SC - OT - STIRBRIDGE VILLAGE (Fireplace cooking)

[Maureen Martin]

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Hi there - I am that Branwen chick who used the analogy of food and poetry.
I would like to clarify a few points. I have not read the rest of the
thread, and have been out of action for a few days, due to the fact that
school is winding down and my darling jr high students are winding up.

Anyhow - I am not truly suggesting such a haphazard approach. I too am a
poet with great concern for period form. I am also a student of medieval
literature with a bit of an emphasis on Anglo-Saxon poetry. I am greatly
concerned with keeping things as period as possible. However, I do stress
that it should be within reason.

I do not merely suggest combining period ingredients without concern for the
styles and methods already demonstrated and documented in period recipes. I
am not trying to create completely new dishes. I am merely suggesting that
reasonable and researched hypotheses are sometimes allowable. Especially
when I cook "Viking" food.

I consider "period" to refer to a style of representation which strives to
be a reasonable approximation. And, yes, this is different from authentic.
Sorry for the misuse of language on my part previously. (8th and 9th graders
kill the brain.) Again, the example of Anglo-Saxon riddles and poetry comes
to mind. I hate it when translations of certain riddles along with the
"answer" are printed without a footnote to the effect that the answer is
really just one scholar's guess. When that footnote is present, however,
along with the support for the answer, I enjoy reading it.

What I am really trying to say is that while we have many many resources, we
still do not have  complete, or even close to complete, materials and
evidence. My grandmother is a great Yugoslavian cook - a follower of the
oral cooking tradition. She has only to taste something and she can
duplicate it and improve upon it. She, and many of her predecessors, never
needed recipes, unlike myself.  I am not saying I can just make up recipes,
based upon that assumption. I am just concerned that adhering strictly to
what was written down also does not give us an accurate and holistic
recreation of the middle ages. That is something, of course, that we can't
have, and upon sober reflection, should not want. I hate the bubonic plague.
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Sorry this was so long. I'm avoiding reading my students' papers. Really.

Branwen
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