SC - don't cringe too bad....

[Philip & Susan Troy]

In a message dated 3/28/00 2:31:07 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
ekoogler at chesapeake.net writes:

<< There are times when using a period recipe that
 the ingredients called for are not available.  Often it is possible to make a
 substitution that will make it possible to complete the dish.  It would be 
good to
 have a listing to make sure that the ingredient we're going to use is 
period. >>

I think the main problem with substituting ingredients is that we have little 
information other than what exists in specific recipes about what ingredients 
period cooks would have substituted for what. A safer approach would be to 
discard the recipe and use one for which the ingredients are available.

I agree that a person who is well versed in the historical cookery of a 
specific time and place could conceivably create a dish out of on hand 
ingredients in a manor which would be recognizable by a diner from that 
specific time and place but there are few historical cooks that concentrate 
their studies in such a specific way. Whether a dish produced by such a 
method could be honestly called period is debatable.

Regarding the list of period ingredients, such a list would be potentially 
helpful to the re-enactor only if it were composed of several sub-lists which 
were specific to time and place. For instance, many period ingredients that 
were commonly available throughout the European mainland were not introduced 
to English cookery until rather late in period. Many Spanish period 
ingredients would have been unknown or were unused in France or Italy, etc.

Ras



Ras.