Food History

Today and all this week I’ve been preparing for Passover, so naturally my mind has turned to food poisoning rather than to food proper. This is because of the curious and interesting results of going through one’s cupboards and refrigerator and freezer.

One day I might do a post on poison in food, but today I was thinking more about what happens when one doesn’t clean out cupboards and scrub pots and pans.

There was a rather good incident (retrospectively good, not pleasant at the time) at a Melbourne Cup carnival (in Canberra, Australia: centre of the known universe) for five hundred or so people a few years back. The head of a particular government department decided that we all would take too much time off if we had Melbourne Cup functions in each workplace, so he gave us permission for a two hour lunch (on flextime) as long as we were back at work for 2 pm. Then we could have exactly the time it took to watch the race (4 minutes?) and the rest of the afternoon was not to be spent in the usual drinks and silly hat competitions. You can still hear the echoes of groans resulting from his office-wide memo on the subject.

What happened? One of the stalls he so carefully approved gave most of us food poisoning. Instead of losing a bunch of us to drink for a few hours, he lost half the Department for nearly two days. And the area most hit? Australia’s Quarantine Inspection Service. I love this anecdote - I put it in a novel and the novel has been accepted by a publisher, so watch this space.

One type of food poisoning that is entirely fictional, rather than made into fiction, is the reason for people in the Middle Ages eating many varieties of spices.

People ask me, time after time after time:

“Was the meat all rotten in the Middle Ages? Did they only use spices to hide the flavour so they didn’t starve to death from lack of food?”

Interesting thought. On a whole bunch of levels that’s an interesting thought.

Firstly, if people could’t afford fresh meat, why would they spend the money they didn’t have on spices that cost many times the price of fresh meat?

Secondly, do you yourself open your cupboard or fridge and see something that’s foul and say “Mm, smells rotting. Foulness prevails. Ick. Must have it for dinner. Let’s just sprinkle some ginger on it first.”

No? The thought of stomach cramps and a visit to the hospital don’t appeal to you? You don’t like the thought of dysentery and all those other delightful side effects of food far beyond its eat-by date?

If you can’t stomach that food, why, then, would it have appealed to your ancestors? The side effects of food poisoning from rancid meat haven’t changed over the years and then - as now- it would only be appealing if there genuinely were no other food.

Which brings me to “Thirdly”. The population of Europe grew steadily and significantly until the fourteenth century. This means that mass starvation wasn’t nearly as common as some people seem to think (why can’t peasants be well-fed? why is there always someone in a room who assumes that they’re always starving?).

Look at demographics. Another firstly, once the meat animals are gone in a starvation situation, they’re gone, so too much starvation doesn’t explain the regular use of spices either. And we know that this wasn’t so - there was enough meat to supply more and more hamlets and villages and towns and cities, so the meat supply wasn’t impossibly erratic nor non-existent. Not that either would explain the regular hiding of rottenness with spices - only stupidity explains that, but let me continue arguing because obviously I’m in a mean mood and need to argue.

If you look at the Middle Ages you can see that increased population, you can see some cool improvements in ploughing, in field systems and in food distribution. So if things were better, why would rotten meat be a standard part of the diet? Pickled meat, yes. Putrid meat, no.

The truth about spices in the Middle Ages is that they helped preserve some dishes, but mostly they seem to have been used to make dishes more yummy. Like … you know … the reasons we use spices. Sometimes we make chutnies and pickles, but mostly we sprinkle pepper onto something or weave paprika through a goulash because we like the flavour.

Preservation is a good and flavouring is good - but hiding the inedible is really, really odd. I do wonder when folks assume their ancestors had no tastebuds and no common sense and not much intelligence what that says about the person who thinks such things, since - after all - they have received certain genes from these zombie-like ancestors.

And I think I’d better sign off before I get way too snarky for my own good. I think I need chocolate. Cinnamon chocolate perhaps, lest the chocolate itself be putrid and decaying.