SC - Recipe: Stuffed Cabbage

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

At 9:55 PM -0400 8/30/99, Tollhase1 at aol.com wrote:

>Some of us, are looking for period like dishes regardless of place and time.
>Such as I want to make beans and franks.  Let see it any of these ingredients
>were ever used within our period at all. They do not even have to be the same
>place or time.  Then we can make the dish.

In what sense is this "period like?" I would have said that you are
describing someone who wants to cook a particular dish, does not care if it
is period, but believes he has some obligation to fudge up an argument
connecting it to something period. Except for the final part, that is a
perfectly reasonable activity--different people have different priorities,
and for some people making period food isn't one of them. At Pennsic, for
example, none of the commercial food services make any attempt at period
food, or pretend to, and my impression is that the great majority of what
people cook for themselves is ordinary modern food. The real problem with
what you are describing is that, because people think they have to pretend
that what they are doing is period when it isn't, they end up spreading
false historical information.

>Some of us, are trying to be accurate, but lack the knowledge yet to be
>reasonably accurate.

A problem that this list exists in part to solve.

>Some of us, are trying to make period dishes that for practical reasons,
>tasting good must be first consideration. I.E. having an encampment or feast
>spitting out the food despite the claims from the kitchen, "Poisoning is
>period."

Except that nobody who does period cooking makes that claim in that
context. If the food tastes bad, that is evidence that you are doing
something wrong.

Implicit in your argument is the assumption that if you make the food
authentically, it will taste bad--which is contrary to the experience, so
far as I can tell, of every cook in the SCA who has actually done
substantial amounts of period cooking.

>There in the same group are those for cost, or availability reasons
>make substitutions (Hopefully good ones) to produce good medieval like food.

So far as cost is concerned, the range of period recipes is enormous, and
includes lots made from low cost ingredients. Availability sometimes forces
you to substitute, especially if you are starting with a very small range
of alternative recipes--but given how much is currently available for free,
it is hard to see how anyone with web access can be in that situation
currently. You may also have to substitute if your objective is not merely
to provide good food, but to research some particular period cuisine--a few
of whose ingredients are unavailable to you.

>Yes, I can hear one person say, If you can not make the recipe as written do
>not make it.  At times I agree with him.  Yet, by changing a single
>ingredient and thus exposing more gentles to good medieval LIKE foods, I am
>all for it.  I believe As long as we identify what we do we are OK.  Its a
>period book I am OK, your OK.

1. Except that it isn't necessary to change an ingredient in order to
expose people to good medieval food.

2. In practice, medievaloid things don't get identified as such, with the
result that people  end up with a lot of false historical information
generated in the SCA. In part this is because it is hard to convey the
information. You don't really want a herald at the feast announcing "the
first course is not really period," and anything much more subtle than that
is going to miss a lot of people.

>As for myself, I will strive with my own experimentation's to be as
>historically accurate as possible.  For my shire, when I am feastacrate, I
>will be much more practical.

What is impractical about doing period recipes?

> Like Really, OK, from that person I will
>usually get NAZI periodness, and that person is like really very practical
>and would serve franks and beans (Franks were Germanic people and I believe
>someone has documented that there were some beans around)

There is some evidence that Franks ate people (an incident during the first
Crusade, reported from both Muslim and Christian sources), but no evidence
I know of that other people ate Franks.

I admit that I am puzzled by the connection between National Socialism and
historical authenticity--my impression was that the Nazis were in favor of
making up their history to suit their needs, ideological and
propagandistic, which would put them on the other side of that particular
argument.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/


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