SC - Period Recipes

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Varju at aol.com wrote:

> But what is one to do when there seems to be very little recorded information
> on the region of interest?  I know it would be easiest to do period recipes
> from Western Europe, but I can't quite do it.  i guess i'm just too stubborn
> and want to stay true to my region. (Hungary specifically, but I'll take
> anything from Eastern Europe).  this is thge whole reason I do horribly
> non-period cooking, except for my one period Hungarian recipe.
> 
> And perhaps I'm missing the boat but isn't the 1500's part of the time period
> we are reconstructing?  If so, what is wrong with using New World ingredients
> that were introduced and used during that time?

Tempted though I am to respond mainly to the second part of the query,
I'm gonna go for what looks to me to be the harder question. When there
isn't enough recorded information on the region of interest, then you
either pursue something else, or try another tack. Try doing a little
detective work, and figure out, as best you can, what the cuisine of
(f'rinstance) 16th-century Hungary might have been like. Look at poetry
and other literature of the period. Look for books on farming. Look at
any medical texts that may exist. Consider the fact that Hungary had a
number of non-native ethnicities living there. There must have been
Turkish merchants, even when there weren't Turkish soldiers. There were
various German groups (notably Saxons). Are there any recipes you might
raid from those groups? Consider the Magyar nomadic heritage. For
example, I understand gulyas is derived from a nomad staple in use well
before the introduction of paprika (whenever that was, really). Surely
there's a way to extrapolate somewhat what the (effectively) Hungarian
national dish would have been like in period.

Obviously it's bad when there are no primary sources available for a
given place/time. If you still want to attempt the period of your
choice, and have no period records to work from, you can still speculate
as mentioned above. You just have to qualify your research as
speculation based on X, Y, and Z, if you intend to think of the job in
those terms. It would be irresponsible from an academic standpoint to
present the results of speculation as empirical fact, or as deductions
based thereon.

Adamantius