SC - Current Pennsic Cookery Classes
david friedman
ddfr at best.com
Thu Jun 22 08:22:05 PDT 2000
At 8:34 AM -0400 6/22/00, Elaine Koogler wrote:
>In truth, 1680 is not any further out of period than some of the late period
>English sources we use, such as Digby, etc.
Actually, it is a few decades farther out of period than Digby. And I
would have described Digby not as late period--theoretically SCA
period is "pre-seventeenth century"--put as just post-period. "Late
period cookery," at least to me, is nouvelle cuisine--roughly
sixteenth century.
>So it might give a number of
>recipes that, though they are just being published in 1680 were
>being used long
>before that.
I agree. We use what information we have, and the fact that a recipe
was published in 1680, although not proof that it was in use in our
period, is at least evidence.
Which is one reason for using Digby--there isn't any comparable
source for fermented drinks from period, so far as I know.
On the other hand, Digby is also a good example of the hazards of
doing so. I've seen it asserted--how good the evidence is I don't
know--that the use of bottles designed to hold fermented drinks under
pressure was a new idea at the time, possibly due to Digby himself.
If that is right, then the fizzy small mead (Digby's "weak honey
drink") that we make probably didn't exist in period, at least in
anything very close to the form we make it.
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
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