SC - period cooking (somewhat shorter)

[Laura C. Minnick]

Kappler, MMC Richard A. wrote:

<snip of interesting frumenty story>
>  But how did
> they know it should be creamier?  How did they know less ginger?  Is it
> based on personal taste?  Is it based on experience?  

BINGBINGBINGBING!

That is the $64,000 question, when it comes to things that survive less
easily through the years. A dish I made even a year ago- say the
stuffing for our Thanksgiving turkey (which came out wonderful) is gone
and I will be hard pressed to reproduce it. But a gown that I made a
year ago is still foldedup in my trunk, and I can pull it out and
reconstruct how it was made and make another one like it. I have
pictures and statues and illuminations, and yes, a few remaining
garments to make my sewing judgements on, but you can't do that with
food- they didn't have refrigeration then, and can you imagine the
freezer burn after 600 years? We can't _know_ what soemthing tasted
like. We can only make an educated guess.

> If you take two period
> dishes, prepared by two different cooks from the same recipe with the same
> ingredients, they will come out different.  If you take, for example,
> Adamantius or Ras cooking stupid tv cook on toast, and Puck cooking stupid
> tv cook on toast, from a period recipe, I'm sure we would both produce tasty
> period dishes, but I also know that theirs would be correct, and mine would
> not be.  Not that mine would be incorrect, mind you.....just not what the
> collective would expect stupid tv cook on toast to be like.

And mine would be declared 'heretical';-)
Perhaps you are projecting just a little? If you made such a dish, I
would be very interested in seeing your documentation, and I would
certainly be more than willing to entertain the notion that your version
may well be close to how a medieval cook would have served stupid tv
cook on toast. But I couldn't call it 'correct', even if it were Master
A's, because 'correct' is a judgement call that we don't have the
context to make...

Considering how irritated you appear to _still_ be about that cook,
perhpas you should have watched the ballgame after all! :-)

'Lainie
> I sure hope that made sense.
> 
> headed home to ponder s'more, Puck
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