SC - Definitions and Examples: Period, Peri-oid and OOP

[Decker, Terry D.]

I note you avoided the definition of "turkey" in favor of the easier
argument as to how it was prepared, "roasting."

Many years ago, not having a "period recipe" for lebkuchen, I tried to
reverse engineer a recipe.  I knew lebkuchen was period and I knew how to
prepare lebkuchen, so I tried to recreate lebkuchen in a period manner.
When I finally got my hands on actual 16th Century recipes for lebkuchen,
there was little similarity between them and my recipe.  So much for the
"periodness" of my recreation.

As with lebkuchen, roast turkey is "period."  But if one simply roasts a
turkey, can one say that what one has done is an accurate recreation of a
period dish?  I think not.  Without an adequate "period" description of the
result (which is tantamount to a recipe), one can not assure any degree of
accuracy of the result.  It may be a perfect recreation or it may be totally
off the mark.  The accuracy is indeterminate, as is the "periodness" of the
dish.

In your original example, "roast turkey" is obviously period.  However,
simply assuming that the author means Meleagris gallopavo, as your example
appeared to indicate is as sloppy and misleading as declaring "turkey" to be
"non-period."   If your source pre-dates 1527, the odds are the author means
Numida meleagris, Dumas' treatise on food not withstanding.

Additionally, even if we can properly identify the foodstuff, "turkey," we
know nothing about the dish other than the "turkey" was "roasted."
Reconstruction of the dish "roast turkey" is largely guesswork, therefore to
declare the results of this reconstruction "period" is sloppy and
misleading.

Since from your example, we know roast turkey was served with a sauce and
therefore probably eaten, let's turn to white potatoes for a moment.  White
potatoes were known in period and sometimes were eaten, but there is nothing
to indicate they were used for much beyond poverty fare.  So serving them at
a noble banquet, would be a major anachronism.  Thus it could be said that
potatoes are "period" and that potatoes are not "period."  Both statements
are technically correct, but without modifying information they are
misleading.

The difference you perceive between the use of the term "period" on this
list and the average Scadian use of the term is we tend to use "period" to
mean "accurately pre-17th Century" or "a space of time" while the general
Scadian usage is "authentic," which ain't necessarily so.

BTW, if you think statements are sloppy and misleading, challenge them.  The
cry is "documentation and recipes, please" and it is always in order.

Bear

 

> > How was the "turkey" prepared for roasting?  What was the 
> baste?  Which
> > spices were used?  Simply documenting a food to a time and 
> place does not
> > document how it was prepared.  
> 
> Nope. But 'how it was prepared' is the recipe. In this 
> particular case, it
> is even more specific, since 'how it was prepared' can in 
> fact be answered
> very simply: it was prepared by roasting. This is not a full 
> and accurate
> description, of course. But to say that roast turkey is not 
> 'period' is
> not the same as saying 'we have no period documentation as to the
> specifics of how roasted turkey was prepared' and treating those
> statements as equivalent is not just sloppy thinking but leads to
> misleading statements. 
> 
> Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise