Precooking? (was Re: SC - questions/kinda long, sorry)
david friedman
ddfr at best.com
Sat Jun 17 08:48:57 PDT 2000
At 11:38 AM -0400 6/17/00, Nick Sasso wrote:
>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 would have assumed that when a period cook was cooking a feast, the
dishes would usually be ones that he had made dozens of times before.
After all, he, unlike us, is living his entire life in the Middle
Ages. And the first time he made them, it would have been under the
instruction of an older cook who had made them dozens of times before.
I can imagine a situation where a cook heard about some novel dish
that had been served at a feast somewhere else--in which case, unless
the dish had to be done on a large scale, I would think he would try
it out first for himself. But that's just a guess.
I don't see that avoiding trials provides any economy. We all have to
eat, after all, and making chicken covered with walnuts for dinner
last night cost us less than going out to a restaurant and no more
than making a modern dish. It also got us a more satisfactory
redaction of that recipe. Along similar grounds, the professional
cook could try the unfamiliar dish first in a small quantity for an
informal dinner or something.
On the other hand, having to throw out a dish prepared for fifty
people because you have never done it before and something didn't
work is a pretty serious cost, for us or them.
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
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