Precooking? (was Re: SC - questions/kinda long, sorry)

[KallipygosRed at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/17/00 8:43:10 AM US Mountain Standard Time, 
grizly at mindspring.com writes:

<< I don't imagine in my personal little picture of medieval life that
 cooks in the Lord's kitchen would do too terrible much precooking for
 the same reason I don't . . . economy.  I imagine they would cautiously
 prepare the dish, tasting frequently and reconsidering the procedures at
 each stage until they came up with a final product that was successful. 
 I have, on occasion, prepared a dish for a small dinner for the first
 time, and then later used it for a historical feeding at some event or
 other, but I see that differently. >>

Keep in mind, too, that cooks in the middle ages for the most part would have 
learned to cook through apprenticship, wouldn't they? So they would have 
watched other cooks with the same receipes, learned a formal background to 
what they were expected to do **someday** as they washed pots and pans.... 
How many of us as cooks actually have formal education or work in the field 
in our mundane lives? I used to cook all the time when my kids were little, 
but as teenagers I've done more flashing and microwaving then I like. 
Consequently, I'm doing more cooking at home to "reaquaint" myself with spice 
interaction and flavors again. Someone who cooks mundanely, only, and tends 
toward standard American fare of fried chicken and sliced potatoes, might 
have difficulty with using spices whose flavors he is not aware of, or the 
intensity of, in the receipe called for. That might account for some of the 
errors in judgment on receipes and some of the bad feasts I've attended. 

Hey, I'm finding a whole new way to look at this....

Lars