I’d also figure that, even if you did try to disguise the taste of rotten meat with pepper, the diabolical attack of possibly fatal food poisoning that would ensue would prevent you from trying that twice. Before refrigeration was invented, meat was salted for a good reason.
Of course it’s obvious that spices would have been used to make things more palatable - pig intestines stuffed with a mixture of ground up fatty offcuts of meat and bread are a bit nasty. Pig intestines stuffed with a mixture of ground up fatty offcuts of meat, bread and pepper are sausages.
And before refrigeration, people ate a lot more salted, smoked, dried or even pickled meat. Spices would increase the palatability of all those.
And the amount of pepper it might take to disguise bad meat is probably more expensive than just buying a new fresh cut from the butcher. And for meat and potato folks, that much pepper would be unpalatable as well. Mangetout is right about fresh meat not being as big a problem as we think. Meat didn’t sit around just waiting for a customer. It was (usually) sold soon after slaughter. There are recorded incidents of medieval butchers being fined for selling rotten meat, though.
It wasn’t just the taste of spices that made them hot property. Many of them had reputed medicinal properties that added value.
I’ve never seen the stat, but I’d like to. In my house, I can guarantee that we purchase a hell of a lot more catsup than salsa, but we eat a lot more salsa by volume and weight than catsup. In case it’s not obvious, it’s because we make it fresh (that jarred stuff is crap; I don’t know how it could possibly outsell catsup).
But what’s salsa? The jarred stuff, made in New York City or not? I call stuff like Franks, Tobasco, and (my favorite) La Chalula salsa, but I think most Americans call it “hot sauce” and differentiate it from salsa. How does that figure in the sales?
What about stuff like basic tomatillo sauce, which is pretty good out of the can, but is really expected to be mixed with something else – salsa or not?
Don’t get me started on chipotles. I don’t even know how to classify them. Their adobo sauce is a salsa in its own right, plus a salsa ingredient, and then the peppers too. How do they qualify in salsa sales?
I don’t get it. I don’t want to dis salsa, but like I said, the jarred shit is shit. How’s this stuff figured? Is there a huge underground in homemade catsup that’s being counted that I’m not aware of?
Can anyone find a current, accurate account of how much salsa and ketchup are sold in the U.S., both in sales and volume? Also, what proportion of the households in the U.S. buy salsa and what proportion buy ketchup? It’s clear that in 1992 salsa passed ketchup in sales but not in volume. It’s not clear what the present situation is in sales and volume. Some websites claim that a larger proportion of households in the U.S. buy salsa than ketchup. (Please, a current, accurate account, not a website with some vague claims.)
Maggi sauce is also popular in India and commonly found on dining tables there. There’s also a popular Maggi ramen (I think Maggi is owned by Nestle).
The traditional Bengali standard condiments are salt, lime wedges, and small chilis.
Indian cuisine is not “mainly vegetarian,” not now, not a couple of centuries ago.
Ah, yes. Warming herbs and spices were used to temper the coldness of foods, bringing them closer to the properties of a healthy human body, which is warm in the first degree and moist in the first degree. (The properties of all things (not just foods*) were calculated as to dry<–> moist and warm<–> cold in degrees from one to four - four being fatal.)
Also, as the price of pepper dropped, near the end of the middle ages, the upper crust turned to other peppery spices, such as cubebs, grains of paradise, and long pepper, which were still expensive. So conspicuous consumption was part of the allure of pepper.
*IIRC, sex was warm in the first degree and moist in the first degree. But I’m going to have to look it up to be sure.
You’re surely joking. My own experience of eating in India is that meat is considered a luxury, and that most people just don’t bother, or have religious taboos. I’m not a vegetarian, but hardly ever ate meat while I was there.
Of course, India is a very big country, and cuisine varies a great deal between different regions, so it’s worth defining where I was. I stayed with friends from southern India who then lived in Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), and travelled extensively in that state, as well as Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi and Rajasthan.
The only times I ate meat were: (1) at a European-style hotel in Jabilpur; (2) in a café in Madhya Pradsh, where it was presented as a very special gift; (3) in a touristy restaurant in Jaipur. In most people’s homes, in roadside cafes and from street vendors, meat simply wasn’t an option. Our Brahmin hosts, for example, didn’t serve meat, even though they weren’t devoutly vegetarian, and ate meat while they stayed with us in the UK. They explained that meat in India is expensive and of poor quality, which was borne out by our experience.
Oh, and there was a train journey from Delhi to Bhopal, on which food was served with two choices: meat or veg (we opted for the veg). Almost everyone I could see ordered the veg.
I’m sorry if this is lengthy hijacking - maybe we should have a new thread. If anyone starts one, please PM me; I miss so many threads. I’m interested in this, and aware that we have some people from India on the boards. If my experience is atypical, I’d like to know about it.
First of all, there’s a huge difference between saying –
(1) Indian cuisine is mainly vegetarian, and
(2) In many places in India, the people are mostly vegetarian, and in the rest of India, meat is considered a luxury
So far as the traditional cuisine is concerned, I’m sure that the number of dishes that including some kind of non-dairy animal product (flesh) is a very large proportion of the total number of dishes. Indian cuisine knows what to do with animal flesh and has a multitude ways of handling it.
It just depends whom you’re with. Almost every Indian household I have visited (most of them Bengali) has had chicken, duck, eggs, goat, fish, and shellfish available. Beef and pork are still relatively rare, but spend time with any Muslims (India has the largest Muslim population outside of Indonesia and Pakistan) and you’ll find that beef is a mainstay of their subdivision of Indian cuisine. Spend time with some Nepalis and Tibetans and you’ll get pork too.
Muslim, Nepali, and Tibetan street vendors are particularly known for their meat dishes. There’s a famous neighbourhood in Bombay full of Muslim stalls cooking various parts of animals.
And Indians have a tendency to make sweeping statements about their culture that aren’t necessarily based on hard facts. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that while you were being told by your Brahmin hosts that most people don’t bother with meat, that there was probably someone within shouting distance of that very house who was eating non-veg.
Some Indians are suspicious of any food prepared outside the home. Many are suspicious of the quality of any meat served outside the home. On the other hand, among some people, certain sectors of Indian Railways are known for the high quality of their non-veg platters.