
the Late Middle Ages." appears as Chapter 25 of FOOD A CULINARY
HISTORY, edited by Jean-louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari, 1999.
Laurioux, Bruno. "Spices in the Medieval Diet: A New Approach."
FOOD AND FOODWAYS, v.1, no.1 (1985) pp.43-76.
Crossley-Holland, Nicole. LIVING AND DINING IN MEDIEVAL PARIS.
Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996. See her chapter "Sugar
and Spice..." pages 105-112 wherein she sets out to examine
Le Menagier with regard to his use of spices. Along the way,
she covers all the bases regarding the old theories of spices,
rotten meat, and unsophisticated palates.
------------
So, what is one to think? Actually, I think the idea was accepted
by medievalists reading Austin, Warner, Mead and Drummond and written
into a generation or two of textbooks. From there it made its
way into popular textbooks and children's books and so
now everyone grows up with the idea that meat spoiled & they
needed spices to hide the taste. Afterall every schoolchild
has to learn about Columbus and what drove all those ships westward
but the search for spices.
Johnnae llyn Lewis
Johnna Holloway
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 13:01:04 -0600
From: Mary Morman <mem at rialto.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] spice and rotten meat
To: SCA-Cooks <SCA-Cooks at ansteorra.org>
Like the rest of you, I'm not sure of the origin of this "theory" but it
is being kept in the public eye at several historical sites in England.
I remember hearing it as part of the guides speil at the Shakespeare
properties - specifically Anne Hathaway's cottage and Mary Arden's farm
- and at Plas Mawr in Wales. Both times I spoke up to correct the guide
both during the tour and then spoke to the people in charge afterwards.
No one was at all interested in differentiating fact from fiction.
Elaina
From: Charlene Charette <neitherhere at northere.com>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: spicing tainted meat
Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 04:00:21 GMT
There was a discussion awhile back about refuting the myth that medieval
folk used lots of spices to disguise the taste of tainted meat. I've
been reading Stpehen Mennell's "All Manners of Food" (1996, 2nd ed) and
he has one of the better explanations I've read:
The traditional explanation for the generous use of spices and other
strong sweet and acid flavourings in medieval haute cuisine is that,
given the rudimentary means of preserving food, they were essential to
disguise the unpleasant taste of tainted and salted meat. That cannot
be anything like the whole truth, for the use of spices began to change
long before there was any significant improvement in methods of
preservation. Nor is there any evidence in the surviving manuscripts
that the strong flavourings were to be omitted when meat or fish was
particularly fresh, which might indicate an underlying preference for
the 'natural' flabour. Quite the contrary: it is clear that they were
used, and expected to be used, with fresh meat too. Indeed they were
used in dishes of all kinds, and for example sprinkled on 'sweet' dishes
as well as 'savoury'. The temptation must be resisted to think that
medieval people 'really' preferred food more or less similar to that
which we eat now, but were compelled by force of circumstance (at least
if they could afford it) to eat unpleasantly highly flavoured mixtures
designed to obliterate basic tastes. That argument has been undermined
by the discrediting of the notion that, following a sweeping autumn
slaughter, there was no fresh meat to eat in winter even for the upper
classes. Dyer contends that 'the explanation of the nobility's
attachment to spices is more likely to be cultural -- they provided a
link with the sophisticated Mediterranean world' (1983:194). In any
case, as was argued in chapter 1, the idea that there are inbuilt
preferences for 'natural', 'original' or 'Ur-tastes' in food is highly
implausible. The overwhelming evidence is that people come positively
to like foods which developing social standards define as desirable.
--Perronnelle
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 18:19:12 -0600
From: James Prescott <prescotj at telusplanet.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Rotten meat and spices...
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
At 16:33 -0700 2005-04-11, Chris Stanifer wrote:
> --- Phlip <phlip at 99main.com> wrote:
>> OK, guys, we're getting some help on the "rotten meat" issue. This is from
>> the lady who wrote the article I forwarded the url to you guys a few days
>> ago, where she's debunking that annoying article that keeps coming around
>> about the bad old days.
