SC - Byzantine Bread Stamps

[Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir]

david friedman wrote:
> 
> At 9:58 AM -0500 3/14/00, Philip & Susan Troy wrote:
> 
> >I've been doing this medieval cooking thing, with varying degrees of
> >enthusiasm, for about 15 years, you've been doing it since dinosaurs
> >walked the earth and were featured as main courses. It's pretty easy for
> >people with shelves and shelves of nothing but period cookery sources to
> >spend half an hour or so and come up with a few dishes that meet some
> >specific dietary need, and can be easily incorporated into a menu for
> >home, camp, or feast use. Coming up with a lot of them, though, when you
> >have fewer sources and would perhaps be intimidated by some of the
> >sources if you did have more, can be difficult, and sometimes discouraging.
> 
> On the other hand, taking an existing recipe and modifying it
> substantially, and testing it until it works, is also a considerable
> effort--with much less benefit at the end. You learn less from the
> process, and the people who eat your food have less of a medieval
> experience, and may end up learning things that aren't true.

True. I am explaining, not condoning. In my position, I choose to
recreate dishes as closely as I can to the original source, and if I
think I really can't get very close at all, for example, not having easy
access to bustards or something,  I'll choose something else. I think,
for me, that is a sensible approach.

I'm not disagreeing with anything you're saying on this. I'm saying that
it may be harder for some people with extensive dietary issues to just
choose something else if their libraries, their free time, their morale,
any of a dozen factors in addition to allergies, blood pressure, or
whatever, get in the way. Not having most of these problems, I don't
think I want to expect someone who does to work the way I work.

I'm reminded of a documentary I saw a while ago, which featured several
well-known American and European chefs who had been invited to
participate in the Official Celebration of the 3000th anniversary of
Jerusalem a couple of years ago. What was fun was watching the European
chefs grouse and groan about Kashrut not allowing cream with meat, not
using shellfish, etc. (but using the nasty fake Kosher non-dairy creamer
anyway, while simultaneously whining about how it was beneath their
dignity), and seeing 400+ pound Paul Prudhomme cheerfully working in his
little electric cart. He explained, on camera, that he didn't see what
the big deal was. He said it was a challenge, but an enjoyable one,
similar to the one he'd been handed when he was told by his doctors that
if he didn't eliminate most of the fat and salt from his diet he'd die.
He had had, for practical purposes, a substantial percentage of the
foods he used to work with eliminated as a resource for his own
nutrition. He knew, more or less, what he was left with, and he
proceeded to create a new cuisine for himself based on those resources.
He said if he could do it once, he could do it twice. And he did. I had
never had a great deal of respect for the man until I saw that.   

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com