SC - REC - tzimmis

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Krysta wrote;
>How period is this dish & where does it originate from?

It's a traditional Ashkenazi Jewish dish. I am familiar with it 
cooked with the brisket (a cut of beef), so it's meat, vegetables, 
and fruit in one pan. I've generally seen recipes that included 
carrots and not so many other fruits and vegetables, just, IIRC, 
dried prunes and dried apricots.

I've no idea how old this tradition is. Sometimes those centuries' 
old traditions people talk about turn out to be less that 200 years 
old. So, i've no idea. There are certainly a number of modern 
Moroccan recipes that are somewhat similar.

You're better off looking at period cookbooks for period recipes.

>I am asking because
>the feastocrat for our up coming event wants to serve squash (plain squash
>...yuck)  with the main dish.

Neither yuck, nor non-yuck. But as we've discussed here before, 
squash isn't period.

There are some rather tasty and simple parsnip recipes that have been 
posted here.

I recommend the Barbara Santich book, "The Original Mediterranean 
Cuisine", which you should be able to purchase on-line for around $5 
US. It has both original language recipes, originals translated into 
English, plus modern-style worked-out recipes for lots of tasty 
vegetable dishes.

Another excellent period cook book with worked out recipes is "The 
Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy" by Redon, Sabban, 
and Serventi, which is now available in paperback.

Of course, in my cookbook recommendations i'm showing my prejudice 
for Mediterranean cuisine.

>She is also wanting to serve rice (with cream
>of mushroom soup mixed in .. uck again!) . Would rice with sauted mushrooms
>be a period style way of serving?

Hmmm, mushroom soup - how 1950s. That makes it an ancient tradition :--)

Haven't seen mushrooms added to the rice in period myself. But there 
are period rice recipes and period mushroom recipes. You could make 
them separately and serve them in the same course.

>Our feastocrat is new to this whole period cooking style

Obviously...

>& none of us want
>to discourage or disappoint, just to lead her in the proper direction would
>be a blessing!!

Does she have web access? Show her the period recipes on line. There 
are lots of recipes and some worked out recipes on a variety of sites.

Do you own any period cookbooks? Share them with her, especially the 
ones with worked out recipes. No matter how much we experienced cooks 
may question those "redactions", they're really useful to a newcomer 
who may be overwhelmed or intimidated by trying to figure out a 
period recipe from the original.

Anahita