SC - Platina in Florence [silly]

[Decker, Terry D.]

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?  >>

And Ras responded:

>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 think Ras may well have hit the mark here.  If you look at cookery books,
even into the 1800s, you will find stuff like "bruet, another way", "bruet,
a third way", "bruet, Lady Lovett's way", and so forth.  You can find a 
string of recipes (3, 4, 5) all based on the first one.  I am convinced,
along with others of you, that we truly do not know what modern ideas we
take with when we try to interpret any aspect of the Middle Ages, be it
in cookery, clothing, jewelry selection and so on.

Balthazar, I did not believe this when I first started out!  I have only
grown more conservative the more I have learned that I don't know all that
much.  If you keep an inquiring mind and truly want to learn what was
_really_ done in a given time period, I have a hunch that you, too, will
find a change in perspective after some few years.  :-)  (The aging
matriarch, having commented from her many years, smiles knowingly at the
young person and steps down from the dais.)

Alys Katharine