SC - Substitution vs Accuracy- response, Long.

[Philip & Susan Troy]

"Oughton, Karin (GEIS, Tirlan)" wrote:
> 
> I guess I was trying to work out why it was not acceptable to substitute
> period ingredients within the period recipe, when it would have been fairly
> ineveitable that a period cook would have done so - we only need to look at
> the hundreds of variations you get of a single recipe such as chilli con
> carne today, to believe that cooks in that time period would have been the
> same, each with their own distinctive flair. That's just on the flair side -
> think of availability issues without planes to fly out of season produce
> from all the way around the world.........

I think the issue on substitution of period ingredients within period
recipes (if I'm understanding you clearly) has to do with what Elizabeth
touched on already. We don't know what kind of substitution would have
been done in period. It seems quite reasonable some was done, but we
don't know what would or would not have been "acceptable" to Chiquart,
Platina, or Taillevent.

For example, we can substitute for many of the canonically traditional
ingredients in the chili con carne you mentioned. We might be hard
pressed to justify, though, leaving out the chili or the meat, since
those are what define the dish. Truth in advertising, and all that.
Pimiento negro con carne might be good, but it just doesn't cut it if
chili con carne is what you're aiming at. In many cases, we don't know
enough about what defines some medieval dishes to be sure when we've
crossed the line between what would be a recognizable variant, and
simply a totally different dish. For example, a cameline sauce appears
to be cinnamon (canel) based. Leave out the cinnamon and it is no longer
a cameline sauce, it's something else. A jance, whatever else it may
have or be, ought to include ginger. But we aren't as sure about the
logical "hook" for dishes like bukkenade, or mawmenny, or many others,
and what may seem like a perfectly logical substitution to us might be
seen differently by a period cook.  
 
> Perhaps it comes down to defining cooking as a science/art ( no, I don't
> want to kick off that discussion again either <grin>) - I see it as art has
> room for embellishment and variation, but science is defined, so here we
> examine the science of the historical recipe, rather than the art of period
> cookery.

I think all art is based on an understanding of the tools, the
technology, used for expression. I don't think any adult painter,
professional or otherwise, would suggest you don't have to have an
understanding of how paint behaves to be a painter. Michelangelo would
have looked pretty silly if the paint on the ceiling of the Sistene
Chapel began to run down the walls, or flake off in big sheets, after a
month, wouldn't he? He saw to it that it wouldn't because he was a professional.

In our pursuit of period cookery, we can't always be sure about what our
innocent substitution of cassia bark for cinnamon might mean to a period
cook. That being the case, many of us have decided a conservative
approach is best, coming as close as possible, within reason, to the
dish as made in period. That may be seen as narrowminded, but what we're
trying to do is learn about how medieval life was, and _then_ speculate
on how it might have been.     
 
> Do you/SCA  ever work with period-ish recipes?

Often. There are areas where there simply isn't enough documentation to
do it any other way. We often do Celtic-themed feasts, for example, and
there just aren't a lot of written recipes out there, as far as we know.
I've been asked to do a Mongolian nomad feast next month, and what I
have to work with are sketchy traveller's accounts of what the Mongols
ate, modern Mongolian recipes, a 14th-century Chinese recipe source
book, and a knowledge of what modern Mongolian foodways are based on
post-period imports (i.e. the chili pepper, etc.). I know there are a
couple of other early Mongolian or near-Mongolian, basically Turkic
sources which are either untranslated, inaccessible to me at the time,
or of dubious relevance. For example, I gather the Al Akbari (I'm
messing up this name but am in a bit of a rush) is (I think) a late
Mughal source whose recipes bear a simply unknown resemblance to the
foods eaten by nomadic Mongols hundreds of years earlier in a
non-Islamic culture. To a great extent I'm going to have to wing it.

Luckily, the event this is being planned for is sort of a silly one,
extremely informal, and if the only silly anachronisms that appear at
it, intentionally or otherwise, are in the food, we'll be doing quite
well. I'm not worried.   

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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