SC - Period Feasts/modern tastes

[Phil & Susan Troy]

david friedman wrote:
> 
> More specifically, look at the introduction to _Two Fifteenth Century
> Cookery Books_, written in the late 19th century. There is a comment about
> our ancestors' strong stomachs, as illustrated by the cinnamon soup on page
> ...  . You turn to the page in question and discover that it is not a
> recipe but a menu. So the very fact that they put cinnamon in soup proves
> that their food would be unpalatable to modern people! I think that tells
> us more about 19th century English cooking than about 15th century English
> cooking.

Very possible, but aren't you in danger of falling into the same error in
making the assumption(if you are!) that Victorian food is bland. A brief look
at, say, Mrs. Beeton, doesn't really bear that out, either. I think another
aspect that might be pertinent is that a lot of medieval scholars don't know
much about cooking, and vice versa, and snap judgements in fields we aren't
well-versed in can often lead to errors.

Adamantius
Østgardr, East 
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
============================================================================

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".

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