SC - Apicius and Fried Chicken

[Phil & Susan Troy]

Glenda Robinson wrote:
> 
> My theory on Vehling's translation of Apicius:
> 
> When reading this, you have to take into account that
> a) it was originally written in German and
> b) it was translated into German in the early twentieth century.
> 
> Thus, for example, 'broth' can be taken to mean 'suitable liquid', if you
> remember these two things.
> I've seen other translations that translate everything Vehling translated
> into 'Broth' as 'Liquamen', including stewed pears. I think that wouldn't
> work in any period myself.
> 
> I've worked from this book for quite a while, and if you look at it with the
> two 'Vehling maxims' above in mind, it makes a heck of a lot more sense!
> 
> Glenda.

These are certainly useful maxims about Vehling's work. Others to add might be
that Vehling was a working chef, unlike somebody like the vaguely contemporary
Alexis Soyer, who seems to have been the 19th-century culinary equivalent to
Professor Irwin Corey, The World's Foremost Authority (am I showing my age
here?), in that he went around being the World's Foremost Authority, but did
little actual cooking, which is why something like his "Pantropheon" is such a
laff riot at times. Vehling was, as I say, an actual working chef, and
sometimes his desire to turn Apicius' recipes into what a cultured person of
the 19th century would deem viable food outweighed his desire to produce a
good translation or good redactions that would produce something like the
original food. Not only were his goals somewhat different from ours, but he
wasn't much of a Latin scholar, either.

I also think it might be worth realizing that the culinary technology, in the
19th century, for a working chef of a fine restaurant or hotel anywhere in the
Western World would have been pretty much the same through much of the 19th
century, or at least after Careme, anyway. 

Personally, I very strongly prefer the Flower and Rosenbaum book as far better
for our purposes, and still by far the best Apicius translation that I've
seen. Wish I could find my copy, it seems to have vanished...

Adamantius
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