SC - teaching technique - nonmember submission

[Jenne Heise]

> That sounds like an argument in favor of sending people to primary 
> sources instead of to secondary sources, since that way they can 
> decide what is true for themselves, instead of depending on the 
> judgement of others. Was that your point?

While trying not to be argumentative, I have to point out that sending
people to a single (or even a few) primary source isn't going to make them
any better able to decide whether a sweeping generalization or a negative
statement is true, unless such is directly contradicted in that primary
source. (Now, for myself, I tend to discount any sweeping generalizations,
especially ones explicitly using 'never' and 'always' in them, because
they are almost universally undocumentable.)

Primary sources for food (and for that matter for cookery) include, in
addition to recipes, descriptions of foods and their preparation in
letters, histories, traveller's accounts, health handbooks and herbals;
agricultural documentation; legal restrictions and requirements [the
equivalent of FDA regulations]; paintings and other illustrations; menus;
inventories of food in household accounts; household handbooks; religious
restrictions and requirements; and pretty much all other documentation
that involves food. ;)

Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at tulgey.browser.net
disclaimer: i speak for no-one and no-one speaks for me.
   "My hands are small I know, but they're not yours, they are my own"