Greetings!

The group of players in one of my campaigns are about to gather together in the town of Ghandhev. Ghandhev is a large town on the edge of civilized lands, at an important crossroads where trade routes meet, as well as two large rivers. The town and others like it are part of a barony which rules over the area.

The town of Ghandhev is home to a dominant human culture, while also supporting several sub-cultures of barbarians and foreigners.

A popular location in the town is the local bazaar, which features over 100 small shops, as well as open-air markets, farmer's markets, butcher shops and open-air meat grills, where kabobs are cooked, as well as a variety of chickens, lambs, goat meat and fish, in addition to beef. Giant Toads, Giant Snake, and Giant Weasel meat is also available.

So, I have curious, inquisitive players that will surely ask me numerous esoteric questions.

How is all of this meat kept safe to eat? Huge amounts of meat are cooked fresh, day in and day out, starting fairly early in the morning, and ongoing until later in the evening, often around 10 or Midnight.

I have been to similar environments in our current day, but we use air conditioning, elaborate gas and electric grills, and well-equipped refrigerators.

I know in ancient and medieval times, there were similar bazaars and open-air meat grills and such. How did medieval people keep all this meat going fresh and safe to eat? I'm assuming they must have had some technique or process, because people continued to patronize such bazaars and meat vendors in similar places, for centuries. Mass illnesses didn't seem to break out under such conditions, which I find a bit surprising. Evidently different drinks were offered, from goat milk and alcohol, to tea as well. There were also fresh fruits and vegetables. How does all this stuff stay fresh for people to eat and drink every day?

Any thoughts? Maybe I'm forgetting something from long ago studies, or just overlooking some aspect.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I lived in the Philippines for several years, and there fish were left on hot cement to dry under the sun.  The conditions were far from sanitary, but dried fish keep for quite a long time.

Quote from: Mishihari;1127406I lived in the Philippines for several years, and there fish were left on hot cement to dry under the sun.  The conditions were far from sanitary, but dried fish keep for quite a long time.

Greetings!

Hello, Mishihari! Very interesting! Years ago, I worked in a grocery store, in California. We were always trained thoroughly and constantly reminded about health procedures, temperature controls, cooking protocols, refrigerator temperatures, cooking temperatures and so on. I have heard that America is safety and health conscious to a crazy level and intensity--distinctly different from other countries. I can see how that would be true. *laughing*

Your point is well-taken. Many kinds of meat and foods are more resilient--and safely edible--than we sometimes realize fully!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Depends on what is being sold really. And the shop.

For example if its fresh meat then its probably only sold for a day at best and any that isnt sold goes home for example. I know in some cases the animals were slaughtered only as needed and in others theres some prep time or various processes that were and still are performed. Before the advent of ice houses there was not alot one could do with raw meat to keep it fresh for an extended period without some sort of processing such as salting or curing it. You could keep stuff in a cool cellar and that will extend the shelf life depending on the produce. As noted in the other thread one set of relatives created and ran an open market. But did have coolers of various sorts set up by the time I was out there with family. Which was fairly regular.

Depending on the region and era there were various techniques and recipes for handling meat to make it last longer.

My great grandparents as mentioned in a related thread lived up in the mountains with no modern or even semi-modern utilities. Everything was either brought in from town or had on location. So produce was bought and used ASAP, meat was killed and cooked ASAP. Unfortunately that is about all I know and all that was from observation on the few trips out there. I recall them keeping stuff cold by placing it in a hole in the ground outside the house. In the hole was a block of ice. Frontier refrigerator?

As I understand it, rancid, rotting meat is still safe to eat ... you just need to make sure it's cooked well enough, and deal with the fact that safe doesn't necessarily mean tasty.

Theres a reason people have always payed good money for spices.

See also: Green steak. The "green" is literal, and apparently it is tasty.. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/mar/11/extreme-aged-steak-meat-with-mould-on-gourmet

An open market or major bazaar would just have sellers drive the animals there on foot, slaughter them on the spot, then cook them whichever way would be convenient before the clients would start arriving (still early in the morning). Everything was reasonably fresh, and prepared by specialists who mostly knew their stuff, honed at several fairs and through generations. Some, like in France, were even guildsmen of a sort.

