SC - period cooking (LONG!)

[Kappler, MMC Richard A.]

"Kappler, MMC Richard A." wrote:

> snip

>  in general when one of us presents a recipe/redaction to the list, the list
> will discuss it, offer comments, and usually come up with a final answer along
> the lines of "this is how we, the collective, have decided it really should
> be."  Granted, we never say this
> outright, but we usually reach an accepted consensus.  I ask again, however,
> what leads us to the conclusion that one way is more correct than another?

> We do indeed reach this sort of conclusion almost daily.  I have several
> personal theories, but am interested in hearing what the list thinks.  I am
> of the opinion that it is one of or a combination of the following:
>
>         1.  Experience and training as a period cook within the Society,
> thereby meaning we have established what the SCA thinks period cooking is
> like, albeit not neccessarily what it really was like.
>         2.  Experience and/or training as a modern/mundane cook, thereby
> meaning we aren't really doing period cooking, but rather modern cooking
> using period sources.
>         3.  We have finally developed and researched enough period
> resources, and collated enough of the little bits and pieces and hints that
> we have developed a collective certainty about techniques and tastes in
> period, and can hence combine them to make a general set of tools which we
> apply to newly tried recipes which DON'T give us enough info.

I was brought up with my father cooking on the an'some technique ('and some' of
this and some of that etc).  He would invent recipes or modify his recipes
according to what he thought would taste good.  He is now known by our circle of
friends for specific 'trademark' recipes, but even those recipes change from
making to making depending on seasonal ingredients or availability . . . each
time, it is a different recipe using the same basic ingredients, but by and
large the determination is made based on what he knows will taste good in
combination.

I have not fallen far from the tree . . . I look at a recipe and then make it my
own when I cook it.  I add various ingredients based on what I think will taste
good, most times I'm right and if all else fails - I have 2 dogs that aren't
that picky!

For me, period recipes are an extension of how I learned to cook:  ie you take
various ingredients, add them together and 'mess it forth'.  Now, the way I
redact is based largely on my cooking experience, demonstrateably modern
perhaps.  After all, I am cooking in a modern kitchen (with a lovely fan-forced
oven), I have constant and easily adjustable heat, I have reliable refrigeration
and freezing, I am also often using modern varieties of period ingredients (eg
apples).  But, I have found that many of the recipes I have cooked have been
'traditional' fare.

By and large I cook by taste, if it tastes too bland, I might add some
seasoning.  But, if the dish was in a medley of dishes I might leave it bland to
sort of cleanse the pallet {hmmm: sauces for courses?}.    I prefer mildly
spiced foods to overpowering. A lot of times I can read a recipe and 'taste' it
in my imagination before I cook it, because I have cooked (or eaten) similar
combinations of food before and can envisage what the tastes will be when it
intermingles.

Sometimes though, there are interactions in recipes that I wonder at because I
haven't cooked or eaten a particular food, cooked in that manner.  So I cook it,
to see what happens.  Eg, I saw an interesting recipe for roast chickpeas that
Master Huen had on his web page.  Now, I had previously seen the same medieval
recipe made as a sort of stew and had cooked it myself in that manner.  Master
Huen had picked up something from the original text that I had not noticed as
important, which was to roast the chickpeas first.  Then cook them in a pot
(with a mixture of garlic and olive oil and spices).  My immediate thought was
yuck:  unnecessarily oily.  But I was intrigued, so I tried it and because of
the pre-roasting, the chick peas absorbed the oil and had a completely different
(and enjoyable) taste to what I had envisaged would happen.

The other thing that I do is, if I strike an anomaly, puzzle at it.  OK, I
wouldn't use that ingredient because I don't think it would taste very nice, so
why did they use it?  I experiment, it tastes yuck, OK did I do something wrong,
or did they cook it in a different way to me.

I remember a feast I attended early in my SCA life and a meat dish that was
served that tasted horrid (I had to spit it out).  A number of people complained
because it was so inedible (and the main meat dish), the cook announced
offendedly as a justification that: "it was period".

Now in my mind, although our palate may be more used to modern foods and
textures, I figure if a dish tastes horrid to us it would probably tasted awful
in period times and not be eaten:  so why is it included in a cookbook.  Well it
could be of some regional significance (look this is what they ate in ______),
or maybe we are making assumptions on how they cooked food.  Mmmmmm, why did
this dish fail?  In the above case, the cook had taken a recipe that called for
huge amounts of vinegar to be used in the cooking.  She had taken fresh meat and
the spices specified and cooked everything together and served a sort of
inedible stew.  Now the recipe used specified no cooking technique or serving
technique - it just listed the ingredients, cook it & serve it forth!  Now why
would they use such a lot of vinegar and what have I cooked that is similar . .
. well corned silverside seemed similar.  In that recipe I take lots of vinegar,
cloves and the like, wine & water & boil the 'corned' meat.  Why do I use this
particular cooking technique, to extract the salt from the meat and then discard
the cooking liquid.  Ahhhhhhh, maybe they were using salted meat!  Mmmm, I redo
recipe that way and it works :-)  OK, it wasn't a bad recipe . . . it was the
cook!

OK, MAYBE that was how they cooked it.  How do I know, well by taste.  This is
based on my previous cooking experience of how a food will taste if cooked in a
certain manner and what food I have eaten tastes like when cooked in a certain
manner.  If I eat something out of my (albeit limited) knowledge/experience,
then I ask or try to recreate it.  I am generally recreating in a modern kitchen
using modern ingredients (eg apple varieties) Still, the result is not
definitive, it is only my opinion, OK, I might elicit other's opinions to gauge
whether my thoughts are valid.  Now someone else may see something I've
completely missed (per above, OK back to the chopping board), someone else might
disagree or dislike the end result, or I might get a general consensus that I
'was right'.  Often, if I liked it and my feasters liked it, I may continue to
serve it whatever other's opinions . . . OR maybe not.

I'm sorry Puck, I' not sure which category I fit into, maybe a bit of all 3.
Hope this is what you were asking for {:-)

Yours, longwindedly, Lorix

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