[Sca-cooks] Re: Tastes of Anglo-Saxon England

[Wanda Pease]

Well,  I'm very glad to see the feedback about the book!

I guess I concentrated a lot on the actual "recipes" and was disappointed.
I'm really out of touch with academia, and I just hate end-notes rather than
footnotes on the same page (now that I don't have to format pages with them
that is!).  I tend to miss the little numbers in the text and forget to flip
back to the back and search through all the little notes to find the one I
want (or in other books, not this one, "no, it's 13 from chapter 8, not 13
from chapter 6") but that's just me having problems shifting from the
writing style I grew up with to what the real world currently demands.

Just a quibble on the honey-butter statement.  Although she does state that:
"Honey-butter was a popular spread throughout the Middle Ages.  It is
recommended boiled with sweet-flag as a cure for a cough."  The footnote
just gives the work she got the statement from, which doesn't do much to
clarify that the original source probably doesn't say that: "honey-butter
was a popular spread throughout the Middle Ages." Rather, if I have followed
the discussion on this list correctly, that it was used medicinally, and we
have no evidence that it was used as an everyday or even feast day
condiment.  I may use a sweet tasting cherry flavored cough syrup when I
have a cold, but that doesn't mean I serve it over ice cream or pancakes.
Hmmmm.... I wonder if that would work the next time I run out of Maple
syrup....?

Regina Romsey
Virgule gazed across the vast, cold, steel expanse past his inquisitor
to witness the full consequence of his previous decision - feral,
withered children, in tattered, filthy garments, toiled mindlessly at
his command in a single chamber which reeked of oil and burning animal
flesh - his time had come to deliver the final instruction; "Yes! I
would like fries with that."



-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-admin at ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-admin at ansteorra.org]On Behalf Of Ro
Sent: Sunday, August 25, 2002 8:42 AM
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Tastes of Anglo-Sadon Engkand


I would have to disagree with Regina on this one.

The author lists a bibliography, makes available several pages of notes, and
a list of both ingredients, with the modern name, the name in old English ,
the source for the name and what she used if the indicated ingredient was
unavailable/toxic.

She states in her intro that one of her goals was to produce recipes that an
average cook could produce and a modern diner could enjoy  She did so within
the confines of archeological finds indicating available foodstuffs.  In my
opinion, she achieved her goals.

Is this a cookbook I would base a feast on and bill it period?  Not in the
slightest. It is, IMHO, interesting, well done, the food produced is
definitely peri-oid and more than worth the modest price tag.

And it beats the stuffing (OFC) out of Fabulous Feasts....

Ro de Laci
Bright Hills Cooks Guild

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