SC - SC- Lists of Foods

[Michael Macchione]

On Wed, 23 Apr 1997, david friedman wrote:

> At 11:39 AM -0400 4/23/97, Michael Macchione wrote:
> 
> >What I was wondering was, if anyone knows of a source that would basically
> >say which foods (ingredients not recipes) were eaten when and where.  Thus
> >if I asked to make up a feast for a French meal in the 1400's.  I could
> >start here to see what kind of dishes I'm talking about.  Or, if a novice
> >is looking for "one more dish" to round out a meal, they could be sure to
> >include something that is at least available to the area, even if they
> >can't document the recipe itself.
> >
> >I guess, one of my greatest fears, is to serve a themed meal and have
> >someone come over to me after the feast and say "That was a great meal,
> >but they did you know that they didn't eat such-n-such in that period"
> 
> So does anyone know of any such list, or does anyone else think that this
> kind of list would be a good thing to build up?
> 
> 1. I don't know of such a list and I doubt it exists. There are lists,
> including one of my pieces, of what foods are late period or out of period
> and when they came into use, but I don't know of anything nearly as
> complete as you describe.

I guess that I may have gone overboard on the description.   If I were to
do this (and as someone else suggested it would be a life's task) then I
would probably start with maybe 5-6 places and choose maybe 3 time
periods.  For example, British Isles, Southern Europe, Norhern Europe,
Mid-east/Africa, Orient; pre-1000, around 1300's, 1550-1600.  I remember
reading your list at one point (I had forgotten where I had seen it), and
it was a partial inspiration for this idea.  


> 
> 2. I am not sure I see much point to your "if a novice ..." idea. Making a
> great effort to cook a feast with ingredients used at a particular time and
> place when you don't have the corresponding recipes seems like straining at
> a gnat and swallowing a camel.
> 
> Imagine an ordinary American cook turned loose in a Chinese grocery store
> to buy ingredients for dinner; what he or she would end up producing would
> be much more like modern American food than like Chinese food. Now imagine
> a Chinese cook turned loose in your local supermarket to buy ingredients
> for dinner--the result would be a Chinese meal. Ingredients are not
> irrelevant--a potato or tomato in what is supposed to be a medieval meal is
> a bit jarring. But getting exactly the right ingredients is less important,
> if your objective is to produce the sort of food they ate, than knowing
> what they did with them.
> 
> On the other hand, if you have recipes from 14th century England are doing
> a Yorkshire feast, it would be nice to know what they ate in Yorkshire. But
> I suspect that a complete compilation of such information is past hoping
> for.

What I had meant with the "if a novice" idea, was more along the lines of
the reverse.  For Example, Suppose I have a moderately simple recipe
for a dish that I cook all the time, that's been past down through a
number of generations. I might want to cook it in a feast.  So I check to
see if all of the ingredients were used in period.   I wouldn't recommend
doing this for something complicated, but spices used to season a roast,
or vegetables used in a rice dish.  Basic dishes.  Or possibly to try to
find a replacement ingredient for a recipe.  Ie. you found out that the
king is allergic to one of the ingredients of one of the recipes and you
want to know what was available that wouldn't disrupt the recipe much. 

It would be more of a "No, I can't prove it, but it seems to make sense"
kind of thing.

Perhaps an addendum to each list giving a brief list of things that were
common and/or nonexistent in the styles of recipes.  (ie, common: breads,
pies, cakes... nonexistent: cream sauces...)

I dunno, it seems like a good idea to have, but an impossible task to
construct (but of course, being a good Scadian, I'm considering trying
it... :)


Kael