SC - Thanks re Florence

[Ann & Les Shelton]

In a message dated 4/27/00 1:48:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
CBlackwill at aol.com writes:

<< Why do you feel that the authors of these recipes had to write 
 down every possible substitution on every possible recipe?  >>

I feel a more narrow viewpoint is indicated because cookery was simply not 
thought of in the way it is today. As late as Escoffier's time, deviation 
from a recipe was noted by giving the recipe a new name. It was not until the 
1940s that substituting different ingredients within the same recipe was 
noted as a 'variation' rather than as entirely new recipe with any 
regularity. 

I agree that cooks are given great leeway in the modern world in playing with 
certain recipes but I fail to see how modern culinary practices can be 
transposed 400 yrs. Into the past. If your supposition is true (and I am not 
convinced that it is), the nagging question is why we do not have any 
specific instructions from period writings that indicate such a practice was 
encouraged. 

With exception of Le Manegier, the written tomes were set down by 
extraordinary men. For instance, Chiquart was a knight as well as the chef 
for the Duke of Savoy. Platina was a university professor, a man of letters 
and the Vatican librarian. Ancient Cookery was written for the use of the 
cooks for King Richard. al-Baghdadi was written for the cooks of a Caliph. 
All of them, including Le Manegier were written for the purpose of providing 
instruction for the proper preparation of dishes to be presented in formal 
settings.

Such formal settings compare easily with the reproduction of classic French 
or Italian cuisine today. As an example, if you were to provide a meal for 
classic Italian cuisine, would you substitute regular tomatoes for plum 
tomatoes in a marinera sauce? I would personally chose a dish that did not 
call for plum tomatoes rather than substitute Brandywine tomatoes. I would 
not substitute American cheese for the appropriate cheese in Welsh Rarebit. I 
would use another dish and change the menu instead. I would not substitute 
chicken for rabbit in a Hasenpfeffer recipe. I would chose an appropriate 
chicken recipe. I might invision that a medieval cook would substitute 
embryonic rabbits for unavailable fish in a fish recipe if the fish were 
unavailable but I think he would have simply prepared an appropriate 
embryonic rabbit recipe instead.

I hope this clarifies my thinking. My position regarding period recipes 
extends only to those found in extant manuscripts. I don't know if they did 
or did not make drastic alterations to specific recipes in formal occasions 
but I would bet they did not from the evidence we have. 

I think that any historical cook interested in medieval cookery would welcome 
news that they could willy-nilly cook as they saw fit within the medieval 
style but the reality is that such substitutions led to the modern corpus of 
recipes and the results are very different from the original flavors or 
cooking combinations. Cookery styles and combinations have changed so 
dramatically in the last 25 years alone that future historians of cookery 
will most likely note the drastic changes that occurred in the late 20th 
century.

Ras