SC - Current Pennsic Cookery Classes

[david friedman]

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/