SC - Are creations period?

[Korrin S DaArdain]

On Sun, 14 Jun 1998 10:16:25 EDT LrdRas at aol.com writes:
<snip>
>All in all, a person well-trained in a particular period cuisine, who
chooses to carefully create recipes within the bounds of  that training
cannot be accused of either dishonesty or being out of period. Of course,
the creator of such a dish, would be responsible for explaining their
particular creation within the context of their training and/or research.
>After having said all of that, the question that immediately comes to
mind is why would one want to take such a step when there are literally
hundreds of recipes from period sources which still have not been
recreated? OTH, if a person feels that they want to do such a thing, it
is infinitely more exceptable to do so than to present early Modern
cuisine or late period cuisine and call it "medieval".
>It's simply a matter of calling a horse a horse and remove any taint of
deception from the process of creation and presentation.
>Ras

I would think that a cook in the middle ages having not had his regular
food shipment arrive, or he ran out of such-&-such spice, would be
improvising all over the place. And as long as the result is delicious
and does not poison the lord of the house then what does it matter if the
recipe was not followed exactly?

The problem is that we of the current middle ages are telling ourselves
that the proper "medieval" cook would never have improvised in the face
of that damn goat having just eaten his herb garden and will now be
served for dinner the next eve.

If any one of us heads to pennsic (or any other event), and after a full
set-up and in the middle of cooking finds that they have left
such-and-such spice on the table at home (only 12 hours one way). Do we
head home, to the nearest store (that may not have it), grovel at the
feet of other cooks at pennsic (who also may not have it), or do we
improvise?

I would improvise and never think twice about it. But that is me.

Korrin S. DaArdain
Kingdom of An Tir.
Korrin.DaArdain at Juno.com

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