>
> Before anyone tries to 'debunk' the 'myth' that rotten or bad meat
> was covered up with spices, you
> need to be made aware of several bits from Apicius in which food
> adulteration is not only
> suggested, but recommended. In particular I recall a section on
> making bad honey good, and there
> are others. I'll post the more obvious ones later this evening.
Good point.
In Viandier, the one about still being able to eat a cooked swan or
peackock a month later:
"Kill it like goose, leave the head and tail, lard or bard it, roast it golden,
and eat it with fine salt. It lasts at least a month after it is cooked. If it
becomes mouldy on top, remove the mould and you will find it white, good
and solid underneath."
Thorvald
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 09:07:10 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Rotten meat and spices...
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
As I recall, the town regulations of Ipswich(?) permitted rotten meat to be
sold as that before the public stocks. Selling bad meat as good got you in
the stocks.
http://the-orb.net/encyclop/culture/towns/ipswich6.html (found the URL)
You might also try:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1237butchers-tuln.html
http://the-orb.net/encyclop/culture/towns/ssp08.html
http://www.countrylife.co.uk/lifecountry/food/medieval_cuisine.php
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=21971
http://www.godecookery.com/chaucer/chfoodb.htm
Bear
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 14:11:47 -0600
From: El Hermoso Dormiendo
<ElHermosoDormido+scacooks at dogphilosophy.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks]Rotten meat and spices...
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
On Tuesday 12 April 2005 10:15 am, dale elliott wroe:
> What of the pheasent scene from Sho-Gun. Did the English hand the
> pheasent until the neck rotted? or is this bunk?
[...]
"Rotted" is probably not the correct description, either, whether they
actually did it or not.
"Aging" meats is an autoctalytic process - it's not to allow spoilage
organisms to invade the meat, but to allow time for existing enzymes in the
meat to break it down and tenderize it.
Presumably in the case of the pheasant, the idea was not that it would "rot"
but that once the muscle and connetive tissue had softened enough, it would
no longer be strong enough to support the weight of the bird's body. At that
point, you'd know the tenderizing process had reached the point that you
wanted. Hanging the bird up would also allow gravity to stretch the muscles
and minimize the effects of rigour mortis on the texture of the meat.
Apparently, both the initial rigour mortis and the subsequent
"aging" (breakdown and softening of the muscle fibers due to enzyme activity)
happen fairly quickly in birds, as compared to e.g. beef or mutton.
I'd also suspect that the cool climate of England probably kept spoilage
organism growth on a bird hung outside to a relatively slow pace.
If you had spoilage organisms invade the bird, it would likely bloat up and
reek horribly (MMmmmm, hydrogen sulfide and related gasses), and I can't
imagine any amount of spices masking that...spoilage only on the surface of
the bird would presumably be peeled away with the skin and any remainder
washed off or cut out, I would think.
And as far as period recipes for dealing with spoiling meat, the one that I
can remember was, I think, from the "Goodman of Paris" document (upper-middle
class rather than nobility, as I recall) and (again, from memoy) explicitly
described REMOVING the parts that had been affected by spoilage, and
described steps for saving the remainder. I don't personally recall ever
running into a "put a bunch of spices on it and nobody will notice that the
meat you're feeding them is rotten" reference in "period" - not that there
couldn't be any, but I've never seen any hints that there are.
(On the other hand - Harold McGee reports that in the 19th century beef and
mutton WERE literally hung up until the surface of the meat was ACTUALLY
rotted. No mention of doing this with poultry, though, and of course 19th
century is post-"period".)
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 17:32:23 -0700 (PDT)
From: Chris Stanifer <jugglethis at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Rotten meat and spices...
