SC - cuskynoles, continued...

[david friedman]

At 9:19 AM -0500 10/31/97, Christi Redeker wrote:
>There are such differing opinions on how things were done that to be truly
>honest to the recipe you must put your own touch and feelings (sorry I get
>carried away by my food) into the end product.

That statement is not, I think, true of the cuskynoles debate. On that,
either I am wrong or Adamantius is wrong (or possibly both of us are
wrong). What we differ about is not "how do we interpret something that the
original recipe left to be interpreted by the cook" (such as amount of
spices, how long you cook something, or whatever) but about the broad
outlines of what the author of the original recipe is telling us. Answering
a question of fact is not a matter of one's own touch and feelings--the
result of adding up 2 and 2 is not more honest if you get 4.01 because you
were feeling generous.

One the other hand, it is true of much interpretation of medieval recipes
that the particular rendition legitimately reflects the taste of the
cook--because the recipes do leave quite a lot of things open to be decided
by the particular cook.

David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
ddfr at best.com
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/


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