SC - "Rose Soda" and the evils of "documentation"
david friedman
ddfr at best.com
Tue Feb 1 10:52:54 PST 2000
While looking through the recipes for the feast for Mistress
Aelfrida, I noticed Crystal's recipe for "rose soda,"
[http://www.nmia.com/~ariann/mzbrecipes.htm#Rose Soda ] and thought
it worth noting as an example of what is wrong with "documentation"
as the term is often used in the SCA.
The recipe is:
1 TB rose extract
2 oz dried rosehips
1 pound sugar
water to one gallon
Rose extract can be found at Indian grocery stores. Bring
sugar and rosehips to a gentle boil in 1 or 2 quarts of water
until the rosehips have given the solution a pleasant pink
color. Skim out all the pieces of rosehips (strain if necessary).
Add water to one gallon. Allow solution to cool to 70 degrees,
and add rose extract and champagne yeast. Stir. Bottle
quickly. Allow to stay at room temperature for about 3-5 days
then keep refrigerated.
Anyone reading this, and noting that not one but two period sources
are given, might reasonably conclude that we have some reason to
believe that some drink like this was made in period. In fact, both
of the period recipes are for rose syrups--there is no mention of
fermenting the drink in either recipe. One is from a culture (Muslim
Spain) where fermented drinks were forbidden by religious law, and
both predate, so far as I can tell, the existence of bottles designed
to hold fermented drinks under pressure. The recipes are there, not
as evidence that the drink is period--which they are not--but as
excuses for doing a recipe which we have no reason to think is period
in the context of medieval recreation.
I am not raising this point to criticize the feast--it is clear,
reading the menu, that although many period recipes are included the
cooks are making no attempt to stick strictly to period food, nor is
there any particular reason why they should. But I do think the
recipe provides a clear example of what is wrong with the common
practice of first deciding what sort of recipe you want to make, and
then finding some period recipe which has some vague similarity to it
and claiming the latter as the source for the former. The result is
to spread false information, thus reducing the amount that people
know about the middle ages--precisely the opposite of what we should
be doing. For lots of additional horrible examples, see C.A. 79.
David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/
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