SC - Documented Substitutions (Long)
LrdRas at aol.com
LrdRas at aol.com
Thu Apr 27 19:07:53 PDT 2000
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
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