SC - A question of re-creation

[Jeff Brainard]

Well spoken, A. Constance's projects for the last Artemisian A&S were
quite wonderful (did I mention they tasted great, too?). 

Marcello


- --- Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> wrote:


> I think there's an interesting tradeoff at work here, but ultimately
> I
> believe we're putting the cart before the horse. Yes, one cook in a
> period setting would most likely not have made his/her own salt or
> ground her own flour, and one can argue that the total immersion or
> total control approach to recreation is imperfect in that respect. On
> the other hand, I don't believe an absolutely perfect recreation is
> _necessarily_ what we're after in a case like this. Do we enter A&S
> competitions or exhibitions to show how buff and kewl we are or how
> perfectly accurate our artifacts can be, or, is the bottom line that
> we'd like to show what we've learned and share it? Either answer, or
> another, could be seen as valid in different lights, but I'd like to
> believe the latter, and the advantage of the total immersion approach
> is
> that it teaches all aspects of the process involved.
> 
> For example, if you make your own bread from wheat you've watched
> grow,
> there are a huge number of questions you'd be prepared to answer, or
> at
> least address, that are related overall to the breadbaking process.
> Is
> it hard to grind corn in a hand quern? Does naturally aged (a.k.a.
> bleached -- the horror!) flour behave differently in the amount of
> water
> required or the whiteness of the finished loaf, from freshly ground
> flour? I could go on, but I suspect an apprentice baker in period
> would
> just keep repeating, "I took some flour and made some bread loaves. I
> used water and berm and kneaded it in a cloth..." Which is not to
> suggest a baker's job doesn't have its complexities, but someone who
> has
> done this work should have some idea of what's involved, while
> someone
> who has also ground grain, etc., prior to baking, will know this and
> considerably more.
> 
> I don't think we can view Lady Constance's project so much as a
> wonderful recreation of a period meal (although it seems to have been
> that) or as a recreation of questionable accuracy of the work of a
> period cook, but more in the line of a lifestyle research project.
> There
> aren't a lot of better ways to understand the thinking and behavior
> of a
> period person than to work as they worked, and I can't be too
> critical
> of anyone because they learned to do [part of] the work of several.
>  
> Adamantius
> -- 
> Phil & Susan Troy
> 
> troy at asan.com
>
============================================================================
> 
> To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message
> to
> Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe
> SCA-Cooks".
> 
>
============================================================================


=====
Marcello di Caprioli, Ornament of Artemisia                 
Shire of Silver Keep                
The Glorious Kingdom of Artemisia

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites.
http://invites.yahoo.com/