SC - "Rose Soda" and the evils of "documentation"

[david friedman]

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/