> >To add in just one more topic, has anyone looked around for old, old
recipes


> I had an old Cornish recipe book reproduction that had, for ingredients,
> pilchards, bacon, flour, lard, sugar, salt, apples, currants, potatoes,
and
> heavy cream. For everything, main courses, soups, pasties (well, there
were
> also leeks and a bit of beef), desserts, breakfast, tea, and supper. Must
> have been forty or so recipes like that. Not very Paleo...
>

Some rambles on old recipes...

I have read several excellent historical books relating to food. A lot of
old recipes were actually fairly paleo, with lots of roasts, suet puddings,
etc. Sweet desserts were fairly unknown and sugar was expensive after it was
discovered.

For a while, sauces were often thickened with ground nuts. One of these days
I'm going to look more closely at these recipes and perhaps adapt a few for
more modern tastes. When spices were the "hot" thing, the sauces would be
flavored with black pepper, nutmeg and mace, cloves.

One surprising condiment (to me) is rotten fish. The Romans used liquamen,
which was the liquid draining out of rotting fish, not dissimilar to nam pla
used in Vietnamese cuisine and fish sauce used in Thai cooking.

I used to try to cook with fish sauce and people said they liked the dishes
except for the fishy sauce taste. I think you grow to like fish sauce.

I love using anchovies in cooking, but the closest thing Western cooking has
to fish sauce is worcestershire, which is a sauce basically made with
anchovies, vinegar, and something sweet (ground raisins.)

And then there is shrimp paste, which I cannot imagine people acquiring a
taste for, but it is extensively used in Asian cooking.

--Richard