Boo Food

In the 18th century, when medieval recipes were first published, the editors found them barbarously spicy and proposed an explanation that has been popular ever since: that the spiciness must have been a stupid, shabby way of covering up the smell of spoiled meat.

This just reflected their belief that people who lived before the 18th century must have been jerks--and the fact that by the 18th century, people had forgotten how expensive spices had been in the Middle Ages. Before explorers found a direct sea route to the spice-producing countries, spices were a prestige ingredient in Europe, and doctors believed they had medicinal value--as they still do in India.

Even if none of this were true, though, the idea was based on a false premise: that spoiled flavors are naturally loathsome. The truth is that spoiled-smelling food isn’t necessarily bad for you. People can even develop a taste for it, if that’s what they have.

A lot of highly prized foods such as cheeses and dried fish have flavors that can be called spoiled (smell a Chinese dried oyster some time if you doubt). Tibetans and Moroccans like their butter rancid. Until recently, Europeans preferred game birds “high”--that is, aged until they turned green.

The Samoyeds, reindeer nomads of far northern Siberia, like meat that has been buried underground for a couple of weeks. Of course, this is thought to be why one of the oldest words in their language means “tapeworm,” but that’s another story.