SC - Who you callin' an 'abomination'?

[Decker, Terry D.]

>>> Jenne Heise<jenne at tulgey.browser.net> 9/26/00 8:52:01 AM >>>
<<<The problem is that you don't have definite proof that said recipe was
ever cooked. See Plat for a number of doubtful recipes. This is more
important in my specialty, . . . . . . . >>>>>

Yes, you are correct.  It is here that we need make a deductive step from recipes and menues provided, and from description of dishes eaten.  Without the archeological remains of a dish with its description/recipe and the identified corpses of the diners, there is a gap in the direct line if evidence.  It is a reasonably small gap to cross, but does involve a risk of inaccuracy.  This is one gap wherein we get to enjoy the discussion and debate between learned scholars.  It would be a dry one in this case, I suspect.

The gap is relatively larger the farther we try to extrapolate or deduce or infer from what we know is fact.  Many recipes we can deduce rather confidently were actually cooked as they appear in documented menues for various meals (and we are not absolutely certain these menues were actually prepared and presented, but that is our position).  It is in acknowledging these margins for error and accounting for them through additional support that one becomes adept at research and scholarship.  The best arguments are those that use direct evidence and valid, relavent supporting information from related fields.    

The more of the picture one can fill in directly, the less one must color in with the proverbial "crayolas of logic".  You can tell the difference between the stucco of the fresco and the crayola, so one need use that crayon as little as possible and minimize the disruption of the final picture.

pacem et bonum,
niccolo difrancesco