[Sca-cooks] payn perdu et. al.

[Gaylin Walli]

It's an interesting dilemma Stefan pointed out with:

>Unfortunately, in trying to categorize things for the Florilegium,
>sometimes I have to do this by what I think are folks pre-conceived
>ideas rather than how things actually are.

I completely understand. I think you've made a very good effort to
buttress this apparent problem (for lack of a better descriptor) with
the text you add directing people to alternate areas of the site as
well.

I commented on my list of Payn Perdu recipes saying:

>  >  I was aiming to include a
>  > larger time frame to show the variety of ways in which french toast
>  > is made today

And Stefan replied:

>Yes, this is probably too broadly based for the Florilegium.

But in terms of having the recipes as a comparison to period ones,
I think the list is ultimately very useful. Say we were working with
a recipe from Apicius and had no instructions on how to cook the
darn thing.  One possible source of inspiration would be to use a
technique in a different recipe detailed during the same time period
and out of time periods (near and far out) just to see how the dish
evolved. Sometimes you can see evolution and sometimes you see
how things go back to an older way of doing things as you progress
through the centuries. We're really quite lucky when you think
about it, to have such clear examples of this dish over such a
broad span of time.

>Okay, I will add them to the French--Toast-msg file.  Or if you've
>revised the list since then, other than the other period referance
>posted here since then, feel free to send the list to me and I'll
>use that.

I'd be happy to, but how far out from 1600s do you want to go?
Is something in the 1650s okay with you?

>Okay. There is this article in the Florilegium if you wish to see how
>someone else has tried to explain "redacting"

Been there, read that. ;-)

>No matter what you do, it is likely to be controversial. Look at the
>different camps just on this list [....]
>People will agree to disagree when it's just an article
>saying it is just the author's opinion but with a CA, maybe because
>it is somewhat official, they will be less happy with the author and
>say so.

And while I agree with you in principle, the process of creating a
recipe redaction can avoid those pitfalls that often result in
religious wars, I think. Or barely skirt them. As long as you point
out that there are a couple of "camps" on the issue, you can leave
it at that. Just my opinion, of course. ;-)

Iasmin