SC - Period Ingredients Master List

[Siegfried Heydrich]

    Perhaps there is a fundamental difference in approach here. My primary
goal is good food that is as evocative of period cooking as I can achieve,
given a tight budget and materials available. Not to mention 21st century
american tastes, or lack thereof. If I'm doing a specific dish that is
expressly period, then I'll do all the documentation and redactions that are
appropriate to that dish. Doing an all-period feast is simply an extension
of this.
    But if I'm doing a feast (lower case ), then I'll fake it to the very
best of my ability, which ain't too shabby. If I had the production kitchen
I had at work, and a budget over the usual $5 for the meal, then perhaps I
could do seriously, absolutely period feasts on a regular basis. But I work
with what I've got, and do the best I can with it. And each time I do, it
gets a little better, and I get even more period.
    Such lists are extremely useful as a benchmark. We can't all do master
level feasts each and every time out. But having useful references is
useful, because we learn each and every feast. What is an unobtainable ideal
in the beginning is an achievable goal somewhere down the road. We learn and
grow, which justifies the existence of such lists, and gives us all the
resources by which we may improve our craft. I want to make each of my
feasts more period, and every one I do, I learn another trick of two that
helps down the line.
    So all of you people who are doing the primary research, keep up the
good work! You give us the tools whereby we can better ourselves. We fake it
creatively, but try to live up to the ideals. Given the right tools and a
bit of experience, we sometimes measure up!

    Sieggy


Subject: Re: SC - Period Ingredients Master List


> I'm sorry, but I must disagree.  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.
>
> Also, I believe that it is possible...though I know that this is
heresy...to
> construct a dish using period ingredients, but without having an actual
recipe.  I
> have encountered references to dishes in period literary sources for which
I can
> find no recipe.  I have then constructed something that I think would be
what the
> dish would consist of...and have used whatever information I could find to
make
> sure that my ingredients were all period, along with the way in which they
were
> used> Kiri
>
> Jeff Gedney wrote:
>
> > I would be worried that this might be taken incorrectly...
> > "if you make a recipe with only these ingredients, it is automatically
period"
> > We have seen how this is not always true, and that this is a faily
common
> > mistake of cooks new to period cooking.
> >
> > What would be the purpose of compiling such a list?
> > If you use a period recipe, then using the ingredients in the recipe
> > automatically makes your ingredients period....
> >
> > I do not see the utility of this list, except as a strictly academic
excercise.
> > If however, they could be put into a time line, where the regions and
dates
> > of earliest usages are listed, then this could be a valuable teaching
tool,
> > to show the movement and evolution of ingredients.
> > I do not believe such a survey of ingredients has been done.
> >
> > brandu