[Sca-cooks] 2002 Cook's Symposium

[Sue Clemenger]

I read it in the latest issue of _Serve It Forth_.  It sounds as if the
author was pretty unsuccessful in her attempts to "reconstruct the
desired cuisine from sources other than cookbooks," to quote the review.
Scanning the review, I see that His Grace provides several examples of
Savelli using references to food-substances, and then turning them into
something they're not. A page on bread-baking prompts a purely-modern
recipe for Oatmeal Bread, using rolled oats, and a modern recipe for Rye
Bread.  She has a recipe for honey butter without any documentation at
all.  She deduces the spicing for a sweet bread from the ingredients of
a salve, and the "composition of meat stuffing from instructions for
making a poultice."  She does not include, or even quote, the medicinal
recipes she uses.  His Grace gives an extended example of a badly
misinterpreted recipe for "dry bread and cheese to be boiled in rose
water," which Savelli turns into a cheese spread.  The relevant medical
passage reads: "At whiles roast the cheese and dry bread, and let him
drink water which has been sodden upon roses," clearly NOT either a
spread or stuff boiled in rose water.  And her recipes show modern bias
(overuse of pepper, for instance).
Her ingredient references are also inaccurate--tea as an ingredient in
mead, use of kidney beans, references to cucumbers and vegetable marrow
(I'm assuming zucchini here? we've actually been discussing that on
H-costume) as "summer squashes."
It sounds, from reading His Grace's review, as if Savelli took an
interesting idea and mangled it thoroughly.  Which is not to say that
her recipes may not be edible (that I don't know), but that they
actually have very little to do with real Anglo-Saxon food.  Nice idea,
bad scholarship?
(Reminds me of the really-bad 1950s redactions of some period recipes
that I've got in an old Pepperidge Farm cookbook....She takes a recipe
for some sort of gourd tart [I'm guessing bottle gourds? She uses the
word "pumpkin"--no original recipe provided, just some sort of
translation] made of cooked, sieved gourd, rich fat, cheese, sugar,
eggs, milk, saffron and cinnamon, and turns it into a modern pumpkin
pie. Now, the pumpkin pie looks perfectly nice, but it bears only a
passing resemblance to the original inspiration!)
--maire

Phlip wrote:
>
> Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...
>
> > Perhaps someone who has read my review of her book can see if she has
> > rebuttals.
> > --
>
> Where's your review, your Grace? I just got a copy of the book, and I'd love
> to read your comments.
>
> Phlip
>
>  If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
> cat.
>
> Never a horse that cain't be rode,
> And never a rider who cain't be throwed....
>
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