To: smcclune at earthlink.net, Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
--- smcclune at earthlink.net wrote:
> Yes, but .... refrigeration isn't the only way to preserve meat. They
> could (and did) smoke,
> pickle/"sowce", and salt meat. They could even bake it into a coffyn
> or turn it into sausage to
> preserve it. We have recipes telling us how to do all of these
> things. Do we have any reason
> to believe that they would have preferred the taste of "off" meats to
> any of these?
There is no implication for preference in my message, merely that it was done, and with enough apparent regularity that it has made it into the cookbooks of the day. The fact that it is mentioned at all in an otherwise 'sophisticated' cookbook or treatise on foods is an indication, at least to me, that spicing or otherwise masking meats and other foods which had 'gone off' was
an acceptable (or even necessary) practice, even amongst the wealthier classes.
> Having said that, I do seem to remember seeing one recipe somewhere
> that said something about
> making old meat new again by washing it in wine, but of course, I
> can't find it now!
>
> Still, that's one out of hundreds, so while they might have tried to
> pass off old meat as new
> once in a while, I can't help but feel that it was the exception
> rather than the rule.
Yes, there are recipes which call for 'fine' or 'fair' meats...and
there are others which tell you
how to handle those which are not so fine or fair. The mere mention of
fine or fair meats does
not, in any way, indicate that older, gamier or even putrid meats were
not used as well. The
recipes for how to handle these meats, in fact, is a direct implication
that it was done.
We take the good with the bad :) I'd love to think that the populace
in my dreamy medieval world
only ate the best of the best, too.... but the evidence speaks against
it time after time.
William de Grandfort
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 05:25:32 -0700 (PDT)
From: Chris Stanifer <jugglethis at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Rotten meat and spices... (a few excerpts
from Apicius)
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Here's a reference from an author whom *I* respect, with numerous references from authors my author respects.... you might find it a bit of a dry read at first, so i will direct your attention to page 7, the lower left hand portion of the page (left column) in which the author mentions, quite clearly, the spicing of meats to hide decay. In fact, I suggest everyone read the entire article...it is very fascinating, and paints quite a descriptive picture as to what *actual* life in medieval York was like (based upon scientific evidence)
Yes, this is a modern article on Medieval York, but it is backed up with researched facts, and *digged up bones*. Check out the bibliography.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/110433643/PDFSTART
William de Grandfort
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 09:51:34 -0500 (CDT)
From: Speaker To Idiots <pixel at hundred-acre-wood.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Rottenmeat and spices... (a few excerpts
from Apicius)
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
> Also sprach Chris Stanifer:
>> Yes, this is a modern article on Medieval York, but it is backed up with
>> researched facts, and *digged up bones*. Check out the bibliography.
>>
>> htp://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/110433643/PDFSTART
>
> I wish I could. Wiley won't let me onto the site. Tried three
> browsers...
>
> So what does it say on page 7 about the spicing of meats to hide decay? That
> the technique migh have been possible/used, or that it was done, or that
> they found a piece of meat with a poopload of cubebs on it, which radiocarbon
> dating and/or other forensic testing indicated was putrid before the spices
> were added?
