The column I’m responding to is located at: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_051.html
The part I’m responding to is specificly:
“But it was only in the late Middle Ages that pepper got really hot, so to speak. After centuries of tasteless gruel, Europeans developed a craving for certain spices that could be obtained chiefly from the East, among them pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger. Pepper, being pungent, became particularly popular, since it could be used to disguise the taste of semirotten meat, a commodity then in abundant supply.”
Unfortunately, the thought that Medieval folks ate vast quantities of rotten meat is a myth. They not only often had meats that were fresher (we are aware, aren’t we, that most American beef is “aged” for a week or more, before it gets shipped out?) than much of what we get today (check the tax records of many towns, to see how many animals were brought in for slaughter, on a daily or weekly basis) but they had a number of quite adequate methods of preservation, ranging from freezing (there’s a reason that slaughtering was done in late fall, in preperation for winter, in appropriate climates) to drying, smoking, salt-curing, pickling, preserving in fat, or any combination of these methods.
Also, if you check town records, there are many, many instances of specific penalties for butchers selling “off” meat- one specific instance being that a butcher was put in stocks, with his rotting meat tied around his neck.
And, think of this logically. If you were a Lord, with the powers of life and death over your servants, and your cook served you a bad piece of meat, you aren’t going to “vote with your feet” as many modern diners would today, you’d likely come up with a nasty punishment- likely, for attempted poisoning. Not a pleasant prospect.
As far as spices go, it’s true that there was fairly limited access to many of the Eastern spices, but the trade did not just stop during the early medieval period. There was still trade, as records can prove, in many things that we tend to think weren’t available- including pepper. Depending on your when/where, you could get silks and spices from India as well as points further east. The Fall of the Roman Empire slowed trade down- it didn’t stop it.
And they didn’t just use our black pepper. Records show usage of long pepper, cubebs and grains of paradise, among others. Spices were a great cargo for any merchant- light and compact, worth, as you mentioned, large amounts of money.
As far as tasteless gruel, certainly that may have been a staple of the diet of many peasants, but there are also quite a number of herbs native to the European continent- mustard and horseradish are good examples. The Europeans would not have been as interested as they were in the “hot” spices, if they weren’t already aware of and liked the hot flavors. Check out Sabina Welserin’s (1553) Pear Mustard, recipe # 34
( http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Sabrina_Welserin.html )
if you want something to singe your nose hairs. In fact, while the cookbook is fairly late period German, it gives you a number of methods of food preservation at that time in Germany. There are many others available, from a number of time periods and locales, but that will do as a start, if you have any interest in Medieval cookery.
Please help correct the misapprehension that “everyone knows” that Medieval folks ate bad meat. As your Header on the web page says, “Fighting ignorance since 1973 (It’s taking longer than we thought)”
Sincerely,
Phlip
went through about a pound every few monthes, with my help.