The proverbial "ox on a spit" is a typical market invention; their modern descendants are the various kebabs, gyros and grilled meats. These are now typically foods you can find at wine/beer festivals and musical events with strict inspection, but this is a fairly modern trend. In South-Eastern Europe, Turkey and Asia, there is a tremendous grilling culture with incredible variety. "Rat on a stick" style mystery meat would be regular street food, reasonably freshly prepared. Victorian London had jellied eels, sold by vendors to people rushing to their work. And again: people knew their stuff, because they often did it all their lives. Roasting is a reasonably safe technique. Drinking alcohol would help.

Then you would have huge cauldrons of thick soups and stews, or anything that would be convenient to prepare that way. Pilaf (plov) is a typical, and very delicious example, which benefits from being made in enormous quantities. Pottage and the iconic mediaeval "everything stew" follow a similar philosophy, eaten with thick bread loaves. These are dishes cooked under constant fire, and replenished regularly with new ingredients. Some of the ingredients could be stored (vegetables, flour, rice or wheat), and fresh meat would be added on the spot. The animals, again, would largely have to walk there on their own, or be brought from a nearby farm, who would bring their produce and animals to feed the crowd or be sold to the people who would cook them.

There is an extent to which things can be preserved. Pickled things, marinated meats and sauerkraut are fairly good here, and smoked sides of meat and bacon pack a lot of flavour for a relatively low weight, but there are limits in storage and transportation. You can't get around it.

You also have varied sweets (one of my grandma's relatives was a gingerbread maker in Transylvania, who would still go to fairs well in to the 1970s; the exact recipes and techniques were jealously guarded trade secrets, along with the wooden "forms", which were very elaborate and expensive pieces of woodcarving), pies and flatbreads, fruits, candies and roasted nuts, boiled corn on the cob, the traditional rooster lollypop, lokum, Turkey's typical sweets (Turkish delight, halva, brittles), and so on. Even regular sugar cones, still a rarity. Confectioners would travel quite far from their homes, often going fair to fair through multiple countries to sell their wares (Turks [which could just as well mean a Bosniak or Albanian], Armenians, Greeks and Jews were typical).

Nonetheless, everyone who has been to a traditional market or fair has had an encounter with diarrhea and spoiled food. These accidents were treated more liberally, since you typically did not die of them, but tampering with food, or selling spoiled stuff might get the seller fined heavily or banned / driven out - a reputation like that could pursue someone for the rest of his life, and ruin his future business prospects in the area for a long time.

Also, the old adage stands: the history of human gastronomy is the history of trying to creatively reuse spoiled or suspicious food. From spoiled milk comes yogurt, from spoiled ogurt comes cheese, from spoiled cheese come roquefort and camembert. Beer, wine, and bread are all products of things that had gone bad due to being left out too long, and some ancestor of ours looking at the fermented results, asking "Am I hungry enough to try that?".

Let's not forget salt. Salt was such an important resource that early on, Roman legionnaires were paid in it.

Salting, drying and curing meat definitely lets it last longer.

Take a massive chunk of ice from a mountain top, place it in a container, place insulator around it (straw, wool, etc.), and haul it to where the open air market is and place it in an ice house. IIRC, ice houses were found in 1780BC, so they have been around for quite some time.

There is even a Wikipedia entry on them.

EDIT:
Actually, a Yakhchāl might be better suited for your border town.

Spices like curry, garlic, onion and other preservatives. Salting & drying.

Not exactly the question, but the quantities of meat are probably going to be kept low by today's standards, instead supplementing with bread and other items easier to preserve.  I suspect dried fruits would be a big one.

By the time I was around, most of my older relatives had stopped salting meat and that sort of thing but dried fruit hung around much longer to supplement the canning process.  Admittedly, most of the fruit we dried ended up in a freezer to preserve it for several years, but if you need it this fall/winter, a good cellar will do for fruit dried this summer.  It's ridiculously easy to do, so much that you can trust a child to help as soon as they can be trusted with a knife (which was age 4 for me, which is why I got several years doing it). It is time intensive, but those young children typically have some time on their hands.

Quote from: Omega;1127410Depends on what is being sold really. And the shop.

