SC - Protectorate Feast 3 - Menu

[Decker, Terry D.]

Historical cooking is an attempt to recreate the dish described by a
historic or "period" recipe as accurately and as true to the recipe as
possible.  This is one of our favorite activities on the list.  To parphrase
Cariadoc, why waste time creating a fake period recipe (reverse engineering
a modern recipe) when there are so many historical recipes in need of
recreation.

I am preparing a feast of historic recipes, where I will attempt to maintain
accuracy, but will make certain compromises to insure that the feast comes
off on time and within budget.  My goal is to produce a reasonable
facsimile, as close to historical accurate as possible, of an Elizabethan
feast.  I may not succeed, but as long as people are properly fed, it's fun
to make the attempt.  It also adds to the reality of the event.

As you have seen, I am posting what I am doing to the list and I am
receiving advice and questions.  As I start posting the recipes, I'll
probably get more than a few critiques as well.  This peer review will help
me improve my historical cooking.

Some of us create dishes in a period manner or try to reverse engineer
modern dishes to a possible period precursor.  We tend to refer to these
dishes as "perioid."  Most of us consider this game playing rather than
serious research, since in many cases the reverse engineered dish bears no
resemblance to similar period dishes.  I've created a number of dishes in a
period manner, but the are modern dishes prepared in a historic style, not
period dishes.

The problem with "perioid" dishes is too often people try to fob them off as
"period," along with ethnic dishes and dishes made from questionable recipes
such as those in Fabulous Feasts.  When you get such a "period" feast and
the cooks error, there is a tendency to blame the "period" recipes rather
than the bad cooks.  This places an stigma on the idea of serving historical
accurate dishes and makes our task of introducing people to historic recipes
more difficult.

So rather than make a modern dish period or a period dish modern, why not
grab a recipe and make a period dish period.

Bon Chance

Bear

>       I know that there are ways to make 'period' dishes 
> modern somewhat, I
> think anyhow...but, is there a way to make 'modern' dishes 
> period?  Maybe I
> could take something I like from the here and now, and change 
> it to what it
> used to be?  Gods, I hope that made sense...I'm out of coffee, and the
> lavender oil isn't doing a thing for my migraine.
> 
>          Ari
>