SC - Period Recipes

[Varju at aol.com]

In the interest of everyone's sanity I'm trying to respond to everyone's
thoughts about my thoughts and questions at one time.  (It may be difficult
since I forgot to ask the computer literate one in the family how to take
exerpts out of several mails before he left for work.)

I think I finally understand some of the rationale about excluding New World
foods, although I do agree with Aldyth on period versus non period
vegetables, but we have had that discussion many times.  :-)   I will
continue to hold out hope about paprika.

The next few bits are from Adamantius' post.

<< 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?>>

 Unfortunately, I don't know.  I was unable to find any while I was still a
grad student and could easily do Inter-Library Loans.  I will be testing the
local library's ability to get materials tonight, but I'm still limited by
not having any titles to request.  My other problem is of course language.

<<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.>>

Bogracs gulyas is supposed to be a relative to that early Magyar staple.  It
has potatoes, tomatoes and green peppers in it, however.  Since the Magyars
arrived in Hungary in 895 AD, I doubt those were among the original
ingredients.  What would be good substitues for those vegetables?


Duke Cariadoc writes:

<<Domostroi has a few recipes, and Russia is in Eastern Europe. There is a
17th c. Hungarian translation of a 16th century German cookbook; I have
photocopies of both. What is your one period Hungarian recipe, and where is
it from?>>

I would be interested in more information on how to locate copies of  the
Domostroi and the cookbook you mention.  My one recipe I found a translation
of in _The Cuisine of Hungary_ by George Lang.  It is from a manuscript of
four recipes that were served at the wedding feast of Mattyas Covinus in
1475.  Lang provides a translation of two of the recipes,  a carp dish and
the one I use, Savanyu Vetrece (Sour Vetrece).  Not quite cutting edge
research on period cooking, but I did end up with a quite tasty recipe.


Noemi