>
> Adamantius
This is the relevant passage that he's talking about:
"After the Black Death of 1348.1349 and before
inflation raised the price of foods in 1525, most of the
working urban poor could afford to purchase an adequate
amount and quality of food (Drummond et
a., 1958; Dyer, 1983). Before 1350, the lack of economic
mobility, land hunger, and narrow range of
employment opportunities ensured the poor a meager
and rough existence. Diets were seasonal, precarious,
and cereal-based, consisting of milk, bread,
pottag, ale, onions, leeks, cabbages, garlic, apples,
and pears. Supplements of bacon and dairy gave a
modest but perhaps often insufficient amount of protein,
iron, and vitamin B12, as livestock were still
expensive and rare (Given-Wilson, 1996; Hilton,
1966).After the Black Death of 1349, the surviving
wage laborers increased their purchasing power by
demanding higher wages and better food for their
services. Both the quality and quantity of bread and
ale were improved, and the consumption of dairy,
fish, and particularly meat increased as well. Increases
in the consumption of protein-, iron-, and
vitamin B12-rich meats over the previous dietary
staple of bread made for the crucial dietary shift
during this period (Dyer, 1983, 1988). These new
healthier protein- and nutrient-rich diets not only
carried biological advantages such as increased longevity
and quality of life, but also carried social
benefits, as meat consumption was associated with
status (Dyer, 1988). Food safety in urban contexts
soon became the target of city government, and the
duplicity of butchers selling cheap meats spiced to
mask decay and of other merchants trying to dump
lower-cost spoiled foods on consumers meant that
these hazards increased as socioeconomic status and
purchasing power decreased (Drummond et al.,
1958). This meant that dietary improvements experienced
by the poor were partially offset by questionable
food quality. The exact pattern of consumption
for white meats, fruits, and vegetables is unknown
for the poor. However, the continued association
between these foods and low status suggests they
may have retained importance throughout the Medieval
period. Paradoxically, as the poor gained access
to high-status foods and the biological and social
benefits that they conveyed, thy may have been
less inclined to eat what were perceived to be inferior foods. In this
way, increased protein, iron, and
B12 content may have been counterbalanced by decreases
in many other vital nutrients such as folic
acid, vitamin C, and vitamin D. As he population
grew by the middle of the 15th century and as many
urban centers began to decline in wealth and importance
due to the effects of recession, the diets of the
poor became more circumscribed, as low-status laborers,
especially women, were pushe further into
the margins of Medieval society (Goldberg, 1986,
1992a,b). Low-status people and some of the lower ranking
moderate-status people buried at St. Andrew's
probably faced these economic and dietary
vagaries as a part of their everyday lives."
Margaret FitzWilliam
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 10:32:13 -0400
From: "Jeff Gedney" <gedney1 at iconn.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Rotten meat and spices... (a few excerpts
fromApicius)
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
I can't get past the simple economics of it.
Any household that is well off enough to afford a lot of expensive
imported spices is certainly going to be able to afford a trip to the
butcher's or the Polterers for something fresh.
Spices like any other semi precious commodity would be usied
intentionally and to achieve a desired effect.
The same applies to salt, for that matter, which had to be imported to
most areas of Europe. England, for example had almost nil salt
production due to water quality and climate.
Pickling/curing meat is an intentional and often well planned process.
I can't see why someone would wait until the meat had begun to spoil to
start wither of these processes. If the eat continued to spoil while
it was in the ad initio stage of salting/pickling, then the salt/spices
or whatever would be wasted.
Seems to me tossing a double handful of cinnamon and cloves into a pot
on the off chance it would make the effects of utrescine and
Cadaverine less noticeable is potentially wasteful, the spices so used
would be unrecoverable. If the 'experiment' failed the household would
be out some valuable spices with out any benefit from them.
If you were poor you were frugal with your expenditures. You smoke and
salt and preserve your meats as soon as you butcher them. That is how
it was done in communities without refrigeration in the US and all over
Europe in the 17th, 18th, 19th, and even 20th centuries (read the foxfire books).
I find it hard to believe that frugal folk in the middle ages would not
have been similarly frugal (and fore-thinking) about their precious
supply of meats, salts and spices.
So the whole notion fails a basic economic test for me.
If you were rich enough to afford the spices to throw away, you were
rich enough to have a regular supply of fresh meat.
If you weren't, you would have been trained from birth to be careful
with your assets and naturally put up the meat for the winter in the
fall slaughtering time.
If you were careful to PREVENT spoilage, you would not have to COPE
WITH spoilage.
A well run house was a frugally run house, and the assets of the house
would be jealously husbanded. That includes both Meat AND spices.
Cpt Elias
-Renaissance Geek of the Cyber Seas
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 11:35:45 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks Rotten meat and spices...
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Chris Stanifer wrote: snipped
> Anyway, I'm done with this. Forget I mentioned anything at all.
