SC - OT: Cholent Society

[Seton1355@aol.com]

At 11:12 AM -0400 8/29/00, Philip & Susan Troy wrote:
>Tara Sersen wrote:
>
>>  Now, to start a documentation war ;) if there is little 
>>documentation for cooks
>>  measuring things (i.e. the recipes don't usually list measurements,) how can
>>  we assume they DID?  And, if we can't assume that they did because 
>>no documentation
>>  supports this claim, what assumption are we left with other than 
>>that they eyeballed
>  > measurements?

and Adamantius replied:

>Occasonally recipes _will_ list measurements in a rudimentary way: a
>gallon of wine, a dozen eggs and do away half the whites, an ounce of
>cinnamon, an eggshell full of salt, a piece of butter the size of an
>egg, etc. Recipes will also fairly frequently provide descriptive
>guidelines: it should be thick, loke that it be stondyng, make it sharp
>with vinegar, add sugar to abate the sharpness of the vinegar, etc.
>
>...
>I agree that cooks eyeball measurements all the time; they often don't
>have time for anything else. But it is informed eyeballing based both on
>experience and the desire to have a consistent finished product. That
>doesn't mean they're not measuring, it just means they aren't using
>measuring cups.

Quite often, when period recipes find it necessary to list 
quantities, they give it by weight. The ratl and the uqiya someone on 
this thread mentioned are, if I remember correctly what Arberry (the 
translator of al-Bagdadi) says, a weight measure which is about a 
pound and another which is one-twelfth of that; they can also be used 
as volume measures where one ratl (weight) of water equals one ratl 
(volume) of water (like the modern-day ounce and fluid ounce). 
Islamic recipes are more likely than European medieval recipes to 
give quantities. The only medieval European recipes I can think of 
off the top of my head for which exact quantities are given are spice 
mixtures: for hypocras, for Lord's salt, for Le Menagier's fine spice 
powder. These are by weight (although the wine for the hypocras is by 
volume).

There are also quantities when the thing comes in a discrete piece: a 
hen, three eggs. One of my favorites recipes calls for three 
eggs--and has no other quantities for anything in the whole recipe.

Note also that measuring does not require standardized measurements. 
If I am making rice at Pennsic, it might be two mugs of rice, a 
little under double that of water, and experience with that mug tells 
me it will feed about eight people. So much salt poured into the palm 
of my hand is right for one mug of lentils, and I am doing twice 
that, so measure that much salt twice over. My guess is that period 
cooks used "measures" of that sort.

Elizabeth/Betty Cook