SC -Primary source

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Karen O wrote:
> 
>         Greetings hallowed Cooks,
> 
>     I have a question  -- having entered my Kingdom's A&S with Gyngerbrede,
> I stated in my documentation that I found the recipe in Curye On Inglysch,
> Part V: Goud Kokery  #19.  Then at the end cited the page, (#154) and a
> couple other sources that helped me in the redaction.  A judge criticized
> that I  had used only a secondary source.  What would be the primary source?

For practical purposes, the judge was wrong, and you can use my name in
telling him/her so if you wish. The manuscript source for the recipe in
question is MS Sloane 121, transcribed in Goud Kokery, but with the
attribution left intact (see page 147, CoI).

There is great disagreement among the various academic communities as to
what constitutes primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. By default,
manuscripts tend to be considered primary sources because the authors,
the original cooks of Bear's example, tend almost exclusively to be
dead. It's pretty much a matter of opinion as to whether a transcription
constitutes a secondary source. One might argue that it is secondary,
but in some cases dealing with it might produce results more accurate
than when dealing with the primary source. For example, if I make a
careful transcription of a 500-year-old manuscript, my transcription may
be in better shape and more legible than the original after another
century has passed. I've heard scholars argue that a photograph of a
manuscript constitutes a secondary source (or if the manuscript is
considered secondary to the author, then I guess it's tertiary).
Basically it comes down to how anal-retentive you're prepared to be.

It sounds as if your judge was either a non-cook (possibly a costumer or
armourer who is used to duplicating actual period artifacts? And
possibly not very bright?) or perhaps simply looking for things to
criticize in your work, and feeling these were safe issues. Or, perhaps
the person simply was mistaken, as was suggested, and thought CoI was a
book of recipes redacted from manuscript sources.

The comments about long pepper (i.e. the assumption it was impossible to
obtain and whatever you used must have been a poor substitute) would
certainly suggest this gentle is not up on the resources available to
the SCAdian cook / culinary researcher.   

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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