SC - obsession......

[Marilyn Traber]

Well, Marketa, it's like this. We are mostly focussed on cooking period food
from period recipes, and we have quite a body of material to work from. The
trouble with trying to find homey, peasant or middle class type recipes is
that reading and writing was mostly confined to the upper classes during our
period, and they had very little interest in what their "inferiors" ate. The
most we can usually find is off-hand remarks by travellers about foods being
consumed in foreign countries, until you get into fairly late period..

When you reverse redact, ie trying to find a modern recipe and follow it
backwards, omitting modern ingredients, you're likely just making a weird
modern food. In order to redact properly, you need an original recipe, and
you need to either make it yourself, following the instructions to your best
judgement and taste, or accept someone else's redaction- most of us who are
more serious about it prefer the former, since there are some really BAD
redactions out there.

On the other hand, I've been getting a great amount of pleasure lately in
looking over my Curye on Inglysche, and following the development of a
couple of recipes through the Virginia House-wife, including the variations
which the foodstuffs in the new world made.

As far as I'm concerned, you can make anything you like, but unless you're
following an original, documentable recipe, don't call it period- it isn't.

Phlip

phlip at morganco.net

Philippa Farrour
Caer Frig
Southeastern Ohio

The World's Need

So many Gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
When just the art of being kind
Is all this sad world needs.

- - Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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