sca-cooks Re: New to List

[Mark Schuldenfrei]

  Can you roast a chicken?  Can you make a soup?  If so, then you are well on
  your way to period cooking.
  Derdriu
  
Indeed.

Especially if you are the sort of person who never follows a recipe
precisely, loving to play around.  If you have the instincts you need to
modify a recipe, and still make it taste good, you are well on your way to
redacting original recipes.

Just in case people don't know what I just said:  Period recipes (which I
tend to call "receipts", another period term for them) generally fail to
have quantities or specific cooking instructions.  To turn them into a
modern recipe with times, methods, and quantities, is a process called
redaction.

It is not at all uncommon for two people to start with the same receipt, and
end with very different tasting redactions.  Both of which are good, but
whose emphasis is slightly different.  And, all of which are equally
correct.

In fact, if you work with others in group redactions, you can try the
following experiment for fun.... take a modern recipe that is complete.
Pick one that none of you have made before.  Each of you, cook it for the
first time at home, and hold a taste test together.

I first discovered this at a modern potluck dinner, where three people
brought the exact same recipe.  Each of them was quite subtly different,
despite the use of a very good cookbook and recipe (ratatouille from the
Moosewood Cookbook).

To me, this emphasizes how much style, and ingredients, can vary a dish, and
helps to reduce the agony when new cooks ask themselves "Did I get it
right?"  Of course you did.

Remind me to mention the fun we had with redacting a brewing recipe in Gode
Kokery.

	Tibor