> There are references to it out
> there, but someone else will have to find them.
> William de Grandfort
---------------------
Yes, it's been answered--- this post is from 2003.
[Sca-cooks] Origin of the "spice to hide taste of rotten meat" myth?
johnna Fri Jul 25 15:41:55 CDT 2003
* Previous message: [Sca-cooks] Origin of the "spice to hide taste
of rotten meat" myth?
<http://www.ansteorra.org/mailman/htdig/sca-cooks/2003-July/
095370.tml>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Johnnae llyn Lewis sends greetings.
Regarding this topic which seems to bounce around
every summer of medieval spices used to disguise rotten meat and
was this folklore or no?
I've come across these sources, starting with this one by Andrew Dalby.
Dalby writes:
"It is also necessary to look critically at what earlier historians
have said. It is easy to perpetuate errors. At some time in the
twentieth century, a British hisorian unfamiliar with foreign food
was told (possibly by his mother) that spices serve to mask the
flavour of rotting meat. This assertion is now made of medieval
cuisine in several otherwise well-researched histories written in
Britain. It is undocumente, and, in general, for ancient and
medieval cuisines, it is most unlikely to be true. Spices were a
luxury item, affordable only by those who could afford very good food.
No recipe or household text recommends them to mask bad flavours. On
the contrary, sices are called for liberally in ancient recipe books
for their positive flavour, their aroma, their preservative and dietary
qualities."
This is taken from page 156 of Andrew Dalby. Dangerous Tastes.
The Story of Spices. Berkeley: University of Califoria Press, 2000.
(In the UK by the British Museum Press, 2000.)
Also With regard to Spices and Rotten Meat...
FOOD HISTORY NEWS in the summer of 1996 offered this as "an
example of an old saw that we would like to dull..." It's one
of those oft-quoted , generally accepted, unquestioned
assumptions that in light of recent research and reinterpretation
needs to re-examined and dismissed.
The issue then offered an article by Alice Arndt entitled
"They Used A Lot of Spices to Disguise Spoiled Meat." Arndt
poits out that medieval markets were regulated. Those caught
selling putrid meat might be fined or even pilloried in front
of their rotten carcasses. She notes that surviving medieval
recipes do not mention that one needs to add extra spices if
the meat is tinted. Much of what we accept in terms of this
accepted truth, she traces to Drummond (The Englishman and His Food),
who got it wrong in his book by misreading a number of recipes.
She notes that the use of spices in tropical cuisines has more
to do with inducing perspiration than with preservation. Lastly,
medieval preservation techniques were effective and remained in
use long after exotic spicing was abandoned.
The Oxford Symposium on Food Cookery 1992 which was entitled
Spicing Up the Palate Studies o Flavourings – Ancient and Modern
offered up several papers including:
ÒTainted Meat,Ó by Gillian Riley. It was subtitled ÒAn attempt
to investigate the origins of a commonly held opinion about the use
of spices in the cooking of the Middle Ages and Renassance.Ó Pp. 1-6.
Riley admits that she thought it would be a simple task to work
backwards until she found Òsome pompous eighteenth-century antiquaryÓ
that was the origin of the idea. But it was not that simple a task.
See her paper for all the details.She mentions Richard Warner and
Austin, but also notes that several Italian authors in the 19 th
century who were working with the Italian manuscripts were not taken
with spicing and write about its "uncouthness." There's a bibliography
for further readin.
Other interesting articles/chapters on this question are:
Flandrin, Jean-Louis. "Seasonings, Cooking, and Dietetics in
the Late Middle Ages." appears as Chapter 25 of FOOD A CULINARY
HISTORY, edited by Jean-louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari, 1999.
Laurioux, Bruno. "Spices in the Medieval Diet: A New Approach."
FOOD AND FOODWAYS, v.1, no.1 (1985) pp.43-76.
Crossley-Holland, Nicole. LIVING AND DINING IN MEDIEVAL PARIS.
Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996. See her chapter "Sugar
and Spice..." paes 105-112 wherein she sets out to examine
Le Menagier with regard to his use of spices. Along the way,
she covers all the bases regarding the old theories of spices,
rotten meat, and unsophisticated palates.
------------
So, what is one to think? Actually, I think the idea was accepted
by medievalists reading Austin, Warner, Mead and Drummond and written
into a generation or two of textbooks. From there it made its
way into popular textbooks and children's books and so
now everyone grows up with the idea that meat spoiled & they
needed spices to hide the taste. Afterall every schoolchild
has to learn about Columbus and what drove all those ships westward
but the search for spices.
Johnnae llyn Lewis
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 14:20:47 -0700 (PDT)
From: Chris Stanifer <jugglethis at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Rotten meat and spices... (a few excerpts
from Apicius)
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
--- Chris Stanifer <jugglethis at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The original post which started this topic was a request (I believe by
> Phlip) for people to post
> references which might help a researcher 'debunk' the myth that
> medieval people heavily spiced
> some meats to mask an off (read: bad) odor or flavor.
In keeping with the idea of offering the researcher points from which to begin her research, I submit the following link, which seems to detail the laws and customs of medieval Ipswich, in particular where they pertain to the open vending of foods, and in particular the vending of spoiled meats...
http://the-orb.net/encyclop/culture/towns/ipswich6.html
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 18:43:33 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Rotten meat and spices... (a few excerpts
from Apicius)
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Also sprach Huette von Ahrens:
> This is a start ... Ordinances that state one cannot sell spoiled
> meat or old food. Can you
> find ordinances that state you cannot sell spoiled meat or old food
> that have been covered in
> spices? That would be the next step. Or find ordinances that state
> you cannot serve
> spoiled meat or old food for people to eat? That would be the best
> proof.
>
> Huette
I know that there were, in addition to the laws already mentioned
about selling old meat, prohibitions about pouring new blood over old
meat to make it appear fresher than it was. But that's not a spice.
And... it was illegal, so that doesn't sound like one of those
alleged myths-that-isn't-a-myth-at-all-but-in-fact-quite-prevalent.
Adamantius
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 17:50:21 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Rotten meat and spices... (a few excerpts
fromApicius)
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
>>>
In keeping with the idea of offering the researcher points from which to begin her research, I submit the following link, which seems to detail the laws and customs of medieval Ipswich, in particular where they pertain to the open vending of foods, and in particular the vending of spoiled meats...
http://the-orb.net/encyclop/culture/towns/ipswich6.html
<<<
The specific regulation is that a person who wishes to sell spoiled meat
must take a place before the town pillory and sell the meat for what it is,
spoiled meat. There is no specification as to how the meat is to be used by
the purchaser. The location before the pillory is an interesting point,
since it suggests that the meat may have been used for purposes other than
eating.
The regulation also specifies that tainted meat was not to be sold in any
other place and that such meat put out for sale would be confiscated. A
second offense would land the perpetrator in the pillory. Poetic justice
from a lawful seller of tainted meat against an unlawful seller of the same
product perhaps?
Bear
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 22:38:45 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Rotten meat and spices...
To: gedney1 at iconn.net, Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Also sprach Jeff Gedney:
> Lavender and dill is not sufficent to cover up the smell of Putrescine.
> The human nose reacts to that in staggeringly small proportions.
> Same for mercaptans and other sulfates produced in animal decay like
> Cadaverine. If it were, Coroners offices would be strewn with the
> stuff.
>
> Salt, at least in England was imported from a very early date. the
> Ocean girdling England made "gray" salt, which required a lot of
> boiling and separating to render palatable. And the Climate is not
> suitable for salt making.
>
> Salt was traded for from France and Spain.
>
> Yes you put up the meat as soon as you had it butchered, if you did
> not sell your livestock to the butcher, and did it yourself.
> That was, as I said earlier, essential to a well run household.
