> food used to need to be heavily spiced because it was old/rancid This is often said but I really doubt that it was ever true. Nobody ate meat that was old/ra

> food used to need to be heavily spiced because it was old/rancid This is often said but I really doubt that it was ever true. Nobody ate meat that was old/rancid, because (1) that was a great way to get ill, and (2) a cook who let the meat go off would surely have been fired, meat was super-expensive. They knew damn well how to handle it without wasting any. I'm sure the peasants sometimes ate cabbage that was past its sell-by date, but if that was all you could afford, then clearly you could not afford spices brought from across the world.