SC - Chicken, Pineapple, Chocolate and OOh-OOh Birds!

[L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt]

>
>From: PETERSR at spiegel.becltd.com (Peters, Rise J.)
>Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 11:04:04 -0500
>Subject: RE: SC - Chicken usage
>
>>> Conversely the less often an item is
>mentioned, the more "common" it may have been. Responce?
>
>So, to follow this line of thinking out, the vast majority of the folks the 
>vast majority of the time were eating recipes that went completely 
>unrecorded made out of ingredients that we have no way to know existed....
>
Good Boy! Dierdrui, I believe this felow deserves a biscuit! We could point
to the relative lack of recipes for, say, bread or vegetables, esp.
salad.Tho' there are recipes for these, they are far less than those
containing meat or fruit as the main ingredients, at least in my experience.
I'll bow to greater knowledge here, cause I'm still an amature. How often
have you seen a recipe for plain scrambled eggs, though?

However, here's where we get into trouble:  Remeber the CA that had the
stories about Wilihilda, the Kitchen Wench? The Author is a wonderful story
teller. She redacted recipes, and created stories about their origins
central to the character Wilihilda. Really, hats off to her for highly
entertaining work of fiction based on fact. HOWEVER, she had her central
character responsible for introducing Pineapple to Tudor England. While I am
not certain what the incidence of pineapple would be in Tudor England
(though I can take a pretty educated guess :), we know for certain that
since it appears almost NEVER in recorded recipes, that the food was not
common. But, by our above logic, it's absence indicated that it was a
commonplace food. It's circular logic at it's worse, equivalent to, say, "If
they'd had it back then, they would have used it" which we get around here
frequently as an excuse for not doing the proper research and coming up with
something less patently MODERN. And here's the rub: Very little of what we
have in modern day didn't exist in period (albeit in an altered form) or
wasn't a direct ancestor of a period item or food. So my question then
becomes this: Have you bothered to look into it's (ingredient or
item)availability, or are you simply offering a rational in place of an
excuse? NOT doing the research is OK, so long as you admit it, in my book.
Been there, didin't have the time to buy the T shirt. Pretending to have
done the research (and I am ashamed to admit to this fault upon occaision,
when backed against a wall with a cleaver at my throat), is a worse offense.
I am reminded of the story told to me lately of a Laurel who, a few years
ago, used cheese whiz in a feast recipe, and justified it by documenting the
ingredients. It just ain't the same! Not a crime punishable by death,
however. Unless, of course, DEATH BY CHOCOLATE is a legal sentence! 9;^D But
what you get is similar to what was probably period food only as Daffy Duck
is similar to Duck a L'Orange.

Sadly, I've gotten more anal as time passes (refer to the green pepper
debate, and you'll see what I mean). Sometimes I recover enough to surface
for the occaisional fudgsicle, but then I dive under again, lured by the
really cool recipe for planked beef or boiled pudding.  It's only a matter
of time before I refuse packaged food altogether (been known to do that
BEFORE children happened to me). Soon I shall be conducting this sort of
correspondance in longhand on hand-made paper, and grinding my own ink.
Shortly thereafter, I shall, like the Alaskan OOh-OOh bird, fly in ever
decreasing circles until I dissapear........

TTFN

AOIFE (rendered slightly silly through lack of sleep).