> But you did not wait until the meat was blown and runny before you
> started putting it up. You did it fresh, then as now.
>
> So you salt/spice to PREVENT decay, not cover it up.
> And you used herbs and spices to cover up strong natural smells in
> foods, like in wild Duck, Swan, and Goat.
>
> Capt Elias
> -Renaissance Geek of the Cyber Seas
On a similar note, I was looking, earlier this evening, at a pair of
mid-14th-century recipes (processes, really) in Curye On Inglysh. The
second is a process for saving venison that is going off ("restyng",
rusting or going rancid). The first is far more involved, and is for
_preventing_ venison from restying.
You kinda have to assume that, if it was so much easier to repair
tainted venison than to prevent it getting tainted, then why bother
with the previous process? Why do I think the first, more detailed
process, is the preferred one?
Adamantius
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 09:31:09 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
From: Robin Carroll-Mann <rcmann4 at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Rotten meat and spices... (a few excerpts
from Apicius)
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
-----Original Message-----
From: David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>
For the "overspicing" version, the earliest source I know is the introduction to _Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books_, written at the end of the
nineteenth century. It's clear from context that the author is
reacting not to the amount of spices, which he has no information on,
but to the unfamiliar use of particular spices--I think to putting
cinnamon in soup in the example he mentions.
Anyone know of an earlier example?
--
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com
_______________________________________________
Not an earlier example, but here is the relevant portion of the
introduction you mentioned, which was written in 1888.
"Many of the Recipes that are given here would astonish a modern Cook.
Our forefathers, possibly from having stronger stomachs, fortified by
outdoor life, evidently liked their dishes strongly seasoned and
piquant, as the Cinnamon Soup on p. 59 shews. Pepper, Ginger, Cloves,
Garlic, Cinnamon, Galingale, Vinegar, Verjuice, and Wine, appear
constantly in dishes where we should little expect them; and even Ale
was frequently used in Cookery. Wine is used in the recipe for Roast
Partridge, on p. 78, and also, as seems more natural to us, in the
Partridge Stews on pages 9 and 78: it is also used for Brawn in
Poivrade on p. 71. Ale is introduced in the Bowres on p. 8, in the Sops
Chamberlain on p. 11, and in the Mortrews de Chairon p. 71, and is even
used in the Charlette on p. 17, though Milk is also one of the
ingredients: both Ale and Wine appear in the Maumenny Royal, on p. 22.
Ale is also used with the Tench in Bruet."
http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/c/cme/cme-idx?
type=HTML&rgn=DIV1&byte=3361621
Brighid ni Chiarain
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 14:29:04 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Past thoughts on spicing and rotten meats
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
For those that remember Terry Nutter, I looked up her
thoughts on spicing and rotten meats via the wayback machine.
She began her essay "Remarks on Urban Legend #27"
"The urban myth that medievals used flavoring ingredients to cover the
taste of spoiled meat has proved astoundingly persistent. Competent
historians who know little or nothing about the culinary record retail
it in survey texts. Articles in popular sources blithely subscribe to
it.
It's nonsense, and it's demonstrable nonsense. Below, I present three
modern observations, and then some facts about what the primary sources
from the time have to say on the subjects of rotten meat and sauces. "
Getting there takes a couple steps-- click first on--
http://web.archive.org/web/20021015225156/www.cottagesoft.com/~jtn/
Culinary/Articles/notesf.html
then click on "spices, sauces, and rot" in the left hand column.
That should take you to the article.
It also appeared in hard copy in an issue of Serve It Forth.
Johnnae
Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 19:10:20 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: article on spoiled meat was NACHO's being
formed
To: mk-cooks at midrealm.org, Cooks within the SCA
<sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
For instance--
on Spices and Rotten Meat
Old Saw: "They Used A Lot of Spices to Disguise Spoiled Meat."
by Alice Arndt
is available on the FHNews website now---
http://foodhistorynews.com/debunk.html
Something to bookmark--
Johnnae
<the end>