[Sca-cooks] Researching....

[Mercy Neumark]

Hello Everyone!

On Foodtv, "Good Eats", there is a food historian that he has on the show
that discusses whatever "food theme" he is talking about.  Since I'm not
looking at the show right now (at work...christmas eve...with NOTHING TO
DO...ihatemyjob) I am not sure if she has a PHD or not, but this got me
wondering.

We in the SCA try to make sure that things are Period.  But how you do all
research if cheesecake (my Laurel's example)is period?  I'm assuming that if
there is a such thing as "food historian" that there must be books that just
deal with ingrediants (college text books maybe?)...or is it how it seems to
me that in order to know if X recipe (say cheesecake) is period that you
have to have a ton of different books, illustrations and painting
referrences in order to say "Oh yeah, this is 100% period."

This is probably a super stupid question, but it just seems like it should
be easier to tell if strawberries were used in pies in the middle ages.

Along this same vein, has anyone come up with a bibliography on what "must
have" books people should have if they want to create period stuff?

One of the reasons I am asking this is in order to create new recipes using
period techniques and ingrediants.  As part of the "creative" part, I figure
it is reasonable to come up with new recipes, or is this a no-no in the SCA?
  Just curious really.

--Arte

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