[Sca-cooks] curriculum...

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> >I've been looking over the stuff I've learned to cook, and wondering to
> >myself: what would people say are the basics of medieval cooking, that a
> >person should strive to master as a foundation for their cooking?
> >
> >-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa   jenne at fiedlerfamily.net

Truly, I would suggest starting with the things you enjoy most, and are most
comfortable working with- pastries and sweets for some, meats or stews for
others, or perhaps a particular country's cuisine, and with your familiarity
with these sorts of foodstuffs, see how you make it today, and look for ways
that the Medieval folk might have either made a similar dish, with similar
ingredients their way., or how the same ingredients might make an entirely
different presentation.

I'm not talking, now, about back documenting, or trying to make a modern
dish Medievaloid, but rather using the guidance of the Medieval cook's
instructions to learn "new" ways of doing things.

For example, in my favorite image of the archaeologist finding a few empty
packages in a dump site, one of hamburger, some green beans, some potatoes,
onion peels, and a tomato sauce can- would you make a meat loaf covered with
tomato sauce, and perhaps chunked, boiled potatoes mixed with green beans as
a side dish, or perhaps make catsup with tomato sauce and a bit of vinegar
and an onion slice to go with your hamburgers, baked potatoes and a green
bean side dish, or would you make a Shepherd's pie?

Looking at the possible ingredients, and trying to see how THEY put them
together, either differently or similarly, with ingredients you're familiar
with is the first step to learning- once you become comfortable with basic
concepts in foods you're familiar with, it's easier to take that extra step-
now, you may not be as familiar with the ingredients, but you can apply the
"new", now familiar, techniques to the different ingredients.

Jumping off into unfamiliar territory is very scary, but if you take a bit
of familiarity with you, trying to learn something new, it's much easier to
go searching for more new things.

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....