For example if its fresh meat then its probably only sold for a day at best and any that isnt sold goes home for example. I know in some cases the animals were slaughtered only as needed and in others theres some prep time or various processes that were and still are performed. Before the advent of ice houses there was not alot one could do with raw meat to keep it fresh for an extended period without some sort of processing such as salting or curing it. You could keep stuff in a cool cellar and that will extend the shelf life depending on the produce. As noted in the other thread one set of relatives created and ran an open market. But did have coolers of various sorts set up by the time I was out there with family. Which was fairly regular.

Depending on the region and era there were various techniques and recipes for handling meat to make it last longer.

My great grandparents as mentioned in a related thread lived up in the mountains with no modern or even semi-modern utilities. Everything was either brought in from town or had on location. So produce was bought and used ASAP, meat was killed and cooked ASAP. Unfortunately that is about all I know and all that was from observation on the few trips out there. I recall them keeping stuff cold by placing it in a hole in the ground outside the house. In the hole was a block of ice. Frontier refrigerator?

Greetings!

Hello, Omega! You bring up some very good points. Our ancestors and forefathers were quite resilient and creative! I know it is something of an esoteric interest in general, but the historian in me is always fascinated by how people used to really live, you know? The challenges and problems they faced, and how they dealt with them, the solutions they came up with to meet the challenge. I think that our modern society is so reliant on whizz-bang gadgets and technology--if the power was ever turned off, millions of people would likely just lay down and die.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Sable Wyvern;1127416As I understand it, rancid, rotting meat is still safe to eat ... you just need to make sure it's cooked well enough, and deal with the fact that safe doesn't necessarily mean tasty.

Theres a reason people have always payed good money for spices.

See also: Green steak. The "green" is literal, and apparently it is tasty.. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/mar/11/extreme-aged-steak-meat-with-mould-on-gourmet

Greetings!

Hello, Sable Wyvern! Yes, there's some very good reasons why spices were so highly valued! Salt and Pepper at various times and in certain areas were literally as valuable as *gold*.

Green Steak. Ewww!:D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1127432Not exactly the question, but the quantities of meat are probably going to be kept low by today's standards, instead supplementing with bread and other items easier to preserve.  I suspect dried fruits would be a big one.

By the time I was around, most of my older relatives had stopped salting meat and that sort of thing but dried fruit hung around much longer to supplement the canning process.  Admittedly, most of the fruit we dried ended up in a freezer to preserve it for several years, but if you need it this fall/winter, a good cellar will do for fruit dried this summer.  It's ridiculously easy to do, so much that you can trust a child to help as soon as they can be trusted with a knife (which was age 4 for me, which is why I got several years doing it). It is time intensive, but those young children typically have some time on their hands.

Agreed. The simple answer probably is, very little meat or fish of any sort, not for the average joe on an average day. Heavy on bread (several pounds a day!), onions, and a little pease pudding or other pulses, plus cheese, for protein.

What little meat/fish you might see would be likely dried, salted, smoked or pickled or a combination.

If you're talking big meat packages like "giant" animals, I would expect almost all would be preserved, relatively little eaten fresh. Unless you can get through it in a single feast, but that would be a very special occasion. Maybe something sponsored by a lord.

Quote from: SHARK;1127403How is all of this meat kept safe to eat?

Magic...or it isn't.

QuoteHow did medieval people keep all this meat going fresh and safe to eat?

They didn't.

QuoteHow does all this stuff stay fresh for people to eat and drink every day?

It stays fresh for a while. Then new produce and livestock is brought in regularly. And you might cook, smoke, dry, can, salt, pickle or otherwise preserve food that is getting past its sell by date, as it were. They don't call them strawberry preserves for nothing.

Quote from: Melan;1127418An open market or major bazaar would just have sellers drive the animals there on foot, slaughter them on the spot, then cook them whichever way would be convenient before the clients would start arriving (still early in the morning). Everything was reasonably fresh, and prepared by specialists who mostly knew their stuff, honed at several fairs and through generations. Some, like in France, were even guildsmen of a sort.

