SC - Tiramisu

[david friedman]

At 9:05 AM -0500 3/25/98, Woeller D wrote:
>While I'm at it with all of the questions, Cariadoc, Your Grace, what
>are all of the various cookery texts that you and your Lady Wife have
>out?

I recently put a summary, including table of contents and prices, up on my
web page, on the medieval part. The price for the cookbook collection is
lower than it used to be, since I got a very good deal on my recent reprint.

>And, in reference to cookery books, how can I tell if a recipe is period
>or not? Cariadoc asked some questions about whether anyone could find a
>period recipe for the crispes recipe in Fabulous Feasts, but, the
>confusing thing is that the author represents (Or so I thought) these
>recipes AS period. Have I wasted my money on this book?

I was distinguishing between a modern secondary source that has recipes
that it may say are period and a cookbook actually written in period.
Secondary sources vary a lot in how reliable they are. _Fabulous Feasts_ is
one of the worst, _Pleyn Delite_ one of the best. My rule of thumb is to
never trust a secondary source unless it contains the text of the original
recipe, so that you can see how close its version is. If it doesn't do
that, you find out whether it is period by hunting down the original--and
if you can't find the original, and the published recipe doesn't look like
the recipes you do find from the relevant time and place, you get
suspicious.

Secondary sources can err in two ways. First, they can claim or imply that
something is period when it is not--that is fairly common in SCA
publications unfortunately (C.A. 79 is an example), not very common
elsewhere. Second, and more frequently, they can give an interpretation
that does not follow the original very closely.

Example. Someone made or told us about a meat stew with oranges and lemons
in it. We asked about the source. She told us that it was a period English
15th c. recipe from (I think) _To the King's Taste_. We asked to see the
recipe. The worked out recipe did indeed have oranges and lemons. The
original--which, as I recall, was included in the book--said to garnish
with fruits. As best I recall, I was unable to find any reference to lemons
or oranges in the 14th-15th c. English cookbooks I checked, so I think it
quite unlikely that that was what "fruits" meant.

Hope that helps make what I meant clearer.

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


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