SC - Vegetable Warners

[Philip & Susan Troy]

THLRenata at aol.com wrote:
> 
> Suzanne mourns:
> 
> << I WISH I had a copy of "To the Queen's Taste! >>
> 
> I have a copy on extended loan (along with "To the Kings Taste") and I have to
> admit I'm not all that impressed.  I suspect that their fame is due to their
> rarity (to quote the owner of the copies I have "They are sooooo out of
> print") rather that their content.  Still, the recipes I've made have been
> tasty, if not 100% authentically redacted.
> 
> Renata

Okay, it's time for another SCA-cooks' bedtime story: 

Once upon a time, there were perhaps five sources available for the
average SCAdian who was either not adept or simply not confident enough
to deal with primary source recipes. In no particular order, they were
(and someone else may have a different vision of what the five, or the
seven, or whatever, were): "Fabulous Feasts" by Madeline Pellner Cosman,
"Seven Hundred Years of English Cooking", a.k.a. "The Seven Centuries
Cookbook", by Maxime McKendry, a.k.a. Maxime de la Falaise, "To the
King's Taste", and "To the Queen's Taste", both by Lorna J. Sass, and
"The Delectable Past" by Esther B. Aresty.

The first is pretty bad as a recipe source, replete with red licorice
whip garnishes and frumenty made from Grape Nuts cereal. The others have
some bright spots, but are flawed to varying extents, more or less in
the same way, in that they don't _really_  teach us all that much about
medieval cookery, because they either don't give the original source
recipe, or else they don't follow it with any logic or any desire to do
a medieval thing the way it was done in the Middle Ages. This isn't so
bad when you consider they were never really intended as cookbooks for
serious historical recreationists to work from, but more as curiosities
for lightweight historical hobbyists and people whose entertaining
tended toward the unusual. I guess the question is of the degree of
immersion, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, you've all probably heard this from me before, but once upon a
time books like "To The Queen's Taste" were, for the non-scholarly, the
inexperienced, or the underconfident, considered the only game in town.
Now all of the above have been eclipsed by newer secondary sources with
better educational ethics, but it isn't always good to forget one's
roots so easily. 

What's the line in the movie version of "Jurassic Park"? "The point is,
you are alive when they begin to eat you. So show a little respect,
okay?" ;  )
 
Adamantius
Østgardr, East
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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