sca-cooks Transport of Foodstuffs

[Beth Morris]

Michael F. Gunter wrote:
    Quoting Eogan:
> > I never was asking about including modern dishes - I'm not "childish"
> > (as another poster insinuated) with my food tastes - I dove into my
> > first turnip/parsnip dish last night and loved it. I was asking about
> > the historical problem of 1) when did "new world" foods, including corn,
> > chocolate, and squashes get over to Europe, and 2) how were they
> > accepted into the diets of different members of Europe and its castes?
> >
> A perfectly acceptable question for a learning/discussion forum such as this.

And one which the learned Derdriu gave us a good start on.  I'd be
interested in seeing the info on Corn in the East though - sounds
interesting!

> > I bet you'll find it amazing that I agree with you.. but I do believe a
> > balance must be struck between plausible medieval dishes, that is,
> > dishes of quasi-medieval nature prepared in a medieval way, and those
> > that are truely authentic that everyone at a feast will turn their nose
> > up at. Educating 150 feasters would be wonderful, but I'd also like to
> > feed them. 
> 
> I have the same philosophy that feeding people is more important than creating a
> perfectly period piece of art.  In fact one of my favorite pasttimes is looking
> at modern recipes and going "How can I make this Medieval?".  I don't use the
> obvious out of period ingredients and I make sure everything has the right "feel".
> I have now been using mainly period dishes but I still make exceptions depending
> upon the type of feast I'm serving.  Do not dispair, you are not alone.

We had a moderately heated discussion about this very subject locally
and came to the fortunate conclusion that with careful selection of
period dishes, it is possible (and in fact not even too hard!) to cook
an entirely period feast that even our greatest Meat-n-Potatoes stick
jocks will eat virtually all of.  I don't think any of us are out to
cook inedible feasts in order to be authentic.  But I will argue that
one doesn't need to sacrifice authenticity for edibility and I'll cite
the recipes thus far posted on this list as my
evidence.

I think this 'philosophical' issue is an important one because it
directly affects what we share with each other, how we teach cooking,
and what we feed our friends.

Thanks for the bandwidth.

Keilyn