SC - Documented Substitutions (Long)

[CBlackwill at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/27/00 7:13:56 PM Pacific Daylight Time, LrdRas 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.
>  


Words are Trains for moving past what really has no Name.