Interesting Links for 08-10-2022

[andrewducker]

1. How does the Russo-Ukrainian War end?

(tags:russia ukraine civilwar viaDanielDWilliam )

2. National Galleries of Scotland issues closure warning over growing cash crisis

(tags:museums scotland doom )

3. Here's someone who knows exactly what the picture will look like before the pen touches paper

(tags:art video impressive )

4. The Universe Is Not Locally Real, and the Physics Nobel Prize Winners Proved It

(tags:nobel physics reality viaSwampers )

5. Where does "British people don't eat spicy food" come from?

(tags:food history uk )

6. Miami man hopped a bus to start a new life. His parents got a court order.

(tags:autism parenting OhForFucksSake USA )

Comments

[haggis]

The idea that spices were used to hide bad meat is related to the snobbery about spices that is described in the thread.

If poor and middle class people could afford spices, upper class people wanted to differentiate themselves so they came up with justifications to support that.

[nancylebov]

Is there a strong reason to think spices were used to hide bad meat?

I've seen the argument that the medieval world had the upper classes using spices and they spiced their vegetables as much as they spiced their meat. I think they might have been using spices to show off, but it might also be a common human default to just like spices. In that case, not using spices is what requires explanation.

See also the use of bright colors.

[hutchingsmusic]

Spices were definitely used to hide bad meat in the past (up to at least 1800?), by the upper classes who could afford them, and the lower classes just had to put up with bad meat.

Then the lower classes became able to afford spices too, and started using them.

*Then* the upper classes became able to get good meat reliably (thanks to refrigeration etc.) and I'm guessing here, but I think *not* using spice may have become a way to show off that you could get good quality meat that didn't require spices to mask the taste. So using spices would have been a sign of poverty, and serving unspiced food would have been a sign of affluence.

[jducoeur]

Spices were definitely used to hide bad meat in the past (up to at least 1800?), by the upper classes who could afford them, and the lower classes just had to put up with bad meat.

Source? This gets repeated frequently, but I've never seen any real evidence for it, and most historical-cooking sources I've worked with dismiss it as made-up Victorian silliness. Certainly I've never seen a hint of it in any of the (many) period cookbooks I have in my library...