SC - Is Arrowroot Period?

[CBlackwill@aol.com]

In a message dated 4/4/00 7:46:45 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
JGedney at dictaphone.com writes:

> What the name was never designed for was to be used to justify calling
>  Phillie Cheese steaks period, just because all the ingredients existed 
> before
>  1601, and hundreds of other similar invocations, ranging from "elves" at 
>  events to Peg-legged-Long-John-Silver-wannabe "pyrates", to singing 
>  rockabilly ballads at events.
>  

I never suggested that the name was a blanket cover for allowing non-period 
influences into the Society.  However, I will stick to my guns and reiterate 
that making substitutions (again, using ingredients available "in period") is 
period.  It may not be "documentable", but it is period.  Perhaps we should 
refer to strictly followed medieval recipes as "documentable historical 
re-creations", rather than "period recipes".  I think the vast majority of 
SCA cooks out there know better than to try to pass a Patty Melt or Western 
Bacon Cheeseburger off as "period".  And, if it makes people happy, I have no 
problem calling altered period recipes "period style", either.  So long as 
they are not called "non-period" or "out of period" or any other negative 
monicker.  Because they aren't.

Just my buck-and-a-quarter 
Balthazar of Blackmoor