There's a widespread myth that medieval people used spices to cover up the taste of rotten meat.
The whole story traces back to one book. In 1939, a scientist named J.C. Drummond published The Englishman's Food and suggested that medieval recipes were so heavily spiced because the meat was frequently tainted. No evidence. Just an assumption. One sentence in one book published 85 years ago.
Professor Paul Freedman of Yale, who wrote the definitive academic study on medieval spices, called the rotten meat theory a compelling but false idea that constitutes something of an urban legend, a story so instinctively attractive that mere fact seems unable to wipe it out.
Medieval people did not eat rotten meat because they had no reason to. Livestock was slaughtered when needed, not stockpiled. Fish ponds were kept on estates specifically so fish could be caught and eaten the same day.
@griotspeak @globalmuseum If spice blends like jerk served purposes other than "this tastes really good," I could maybe see it as keeping bugs away while prepping the grill (since, iirc, capscaicin serves as a kind of natural bug repellant).
But, yeah, the general narrative is white-supremacist af. Treating spices as something aberrant that needs to be rationalized.
Global Museum
tj usiyan
Rev. Charles Browning