Did people eat spoiled meat in the Middle Ages?

There is a common myth (repeated even in classrooms) that Europeans in the Middle Ages wanted spices from Asia to cover up the taste of spoiled meat. What the heck? Who eats spoiled meat? Medieval Europeans were no more capable of or willing to eat rotten meat than any other human beings.

I also mention in this video some of the ways medieval Europeans preserved meat without electrical refrigeration.

Clips in this video come from

[mg]

My mother grew up in a village in the Balkans without electricity. The slaughter season for pigs was November. They ate very little fresh pork and the rest would be turned into sausage, blood sausage, bacon, smoked ham, pork rinds etc. Even the hair would be used to make rough cloth. Same goes for goats. The only meat that would be eaten mostly fresh was veal but since they had very few calves for a lot of people, storing it was not an issue. Also milk was basically never drunk fresh but made into cheese, buttermilk and butter. A lot of vegetables were pickeled and fruits made into jam. Some, like grapes and apples could even be carefully kept fresh until deep in the winter.

[tamascsomor]

One more way to store fresh meat without electricity. My grandma told me this and it really WAS a thing in Hungary even in the 20th century. So my great grandfather had a small butchery that time (the '30s) in a small village in Hungary and people around and from the neighbouring villages needed fresh meat (i.e. not smoked or dried). In the winter they cut big chunks of ice from the small river called Zagyva. They dig up big pits or holes in the earth with a bell-shaped cross section so that there was a small hole on ground level and it gradualy widened up the deeper you went. They used a ladder to get in. They plastered the walls with clay and laid all the ice blocks in the pit. It funcioned like a refrigerator all year around (even if the weather got really hot in the summer), until the last bits of ice melted. They laid hay on the ice blocks and put the meat on them. She said it (the ice) lasted until the next winter if enough ice was used. A small wooden trapdoor was used to close the opening. In Hungarian it is called 'jégverem' (ice pit).

[sariahmarier]

Humans in the Middle Ages also had the same potential for intelligence that we do. Another one of those myths is that following the fall of Rome everyone suddenly became stupid.

[erikasigurdson]

Love this! Especially the explicit discussion of these ridiculous myths that rely on us not really seeing people from the past as fully human.

[luis.m.yrisson]

My experience in some little rural towns in Mexico, in a hot humid tropical region: Meat is almost never preserved. Everyone raises pigs in their backyard and when they sacrifice one, they go around gifting (yes, for free) parts of the pig to all the neighbors. Every neighbor will do the same when the time comes, so over time they all get a full pig for free. The meat is cooked fast and is preserved only for a couple of days in the form of a stew, that you can keep boiling.

[claraelizabeth]

I’m South Korean, and this is the first time I’ve heard about people eating rotten meat in the Middle Ages🤯 I’ve never learned it that way. The textbook specifically said that people liked the taste of spices.

[DLYChicago]

Pre-Industrial people had 5 ways of preserving food: drying, smoking, fermenting, salting, and pickling. This applied not only to meats but to fruits, vegetables, and dairy as well. Examples of these products are wine, yogurt, kimchee, kefir, raisins, cheese, and saur kraut. Europeans were looking to import spices from the East because spices were luxury goods.

[GrandPrixDecals]

Rancid IS the perfect word, but ludicrous is the perfect word to describe thinking people ate rancid meat. Great video 👍

[Araanor]

As a Faroese guy I’m so happy and surprised that you showed my favourite meat as an example for dried meat.
My country always gets forgotten.

[Narokkurai]

Also I think people forget one of the most important reasons why medieval trade revolved around them: spices are just easy to transport. They are often sold as powders or dried leaves, and can be packed in burlap, boxes, barrels and more. They keep for a long time when kept dry, and they don't need to be handled with a ton of care. If you want the ideal trade good for medieval routes that could take months or even years to traverse, spices and dried herbs should be at the very top of your list.

[kartaiss]

My grandparents in Lithuanian countryside had literal rooms full of smoked, salted, dried meat and all kinds of sausages. Also, they had a hand-dug basement under their house and two "cold rooms" to keep all sorts of meats and vegetables. It's amazing to think that people in the Middle Ages were not clever enough to think of that.

[GarfieldRex]

Absolutely hilarious that myth of the rotten meat, because they didn't have refrigerators and were so primitive, but rotten meat is just in the middle ages, not in antiquity.... Just did the same as in antiquity. Awesome vídeo and beautifully documented 👌 blessings and success

[aussieknuckles]

Finally a historian channel keeping it real! People often treat our history like some foreign Alien being's that differentiate from the people we are today. It's our societal construct that is different, not our biological make up. Definitely following this channel.
Cheers.

[harpintn]

It is amazing how many people are unaware of food preservation methods such as drying, smoking, salting, pickling, fermenting, and root cellars. Thank you for videos that is teaching about those things to the younger generations.

[notloki]

This primarily applies to rural areas:

My grandparents used to give most of their milk away to neighbours etc if they didn't have any, or no cow (usually most of it ended up being eaten by kids/grandkids). Trading was/is also a thing.

Diet changes from season to season. When trees bear fruit, you tend to eat a lot of those. Rest goes into jars in various forms.

Also, in terms of refrigeration, yes, they did not have the refrigerant, but most people forget why cellars were invented. Damn cold down there during the summer, ours was close to the roots of a massive tree (humidity, shade).

As for fresh meat, you should always have various animals. Some of these get slaughter throughout the year, chickens, ducks etc

And there is a reason why butchers existed in high quantity in "urban" areas. Meat was processed, sold and eaten in a matter of days/weeks.

[Thesandchief]

my grandmother didn't have electricity and no-one in her city did either i asked her if they ate spoiled meat she said they just ate freshly slaughtered meat. so no they didn't eat spoiled meat they ate fresh meat and preserved meat.

[neferneferuaten]

Wow! You just made me realize that Lent isn't just about "forsaking a food pleasure for the Lord", but also preserving food for the coming months. I love food history. Thank you!

[robertfaucher]

I think the eating rotten meat myth probably came from famine years, plague years, and sieges. In times of food scarcity people will eat just about anything.

[desanipt]

In Portugal the most traditional dishes for Christmas is dried salted codfish (and dishes with it are all basically omnipresent in weddings)
In fact codfish preserved that way is probably one of the most common gastronomic stereotypes about Portugal (and truth is we have a ton of traditional dishes made out of codfish, and most people like them a lot here, imo).

[robertsaget]

As a lifelong Minnesotan who has a Scandinavian heritage and grew up eating lutefisk: when it's prepared right it's indistinguishable from buttered lobster or crab. It's absolutely delicious. Unfortunately a lot of people's experiences are not of it being prepared correctly.