SC - Cooking Laurels

[Elaine Koogler]

"catwho at bellsouth.net" wrote:
> 
> > Libra de arte coquinaria - 'Ravioli for Meat Days' :  "...and a libra of fat
> > hog's tripe or calfs' head...<snip> ...and if you add the chopped breast of a
> > capon, so much the better...<snip> ...You can make ravioli with breast of
> > pheasant, partridge, and other birds"  (this is the first recipe I came
> > across with actual substitution suggestions in the recipe itself.  It seems
> > to validate my belief that medieval cooks regularly substituted one meat for
> > another, and not necessarily because of humoral theory)
> 
> But notice though that they aren't substituting beef for fowl.  They
> list a series of different fowl that would be appropriate.  Probably
> if calf wasn't available they might  have used lamb (or vice versa)
>  Small game such as rabbit might be substituted for other small game
> animals.  Make sense?  So you wouldn't substitute beef for pheasant.
 
This is quite like what I have been thinking.

While I was making lunch I had a sudden flash of... something- I don't
know what really. Here goes-

There are many ways to make meatloaf. One of my cookbooks has three
different recipes on the same page. You can use onions or not, tomato
sauce or not, you can use hamburger or a combination of beef and pork,
you can even put ketchup on top. And you can use breadcrumbs or oatmeal
for filler.

These illustrate a great variety of variations for what is in essence
the same recipe (reminds me a little of bukenade and the 8 bazillion
ways to make it!). However- these variations can't necessarily transfer
to other recipes. For instance, you can use either oatmeal or
breadcrumbs in you meatloaf. But you can't then turn around and use the
meatloaf as rationale to substitute breadcrumbs for the oats in your
oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Well, you could, but it would no longer
be an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie! It would be something else and it
doesn't sound all that yummy to me. 

Some recipes say to use fish or fowl. But the bukenade recipe doesn't
list fish as one of the alternatives. If you make it with fish it will
be different, and it won't be Bukenade. I don't find this limiting-
because there are so many recipes for fish, that there really is no need
to change a chicken recipe.

Is that any more clear?

'Lainie