OT - Re: SC - Re: saffron

[Elaine Koogler]

I suspect you are probably correct...or it is reasonable to think so.  I have
long been a student of another art which utilized up until very recently the same
concept...Chinese ink painting.  The way a student learned was to copy, line for
line, brush stroke for brush stroke, the master's original.  This was done over
and over until the student had mastered the skill.  And this practice was
well-documented in several period sources, the most well-known of which was the
Mustard Seed Garden Manual.  Once the student was no longer a student, but a
master in his/her own right, they were free to develop their own style...and
usually did.

So I have to believe that similar things happened in cooking, in the middle
ages.  I also know that it continues to happen.  My mother taught me to make her
spaghetti sauce.  However, I have modified her recipe to suit myself, and did so
once I had mastered her way of doing it!  And on the other side, as my Lord
reminds me, is the idea that the master might have kept some of his best secrets
for himself...again it still happens today.  My mother never quite got over the
fact that her best friend gave her her recipe for a dynamite white fruit cake.
Mama tried it, but it never quite came out the same way.  She discovered many
years later that the friend had purposefully omitted an ingedient!

Just a thought or two...

Kiri

CBlackwill at aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 4/5/00 10:08:58 PM Pacific Daylight Time, LrdRas at aol.com
> writes:
>
> > << We do not (well, most of us anyway)
> >   need to be lead by the hand our entire lives.  We are capable of making
> >  basic
> >   assumptions without having it shoved down our throats.
> >    >>
> >
> >  BUT we have been taught to 'freedom.' Those in the middle ages were not.
> > They
> >  were taught obedience and unquestionable loyalty to individuals. This
> > freedom
> >  of expression that you mention simply did not exist for the vast majority
> of
> >
> >  those whom you seem to think enjoyed it.
>
> This is an honest question:  Do you think that, perhaps, those same Masters
> altered the recipes they had been taught, once they gained the position which
> would allow it?
>
> Just Curious
>
> Balthazar of Blackmoor
>
> Such a strange fascination, as I wallow in waste
> That such a trivial victory could put a smile on your face.
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