SC - saffron & substitutions

[Christine A Seelye-King]

> My post was actually more of a sympathetic response to the comment that
mooncat at in_tch.com left about being disappointed by the first use of
saffron.  IMO it tastes like dirt (with a hint of sweat sock). 

	Funny, that is exactly the same taste I get out of beets.  We have even
joked before that I never got the 'beet gene', which would allow me to
taste them.  Perhaps this is something similar, that certain folks just
don't taste certain flavors?  I have often wondered if we were all
seeing, hearing, tasting, etc., the same things, or just calling by the
same names....

> If feelings have been hurt, or toes stepped on, I appologize.  
	
	Oh, pish, tosh.  You are relatively new to the list, and have not seen
the sorts of things that hurt feelings yet.  And anyway, not liking
saffron puts you in rather exalted company, eh, Your Grace?  ;)

> On the topic of period recipe substitutions, 

<snip of a long explanation of Balthazar's stance>

>Cuisine is not static, and never has been.  And, Gods willing, never
will be.

	I have to agree with much of what you said.  You are very right in
saying that cuisine is a product in motion, too.  I know, in my heart of
hearts, that medieval cooks used whatever products were at hand, and
cooked intuitively, if they were the good ones.  The recipes we have are
frozen moments in time, and do not show us what other variations these
dishes went through in most cases, although there are several that give
alternatives for various reasons.  I think what it comes down to is if
one is entering in a competition with a food product based on a
particular period recipe, or putting on a feast and calling it 'period',
then the dish(es) should be as close to accurate as possible. 
Substitutions should be within the parameters of the given dish.  These
can also be found, made, and justified by other accounts than just the
recipe books, however, they can include the ship's manafests you
mentioned, household receipt books that show inventories, descriptions of
feasts and celebrations by travelers in strange lands, and medical and
botanical manuals (which give evidence about certain New World plants
such as the potato and tomato being botanical oddities in the possession
of botanists for much the time left in our period after their
introduction by the explorers).  
When doing a feast, I am probably more likely to make a substitution on
the spot for whatever reason; something burnt or spilt, left at home,
spoiled on arriving, etc.  I am going to do my best to make an educated
guess at a substitution that is still within the period paramters we have
set ourselves.  But I am going to start off trying to make whatever I am
working on as close to the original as I possibly can.  If I start out
making substitutions, I am that much farther away from where I want to
be.  
When folks post their recipe redactions to the list, I am always
interested to see what they did differently, or the "My Version" entries.
 Otherwise, we would just be posting the text from the originals, and not
sharing our ideas about the foreign and archaic languages we're working
in, not to mention unfamiliar ingredients and terminology.   
	So, keep posting your opinions, check out the Florilegium for
oft-discussed topics, and keep in mind that Larousse was 200+ years after
us.  

 In Service to (but not chained to) The Dream,
> Balthazar of Blackmoor

Mistress Christianna MacGrain, OP, Meridies
saffron lover, beet hater
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