SC - Gotta quick question

[Micaylah]

In a message dated 8/30/98 11:37:06 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
vjarmstrong at aristotle.net writes:

<< The practice of starting out with a high temp and then reducing it is a
 modern one I learned from my mother, but I thought it might simulate baking
 in a wood fired oven where the temp would decrease a bit over the cooking
 time. >>

I wonder how your observation that starting a baking project at a higher temp
and lowering it is a modern one?  Especially since you mention in the next
sentence that it simulates a 'wood' fired oven?

What you have described is a "modern' adaptation of a very ancient cooking'
'technique.  When ovens were heated with wood, peat, charcoal, coal or dung to
the correct temperature during the MA they were extremely hot at the beginning
of the baking process and lost their heat as the baking progressed.  Adjusting
the oven temp from high to lower is a perfect example of a 'holdover' practice
of the MA. being preserved and adapted to the kitchens of the Current Middle
Ages. :-).

Your redaction sounds wonderful and I am definitely going to give it a try as
soon as I brush up on reading German. :-) Thanks.  Keep up the good work.  You
sound as if you are an instinctive cook and cookery, being the art and science
it is, lends itself very well to this type of 'hands' on approach. :-) Indeed,
it is virtually impossible to learn period cookery any other way.

Ras
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================