SC - periodicity and numbers

[Christina van Tets]

Bravo Drake for saying 'Buy expensive'!  My lord insists on Nicaraguan 
coffee (which you can get in Oz and I think you can get it here) because 
they offer a fair price and it tastes better than the Frontline stuff with 
which he also has ethical problems which I won't go into here...

Stefan, in answer to the language thing in Israel:  technically there are 2 
official languages, I think, (though English may be a third) - Hebrew and 
Arabic.  Down here in the Negev the third language of most people is likely 
to be Russian or Mahrati (!), so the signs are often (like in the hospital) 
Hebrew, Arabic and Russian.  English is fashionable in the big cities, but 
it's got a definite American slant, hence my difficulties.  Oh, and the most 
common second language of older people is French.  Sigh.

As to the periodicity thing:  if we are so dedicated to doing things the 
period way, why do we spend so much time putting numbers into period 
recipes?  Surely our aim should be to learn to do without modern aids like 
numbers, except when preparing recipes to encourage new members to start 
cooking?  I realise that some of the later recipes do provide numbers, and 
willingly use them where they are given, but disagree with doing so for 
other recipes.  Maybe this is part of my haphazard nature, but I really 
don't feel that we're doing ourselves or our chosen period justice by making 
things rigid like this.

Also, people were talking about substitution earlier:  be careful, please, 
as some things have unexpected side effects which may well not be what the 
cook intended.  Remember the discussion a couple of years ago about the 
white leach and the totally different effect you get when you substitute 
gelatine for isinglass?

Cairistiona
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