SC - Mediaeval cookbooks to begin with

[david friedman]

At 10:17 AM -0500 3/23/00, Angie Malone wrote:
>I think we are going into a one size fits all discussion and don't even
>realize it.

...

>For me, I have a very basic knowledge of any sort of history, especially
>medieval history, and as far as being able to tell old English writing from
>middle english writing(is that the right term?) I am even more clueless.

You don't have to be able to tell old english (Anglo-Saxon, which we 
don't have any cookbooks in, unfortunately) from middle english. You 
just have to be able to look at a middle english recipe, forget 
everything you know about spelling, and read it. Mostly it is just a 
matter of sounding out the words--because the idea of standardized 
spelling hadn't been invented yet. Occasionally there is a word you 
don't know, because it has dropped out of modern English--but both 
Curye on Englysche and _Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books_, which 
are the most readily available sources for the English 14th-15th 
century recipies, have extensive glossaries in the back.

And, of course, if you are working from someone else's translation of 
a period cookbook, it is in modern English.

>The third feast I want to take recipes, all from the same source, redact
>them, etc. so I have now went to the primary sources which I am thankful
>for here at Cornell University.

Not only do you have access to the usual primary sources, you have 
some of the original books--books actually printed in period. 
Cornell's Hotel Management School library has two sixteenth century 
German cookbooks.

>If I would've started my cooking adventure by someone handing me primary
>sources saying go figure these out and cook, I never would've done my first
>feast.

How about someone handing you the primary sources and offering to 
help you make sense of them? That is what we have been doing for many 
years, and it seems to work fine. Some of the people at our 
workshops, as my lady wife says, have to be taught how to boil an 
egg. The biggest problem, in our experience, is persuading people 
that medieval cooks really knew more about medieval cooking than 
modern people, so you should believe the recipe instead of rewriting 
it to your own taste.

And I can think of at least one lady in Mirkfaellinn who has both the 
ability and the good will to answer a beginner's questions on how to 
interpret medieval cooking. Two if the beginner is tactful.

David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
ddfr at best.com
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/