Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat Paperback
by Bee Wilson
には、中世の料理について
A French medieval recipe for preserved walnuts requires them to be boiled for the time it takes to say a 'Miserere'('O wash me more and more from my guilt …'), about two minutes. The shortest measurement of time was the 'Ave Maria' , twenty seconds, give or take. You might say that such recipes reflect the fact that medieval France was a society in which religion permeated everything. Yet this timing-by-prayer had a very practical underpinning in an age when clocks were rare and expensive. Like the walnut-sized butter, these timings depended on communal knowledge. Since prayers were said out loud in church, everyone knew the common pace at which they were chanted. If you asked someone to 'boil and stir the sauce for the time it takes to say three Paternosters' or 'simmer the broth for three Lord's Prayers' they knew what this meant.