SC - period cooking

[Richard Kappler II]

>BINGBINGBINGBING!
>
>That is the $64,000 question, when it comes to things that survive less
>easily through the years.

<snip>

>We can only make an educated guess.


I mostly agree with all you have said, particularly the freezer burn :-)  I
would, however, qualify your final statement in that I would say 'as ametuer
historians, we can only make an educated guess.'  As SCAdians, however, here
on the cooks list we generally come to what I would consider to be pretty
concrete conclusions about what a period dish in the CMA should be like,
which may or may not have any bearing what so ever with the real thing.
Usually.  We don't have flame wars here (smile Lainie :-), but we do have
great cuskyknowle debates and the like wherein we come to a conclusion....or
two :-)

So what if Joe Snuffy Jim Bob stumbles into the SCA and decides to learn
period cooking.  Joe Snuffy is in Podunk , Idaho and has no local group, but
does have us.  How does JSJB determine he is or isn't on the right track
when redacting?

>Perhaps you are projecting just a little? If you made such a dish, I
>would be very interested in seeing your documentation, and I would
>certainly be more than willing to entertain the notion that your version
>may well be close to how a medieval cook would have served stupid tv
>cook on toast. But I couldn't call it 'correct', even if it were Master
>A's, because 'correct' is a judgement call that we don't have the
>context to make...


Projecting?  I don't understand this comment.  Moving on though, I agree
(again? GASP!) with your use of the term 'correct', as I said pretty much
the same thing in an earlier post, but if our friend Joe Snuffy Jim Bob
comes into the picture again and is trying to redact a recipe for Andalusian
swizzlestix he may come up with a perfectly reasonable recipe/redaction, but
not one that we would recognize as what we think of when we think of
Andalusian swizzlestix, see what I mean?

If you take as a given that we can never know what period food was REALLY
like, but we do have this established and growing theory of what we THINK it
was like based on research and experimentation, what we are really coming up
with is SCAdian cooking based on period sources.  And we have a community
idea or standard of what that is.  When we run into something we don't know
or haven't done before, we break out our proverbial toolbox and we work on
it here on the list until we come up with what it should be.  But if Joe
Snuffy stays in Podunk, never joins the list, etc etc, but inherits copies
of all our sources from his great aunt Emma, this arguement leads to the
point wherein he could develop a completley different version of medieval
cuisine, no?  And by our definition, his would be no less correct than ours.

>Considering how irritated you appear to _still_ be about that cook,
>perhpas you should have watched the ballgame after all! :-)
>
>'Lainie


Yes, I am still irritated about that cook.  I had a discussion with a friend
of mine a coupla weeks ago about medieval cooking.  She made the mistake of
uttering the standard lines such as medieval cooking would be inedible
today, they had no spices, their food was bland and horrible, or the food
was so terrible and rotten they had to cover it up with too much spice, etc
etc.  Things we know to not be true, but the layperson does not.  No sweat,
I am used to running into this kind of thing.  But when I see the head chef
and editor of Bon Apetit magazine, who has her own show on Food Network
espouse these same views, and bring in a purported expert to support and
further them, yes, I get irritated.  And thus my suggestion that we respond
to her show and set the record straight.  Who knows, we could even get some
of our more experienced and aliterative members (just don't let A near the
Scotch :-) a spot on one of her shows to demonstrate differently.  Or wonder
of wonders, Food TV is always looking for new shows, maybe we could
demonstrate that there is enough of a market for an historical cooking show?
Stranger things have happened, and Adamantius is, after all, seeking gainful
employment....

running and ducking, Puck

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