SC - rare foods at feasts-rant

[david friedman]

At 5:01 AM -0400 9/26/00, Catherine Deville wrote:

>And it would seem odd to me to not be able to alter
>ingredients as I needed and as I go along ('course I was taught to cook by
>a mother, a grandmother, a father and a stepmother who all added
>*everything* "to taste" and almost never measured anything that they knew
>how to cook in advance).

If you are working from a period recipe, it generally specifies the 
ingredients (although rarely the quantities), so if you "alter 
ingredients as ... needed," one consequence is that you are moving 
farther from an accurate reproduction of a period dish than if you 
follow the original instructions--which you had available before you 
made the feast.

Which raises an interesting question: Is providing advance 
information on ingredients more common with cooks, or in areas, where 
feasts are kept reasonably close to period than elsewhere?

- -- 
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/