SC - ETHICAL DILEMMA

[CBlackwill@aol.com]

> Stefan asked:
> >Hmm. And how does working exclusively from a single manuscript get you
> >a period menu? Some would say this is only slightly better than saying
> >cooking exclusively with period ingredients gives you a period dish.
> 
> I'm wondering if there is a misunderstanding of terms here...mine or
> Stefan's.  I understood the use of "single manuscript" by Ras to be
> the equivalent of saying "period cookbook".  If Stefan means that taking
> 5 dishes from the meat section, 3 from the fish, and X number from other
> parts would not make a "provable" period menu, well perhaps it might not
> but one might be able to justify it from menues that have been reported.
> One late period "manuscript" does mention that the dishes inside are what
> one needs to make a banquet (meaning dessert course).
> 
> Alys Katharine

I understood "single manuscript" to be one collection. Apicius or
Platina or _Ein New Kochbuch  1581 by Marxen Rumpolt_.

I did not say you couldn't get a period menu from using the recipes
in a single manuscript. I said you can't guarentee that it is anything
like a period menu simply by selecting a bunch of items from it.

Just as you can't guarentee a period dish simply by using food items
in period, or even from a single book. For instance, a single book
might give a salad and a dish using a root vegetable. A period meal
quite likely would not feature both of those at a Candlemas feast
since the salad greens would be long gone by then. A few months
later, the fresh salad greens would be available, but folks were
probably so tired of root-vegetables that presenting them yet
another probably would not have been a good choice.

Making up your own "period" menu without doing some research is
similar to making a "period" dish simply by knowing what ingredients
were in use at a particular time. Another example is the breakfast
dishes we have been talking about off and on. What do folks often
think of as breakfast food, eggs and pancakes. However, from the
period breakfast menus posted here lately, it looks like the medieval
folks didn't think of eggs and pancakes as breakfast food.

- -- 
Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****