Editing Spice (section)

===Preservative claim===
{{quote box|align=right|width=35%|The most popular explanation for the love of spices in the Middle Ages is that they were used to preserve meat from spoiling, or to cover up the taste of meat that had already gone off. This compelling but false idea constitutes something of an urban legend, a story so instinctively attractive that mere fact seems unable to wipe it out... Anyone who could afford spices could easily find meat fresher than what city dwellers today buy in their local supermarket.<ref name="freedman"/>}}
It is often claimed that spices were used either as [[food preservation|food preservatives]] or to mask the taste of [[Meat spoilage|spoiled meat]], especially in the European [[Middle Ages]].<ref name="freedman"/><ref name="ThomasDaoust2012">{{cite journal |last1=Thomas |first1=Frédéric |last2=Daoust |first2=Simon P. |last3=Raymond |first3=Michel |title=Can we understand modern humans without considering pathogens?: Human evolution and parasites |journal=Evolutionary Applications |date=June 2012 |volume=5 |issue=4 |pages=368–379 |doi=10.1111/j.1752-4571.2011.00231.x |pmid=25568057 |pmc=3353360 }}</ref> This is false.<ref>Paul Freedman, "Food Histories of the Middle Ages", in Kyri W. Claflin, Peter Scholliers, ''Writing Food History: A Global Perspective'', {{isbn|1847888097}}, p. 24</ref><ref>[[Andrew Dalby]], ''Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices'', 2000, {{isbn|0520236742}}, p. 156</ref><ref>Andrew Jotischky, ''A Hermit's Cookbook: Monks, Food and Fasting in the Middle Ages'', 2011, {{isbn|1441159916}}, p. 170</ref><ref name="freedman" /> In fact, spices are rather ineffective as preservatives as compared to [[salting (food)|salting]], [[smoking (cooking)|smoking]], [[pickling]], or [[food drying|drying]], and are ineffective in covering the taste of spoiled meat.<ref name="freedman"/> Moreover, spices have always been comparatively expensive: in 15th century Oxford, a whole pig cost about the same as a pound of the cheapest spice, pepper.<ref name="freedman"/> There is also no evidence of such use from contemporary cookbooks: "Old cookbooks make it clear that spices weren't used as a preservative. They typically suggest adding spices toward the end of the cooking process, where they could have no preservative effect whatsoever."<ref name="krondl">Michael Krondl, ''The Taste of Conquest: The Rise and Fall of the Three Great Cities of Spice'', 2007, {{isbn|9780345480835}}, p. 6</ref> Indeed, [[Cristoforo di Messisbugo]] suggested in the 16th century that pepper may speed up spoilage.<ref name="krondl"/>

Though some spices have [[antimicrobial]] properties in vitro,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Shelef |first1=L.A. |title=Antimicrobial Effects of Spices |journal=Journal of Food Safety |volume=6 |issue=1 |year=1984 |pages=29–44 |doi=10.1111/j.1745-4565.1984.tb00477.x}}</ref> pepper—by far the most common spice—is relatively ineffective, and in any case, salt, which is far cheaper, is also far more effective.<ref name="krondl"/>
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