[Sca-cooks] Period Knife Techniques (consensus??)

[Bonne of Traquair]

>  For a good number of the recipes I have seen, it is
>difficult to determine, by a casual glance at the
>recipe, which cut would be best suited to the dish,
>because the end result is often so "foreign" to the
>modern cook.  Some of the recipes, of course, are
>fairly obvious (in the case of roasts, in particular),
>but others (pottages, brouets, tagines, etc) are not
>so readily apparent.

Perhaps the issue here is that you, as a professional, have a larger
vocabulary of cut styles/sizes.  I pretty much have two sizes of cut:
bite-sized or smaller that bite-sized, with the style dictated by my idea of
the pleasantist appearance in my view of the finished dish, and/or relative
cooking needs of each item.

Usually, I read the recipe over and over, track down similar recipes a
little older or newer than the one in question to also read over and over,
noting additional details (if any) and in a sense, 'cook in my head' quite a
few times before actually hitting the kitchen.  Over the course of all that,
this sort of problem sort of solves itself and I doubt that I've conistently
reacted to the same word in different recipes/for different items.

I form my idea of what size based on the relative wet/dryness of what I
expect the finished dish to be and how I expect to get there.  Do the bits
cook altogether, or get added in sequence or processed through multiple
pre-cooks and finally put together? Do I expect to make the dish up as
individual servings or in a big container?  Will it all be mashed or pureed
in the end or left as pieces?  Should the bits be small enough to spoon up,
or large enough to be gracefully eaten by hand?  Small enough that a
mouthful has multiples of various items, or large enough that a mouthful is
a single item?

This is an important question you've come up with.  I've been working with
what I hope is informed instinct.  I'm interested in what others are doing.

bonne




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