SC - Plaintive whine about sourcing....

[Terry Nutter]

Hi, Katerine again.  Adamantius responds to my whine:

>> You know, it would have been easy if the dratted modern author had been
>> a touch more specific.  Is it just me, or do others really really REALLY
>> wish that when people published original versions of recipes, they would
>> (1) publish the *original* original version, and not their new-and-
>> improved original; and (2) tell you not only what collection its from
>> but *where* in the collection you can find it?  NBoC has 252 recipes, for
>> criminy's sake!  References are supposed to be helpful pointers, not
>> just discussion enders....
>> 
>> Sigh....
>
>This is an interesting question. Some people maintain, for instance,
>that a photocopy or a transliteration is a secondary source, and that a
>proper primary source is the original work only, in the author's own
>hand, or a first edition printing. 

I've heard that line, but only in the SCA, and it seems to me plain
silly for written works.  By the original, I mean, a reasonable copy
of the words of the original, as written, except for reproduction of the
palaeography.  Mistakes happen, no problem.  It's deliberate changes that
irk me -- when the text is presented as the original, and not as an
altered version.

>It seems evident that the original
>recipe as quoted is not the actual original recipe, based on the idiom
>used. That may or may not mean there is a substantial change in the
>content, however, and how far, if at all, off of the original it may be
>has yet to be determined.

Too true -- and it's hard to see how to determine it, and *that's* what
I find irksome.

>It's frustrating when something like this happens, but even though we
>may never find a satisfactory answer, there are other possible scenarios
>to be looked into. One is that the author and editor made a  mistake
>that remained unchecked until seeing print. It might be, for instance,
>that the source should be listed as A New Proper BoC, as opposed to
>simply A NBoC. It wouldn't be the first time an author of such a work
>(many of whom are no more qualified to be writing such stuff than you or
>I, some far less) made a bloomer.

Well, yes, except that in this particular case, unless Pynson was setting
print from the grave, it wasn't the Proper New etc.  It wasn't that the
language was too modern for NBoC that made me wonder, but that it was too
modern for *Pynson*.  It may be something else entirely -- but I have
lists of all surviving sources from someone I *know* has worked at Longleat,
and that don't include that title.  So I'm left wondering....

>Another possibility, though less likely, is that the Lady who posted
>made a minor error in trancription. It happens, and would be enough to
>send some of the more inquisitive of us on a wild goose chase. This is
>far from a negative comment on the kind lady who posted the recipes. I
>was really pleased to see it.

I'm not in the slightest inclined to blame the lady who posted.  What gets
me is the general practice of saying "This is from x" (in published works)
with absolutely zero (zilch, nada) indication of *where* in x.  At the
least, one could say, "This is from page n of x, which is m pages long."
At which point, those of us up to third grade arithmetic could tell 
whether it's from the end, the beginning, two thirds of the way through,
or whatever.

>My big pet peeve is the gratuitous omission of an index. I realize that
>this is an unreasonable prejudice, but to me, iunder normal
>circumstances, if it has no index or other table of contents to help you
>find something, it is by definition excluded from the category of
>reference books. Some day, in the afterlife, The Goodman of Paris is
>going to answer to me! It won't be pretty.

Well, this bothers me far far less in primaries.  Those things were being
written by hand, and often being collated as they were written.  Yes, it's
a nuisance.  My response has been to construct my own indices of recipes.
Work, yes, but it fits into several ongoing projects, so....

>Of course, it IS pretty annoying when somebody like John Edwards decides
>Apicius doesn't know how to cook, and that a patina of asparagus should
>be fried in butter or margarine...

Hey, if you think Edwards is bad, you should check out Vehling, who simply
rewrote the darned recipes and called it translation....  Sigh....

>Nobody should whine plaintively alone. It ain't healthy.

Not fun, either!

Cheers,

- -- Katerine/Terry