The proverbial "ox on a spit" is a typical market invention; their modern descendants are the various kebabs, gyros and grilled meats. These are now typically foods you can find at wine/beer festivals and musical events with strict inspection, but this is a fairly modern trend. In South-Eastern Europe, Turkey and Asia, there is a tremendous grilling culture with incredible variety. "Rat on a stick" style mystery meat would be regular street food, reasonably freshly prepared. Victorian London had jellied eels, sold by vendors to people rushing to their work. And again: people knew their stuff, because they often did it all their lives. Roasting is a reasonably safe technique. Drinking alcohol would help.

Then you would have huge cauldrons of thick soups and stews, or anything that would be convenient to prepare that way. Pilaf (plov) is a typical, and very delicious example, which benefits from being made in enormous quantities. Pottage and the iconic mediaeval "everything stew" follow a similar philosophy, eaten with thick bread loaves. These are dishes cooked under constant fire, and replenished regularly with new ingredients. Some of the ingredients could be stored (vegetables, flour, rice or wheat), and fresh meat would be added on the spot. The animals, again, would largely have to walk there on their own, or be brought from a nearby farm, who would bring their produce and animals to feed the crowd or be sold to the people who would cook them.

There is an extent to which things can be preserved. Pickled things, marinated meats and sauerkraut are fairly good here, and smoked sides of meat and bacon pack a lot of flavour for a relatively low weight, but there are limits in storage and transportation. You can't get around it.

You also have varied sweets (one of my grandma's relatives was a gingerbread maker in Transylvania, who would still go to fairs well in to the 1970s; the exact recipes and techniques were jealously guarded trade secrets, along with the wooden "forms", which were very elaborate and expensive pieces of woodcarving), pies and flatbreads, fruits, candies and roasted nuts, boiled corn on the cob, the traditional rooster lollypop, lokum, Turkey's typical sweets (Turkish delight, halva, brittles), and so on. Even regular sugar cones, still a rarity. Confectioners would travel quite far from their homes, often going fair to fair through multiple countries to sell their wares (Turks [which could just as well mean a Bosniak or Albanian], Armenians, Greeks and Jews were typical).

Nonetheless, everyone who has been to a traditional market or fair has had an encounter with diarrhea and spoiled food. These accidents were treated more liberally, since you typically did not die of them, but tampering with food, or selling spoiled stuff might get the seller fined heavily or banned / driven out - a reputation like that could pursue someone for the rest of his life, and ruin his future business prospects in the area for a long time.

Also, the old adage stands: the history of human gastronomy is the history of trying to creatively reuse spoiled or suspicious food. From spoiled milk comes yogurt, from spoiled ogurt comes cheese, from spoiled cheese come roquefort and camembert. Beer, wine, and bread are all products of things that had gone bad due to being left out too long, and some ancestor of ours looking at the fermented results, asking "Am I hungry enough to try that?".

Greetings!

Hey Melan! Fucking awesome, my friend! That is some delicious, fascinating knowledge! I love all this stuff. I think it is very interesting to learn the whole "inner workings" of how they accomplished things in the medieval times, you know? The specifics, the details of the processes they came up with to solve problems and to survive. Not always to merely survive, either, but to live well, you know? I'm a foodie too, so I always enjoy learning about food, how various recipes are made, cooked and prepared.

Medieval and ancient people liked to eat good food too!

I have been to some modern Greek festivals and cultural celebrations, where there are open-air grills with the kabobs and all that. Everything made fresh, the pita bread, the meats all sizzling on the grill. Beef, chicken, and thin strips of grilled lamb, rubbed with black pepper, garlic, and lemon juice, and other herbs. Oh my god, so delicious, my friend! I've had a Greek girl stand there and make me a plate of these doughy round pastries, fried up, dipped in warm honey, and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Oh damn. I'm telling you. All this good stuff!

Just fascinating, Melan, learning from you about how they constantly kept huge stews going, replenished with fresh meats and all that throughout the day. That's not only damned smart and efficient, but you also make it sound yummy and delicious! I'm definitely bringing these details into the game, my friend! My players love all these little details and tidbits. In some strange way, it really does seem to immerse them into their characters, and the campaign world as well. They laugh at me because I describe meals and food to them, and they get all hungry!:D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK