SC - bread pudding

[Philip & Susan Troy]

> Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 22:31:49 EDT
> From: LrdRas at aol.com
> Subject: Re: SC - bread pudding
> 
> In a message dated 4/24/00 7:04:10 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
> kelan at mindspring.com writes:
> 
> << Nyckademus (who really did go to school for this cooking stuff) >>
> 
> If where you went to school for cooking is anything like the one here, you 
> learned many wonderful things useful in a commercial setting while the 
> history of food in the middle ages was glossed over, presented with much 
> misinformation and generally, viewed as a curiosity.

To some extent this appears to be more or less universal. Reading
Madeline Kammen's (a lady for whose knowledge I normally have great
respect ) assessment of Taillevent is nothing less than a laff riot.
Just where _did_ he get those chili peppers, which, after all, _are_
long, aren't they? The school I went to was pretty similar in glossing
over a lot of culinary history, but since it was rather an accelerated
program, their philosophy was a good student learns what he wants and
needs to learn wherever he/she is, and when you;re paying the huge sums
often required as tuition in most cooking schools, you have a fair right
to be ticked off when they fob off nonsense on the class. During the
culinary history track at the NYRS, my teachers had a bit of a love/hate
relationship with me, because I made no bones about the fact that if
they were going to teach the material, they should do so and not waste
our time with nonsense. In my case it wasn't so much a matter of
volunteering to teach the class (although I did have some involvement,
informally) as being a persistent pain in the tuckus. In all other
respects, though, I was a model student, and I was forgiven.   

> I offered to  teach the 
> part of the course dealing with pre-16th century cookery at the local 
> university's food service course but the response I received was' Yes, you 
> are correct but it really is unimportant." :-0

Well, that's a rather narrow, and probably inaccurate, statement. I do
know that I've been paid money to serve heretical, abberant cuskynoles
in three-star restaurants in New York (the dratted manager changed the
name, though!), and I recall one occasion when a chef named Wayne Nish
(who is locally famous and pretty well-known among foodies outside NYC)
had a wrist injury and was fascinated to learn all about pushing egg
whites through a strainer as an alternative to beating. When he asked
where I'd learned about it, I showed him the book, which just happened
to be in Middle English... 

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com