SC - Fwd: Question about cassoulet and recipe

[Alderton, Philippa]

Hi folks -

(First, an apology for disappearing for the last few months - real life was
winning....)

I was wondering if others had had a chance to read this book yet and had
thoughts on it.  I got it for Christmas and promptly volunteered to teach
out of it at an upcoming collegium here, but am now a bit worried.

The editor admits that he reset the original text to better suit a general
audience as it was being translated.  That's fine.  But he also added the
section of recipes and redacted them himself and this is where the trouble
comes in.

I had decided to take a quick look through the recipes today for one I could
take as a sample to the collegium and became very disturbed:  The author
uses non-period techniques in some of those recipes.  The one that
specifically jumped out at me was beating egg whites to stiff peaks.

Now, in his introduction to the chapter he admits that the earliest
surviving polish cookbook is from 1532 and is based on a book clained to be
Platina (but proven false).  He admits that his recipes are generalizations
based upon dishes discussed (but not recipes) in earlier manuscripts.

But I do worry about the scholarship involved in his writing.  He claims to
have grown the grains for the dishes himself, yet uses non-period techniques
to make them.

What did others think of this book?  Am I being too, for lack of a better
way to put it, anal-retentive about this?

Also, what I've read so far has brought up a question of methodology for
me - in the past we've discussed oral tradition in cookery and often
dismissed it as unreliable, at least if you try to create ties back that
far.  Yet it is used heavily as a basis and constantly to confirm the
findings in this book.  Is that considered valid scholarship at the
collegiate level?  If it would be accepted for a PhD dissertation (which is
what this book originally was) why would we not accept it in our work?

Thoughts?

Caitlin Ruadh
AEthelmearc

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