SC - Creating a period garden

[Chris Stanifer]

> > Armored Potatoes? How unbearably bland! Bleah. Bleah. Bleah! 
> Perhaps. I still haven't had a turnip dish that I didn't find bitter.
> But I've yet to try making them myself and I don't know that the cook's
> whose food I ate, had been using any of the suggestions from this list
> on choosing/treating turnips to make them less bitter.

Now I know what I'm bringing to the cook's gathering this year at Pennsic! 
But it may be that we don't share the same definition of bitter. I would
class turnips as tangy, but not bitter: bitter has a more acrid sense to me.

> > > Actually, oranges might be okay as both sweet and sour oranges were
> > > used by 1600. Perhaps apples or grapes might be better choices though.
> > I'm uncomfortable with serving apples in midsummer... anybody else? 
> Oops. I wasn't thinking that comment all the way through. Still I'm
> more willing to tolerate out of season foods than out-of-century
> foods. As someone else mentioned, I think it does depend on the
> type of event how much inauthencity should be allowed. A generic
> SCA fighting event vs. one specifically taking place in 14th 
> century France, for instance.

It also depends on the quality. If given a choice between good raspberries and lousy
grapes, I'm afraid I'll take the raspberries.

- -- 
Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at mail.browser.net
disclaimer: i speak for no-one and no-one speaks for me.
"It's no use trying to be clever-- we are all clever here; just try
to be kind -- a little kind." F.J. Foakes-Jackson