During the Medieval Warm Period it was. Please note the absence of coal burning during that time, as well as a terrible shortage of Bugatti Veyrons. Humans weren't causing the warming. Yet it was warmer than today. Think on that for a little while. Ahem. Climate scientists are now attempting to rewrite history because the Medieval Warm period, well documented as it is, is an Inconvenient Truth which contradicts Anthropogenic Global Warming. LOL. The Cretaceous was about 20'C warmer than today. Also with a terrible shortage of coal burning and Bugatti Veyrons. Oops! Inconvenient Truth! Ahem.
After the warm period came the Little Ice Age, where terrible winter storms swept into Europe, killing vineyards and wiping out crops, freezing the Thames in London solid in winter for weeks, enough to walk on it and later go ice skating and sleighing and have winter festivals. Downside is it was really cold, and you burn a ton of calories staying warm. So folks started baking cookies, full of butter fat and honey and raisins if they could get them, and serving them to guests who might be on the verge of catching cold, spreading it to the whole village and everybody dying from it. If everyone is well fed and possibly fatter, they're also warmer, with their immune systems boosted against disease, and able to fight off infections. The community wins. So Christian hospitality brought about this tradition of fattening everyone up for the Winter. And every conceivable way to add fat to foods is tried. Sausages, sauces, meats, eggs, breads with butter eggs and honey in them, cakes, cookies made with butter, eggnog made with eggs and cream and honey (no sugar cane yet so no refined sugar sources but honey), roasted ham stuffed with apples, pears and figs. Many sources of fats and sugars so you'd put on good weight and hopefully survive the winter. You were worth more alive, having been raised this far, and the cold winters really did a number on food production.
It didn't help that rains onto barley would cause a nasty fungus that released a potent toxin which wouldn't bake out and when eaten in small doses caused tremors and hallucinations (witch hunts came from this) and in larger doses would cause brain hemmorhage and death. An entire feast could die within a short time of eating it. Imagine a manor house with 120 people in the hall, munching barley bread, still warm from the oven, with fresh salted butter and the evening's stewed beef and people start twitching, then convulsing, then die right in front of you. And you ate the bread too. Nasty. Food poisoning was the #1 killer until 1914, when the icebox became widespread. In very small doses, that toxin is a standard treatment for migraines.
Once America was discovered and American foods came back to Europe, Turkey became a popular feast food (they ARE huge compared to Medieval Chickens or Partridge). It was an alternative to goose and venison (yuck) and roast boar (wild were dangerous, domestic far more fat and better tasting so long as it is thoroughly cooked because a common parasite called trichinosis killed people, the real reason Muslims and Jews do not eat pork). Trips to America also brought back potatoes, tomatoes, and quite a few tasty spices like chili peppers which changed the world and people's diets dramatically. Paprika and Curry both required American chili peppers to exist. Spicy sausages got a lot cheaper, not requiring black pepper which cost its weight in gold.
Better ships also access more kinds of fish, further away. Expansion into the Pacific discovered really great fisheries of sardines, which could be dried, salted, canned and eventually brought back to feed Ireland, England, and Europe. The English Kipper is a Pacific fish. I do not eat sardines on toast, but if I were hungry I imagine I would come to like the taste, since the oily fish is very good for you and full of useful calories. Not exactly a sweet, however, but sailing vessels with access to the Carribbean could carry refined sugar made from sugar cane, and that opened up a world of flavors in Europe. Plantations also got access to coffee, a bitter drink considered to be a wonder health tonic, or a dangerous vice depending who was talking. It also went well with fatty or sweet pastries, made from flour and butter and sugar and usually nuts which were also covered in sugar and full of nut oils, thus extra fattening. Throw on a dollop of whipped cream sweetened with that newfangled white sugar and life is good. And considerably longer than it was during the Little Ice Age, which finally petered out in 1850, having begun around 1200 AD. New spices meant new ways to preserve food at room temperatures, new flavors to enjoy, new things like Jam, made with so much sugar and pectin that many kinds of bacteria die of dehydration before multiplying many times, thus preserving it and the new name: preserves.
Cheeses are also very popular over the cold winter holidays, and feasts to use some of the bounty of Harvest were not just a way to show off but fatten up your neighbors so they stay healthy. Again, preventing sickness in the community helps you too. Most cheeses are preserved with salt and general dryness, often with bees wax covers or other kinds of rind, sometimes dipped in wine whose acid and alcohol kills the usual bacterias while yeasts continue their work inside the cheese. Cheese makers are dependent on access to cheap milk, meaning dairies and the ability to transport that milk inexpensively to the cheese factory. Plus cold storage for the cheeses once the rounds are produced. They make an excellent export item since they're reasonably well preserved and a way to access fats and proteins for months or even years. I am a big fan of cheese.
Finally, in winters it is traditional to serve wines, liquors, and dark beers. This has the advantage of working as a literal antifreeze. Not joking. Two Irishmen on the doomed Titanic ran into the 1st Class Lounge and downed a bottle of brandy. The high alcohol content kept their hands and feet from freezing when they jumped into the freezing north Atlantic, and were quickly fished out into lifeboats, which is why they actually lived. Drunk out of their gourds, but alive and without frostbite. True story. Separate God for Drunks and Children, indeed. Naturally, in the age of automobiles holiday drunks cause wrecks and kill people. If the Google Self Driving car ever happens, it will usher in a new age of drunk passengers and tipsy dinner guests instead of the dour purpose of deliberate sobriety for the designated driver, one of my jobs here at the homestead. A shame because these parties often have very good wines. Oh well. Dad enjoys them.
I am a fan of baking cookies. I am a fan of butter and seasonings. I easily bake more than I can eat. If I had a job where I could bake in small enough batches for proper care but large enough to sell, that would be okay. Alas, most cooking school graduates end up at Subway or your grocery store deli making sandwiches and cursing their student loans. I know because I've overheard them behind the counter. It seems difficult to get a proper job baking actual pastries you've made yourself, not a box of dough from a factory in SF or Sacramento. Many of those fresh french bread loaves? Yeah, dough from a factory, finish baked there in the store.
Add sugar to dough and deep fry, then coat the bread in icing made of more sugar and you have a doughnut, loaded with sugar, fat, and protein from the wheat flour. Serve with coffee loaded with cream and sugar too and you've got instant get up and go with a bit of longer power fats to keep you going. People who work outside in the winter are fond of those, and greasy sausages and eggs. All those fats and sugars and extra protein so you can work in the ice and blowing winds and be okay.
All the things that thin people in Florida and LA complain aren't good for you. Just remember that where you are, and how cold it is, are the real deciding factors for what you should be eating. Maybe a high fat, high sugar diet is the right answer. For you anyway. Let the skinny ones catch cold and end up wrapped in coats and lumpy clothing, shivering everywhere they go. That's not sexy. Storm in from outside, shaking melting snow from your collar with a big grin on your face, calling the weather "bracing", and demand a big cup of Joe and slice of that pie? Yeah, much better.
Enjoy your sweets. Bake more. It's all good. Even Fruitcake as a purpose when its cold out. Sugar soaked dried fruit, held together with a matrix of sweet cake, served in slices with a snifter of brandy? Okay. That's actually tasty.
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