Was looking over some articles I've been meaning to post for a while (I.E. culling my open tabs), and this one at NPR about food history is quite interesting!
I'd agree with the note at the end that it doesn't quite capture the full complexity of the situation; for one thing there are definitely remnants of the older style of cooking which remain. One obvious example mince pies in the UK, which have a fair amount of spice, fruit and liquor, and originally contained minced meat as well (hence the name), or hot cross buns which aren't that all changed from when they were made in medieval times. (Worth noting that both of these are Christian holiday foods.) I think across Europe you'll also find that remnants of medieval and renaissance peasant and middle-to-lower class cookery have endured rather better than the heavily spiced (and relatively more homogeneous across regions) food of the nobility. The article also slightly conflates the food of the wealthy during the middle ages and renaissance with cooking in those periods generally, which obviously isn't entirely helpful or accurate. Identifying the shift in cuisine as being mostly driven by fashion and status-games is definitely spot on; but this isn't actually an incredibly recent or novel analysis and the article could probably do a better job at making that clear.
That said, I'd still say it's a pretty interesting article, and definitely does well as a general introduction, as well as linking a fairly longstanding bit of history to interesting new research in molecular gastronomy.
Medieval and renaissance recipes are also quite fun to play around with generally, if you like cooking.
Article: How Snobbery Helped Take The Spice Out Of European Cooking
MARCH 26, 201511:22 AM ET
MAANVI SINGH
A 16th century woodcut shows the interior of a kitchen. In medieval Europe, cooks combined contrasting flavors and spices in much the same way that Indian cooking still does today.
Paul Lacroix/Wikimedia
My father usually starts off his curries by roasting a blend of cinnamon, cardamom, coriander, anise, cumin and bay leaves. Then he incorporates the onions, garlic and ginger — and then tomatoes and chilies and a touch of cream.
The North Indian cuisine I grew up eating is about melding together distinct, disparate flavors and building up layer upon layer of spice and seasoning. Much of European cuisine, by contrast, is about combining complementary flavors — think potatoes with leeks, or scallops with white wine.
A recent study tried to explain the divide in Eastern and Western culinary philosophy through some nifty data crunching. Researchers from the Indian Institute for Technology in Jodhpur looked up the ingredient lists for more than 2,000 Indian recipes. They then analyzed the chemical components of these ingredients, looking at the compounds that, when combined, give foods their taste.
They concluded that what makes Indian cuisine so exquisite is its tendency to bring together lots of different ingredients with flavor molecules that don't overlap.
That's quite different from how Western cuisine works — previous research has shown that it relies on pairing ingredients that, at the molecular level, share lots of similar flavor compounds.
While some have praised the new research for revealing the secret to why Indian cuisine is so delicious, this notion of layering many contrasting flavors and spices isn't unique to Indian cooking.
In fact, most of the world's cuisines tend to follow that principle, says Tulasi Srinivas, an anthropologist at Emerson University who studies food and globalization. And up until the mid-1600s, European cuisine was the same way.
In medieval Europe, those who could afford to do so would generously season their stews with saffron, cinnamon, cloves and ginger. Sugar was ubiquitous in savory dishes. And haute European cuisine, until the mid-1600s, was defined by its use of complex, contrasting flavors.
"The real question, then, is why the wealthy, powerful West — with unprecedented access to spices from its colonies — became so fixated on this singular understanding of flavor," Srinivas says.
The answer, it turns out, has just as much to do with economics, politics and religion as it does taste.
Cont. ->
I'd agree with the note at the end that it doesn't quite capture the full complexity of the situation; for one thing there are definitely remnants of the older style of cooking which remain. One obvious example mince pies in the UK, which have a fair amount of spice, fruit and liquor, and originally contained minced meat as well (hence the name), or hot cross buns which aren't that all changed from when they were made in medieval times. (Worth noting that both of these are Christian holiday foods.) I think across Europe you'll also find that remnants of medieval and renaissance peasant and middle-to-lower class cookery have endured rather better than the heavily spiced (and relatively more homogeneous across regions) food of the nobility. The article also slightly conflates the food of the wealthy during the middle ages and renaissance with cooking in those periods generally, which obviously isn't entirely helpful or accurate. Identifying the shift in cuisine as being mostly driven by fashion and status-games is definitely spot on; but this isn't actually an incredibly recent or novel analysis and the article could probably do a better job at making that clear.
That said, I'd still say it's a pretty interesting article, and definitely does well as a general introduction, as well as linking a fairly longstanding bit of history to interesting new research in molecular gastronomy.
Medieval and renaissance recipes are also quite fun to play around with generally, if you like cooking.
