[Sca-cooks] what are your thoughts on period-style food?

[Kirrily Robert]

This afternoon I looked in the freezer and realised I had some stewing
beef that really ought to be used.  Not having much in the way of fresh
ingredients in the house, I decided to turn it into a medieval-ish stew
thingy.  If you'd found it in a culinary manuscript, it might have said
something like:

Take beef or mutton and hew it fine and put it into a clean potte with
fair water and put thereto currants and spices and boil it well and add
verjuice according to your taste and serve it upon soppes.

Like I said, I was just making it to use up some frozen meat, not for a
feast or a competition or anything.  Though if it's good, I might make
it for an upcoming potluck.

Anyway, it got me thinking about period-style food.  See, I get the
impression that many people on this mailing list are pretty strict
about documentability.  In many opinions, one should always strive to
use period recipes rather than making up "medieval-ish" dishes.

I'm not sure what my opinion is, though, and I was wondering what other
people here think of it.

See, in my world view, slavishly copying stuff from period sources is a
good way to learn, but once you have a reasonable understanding of the
topic you can use your knowledge to make your own things in the same
style.  This is most commonly seen in costuming, where people might
start by attempting to make costumes or garments to exactly match
portraits or whatever, but will eventually start to design their own
clothes based on a general style.  So if this is common and accepted in
costuming, why isn't it more accepted in cooking?

I guess the thing is that people associate "period-style" with the
generic roast-meat-and-bread-and-soup feasts that are common in some
places, and the authenticists are trying to encourage people to move
away from the myth of Henry VIII with his turkey leg and towards
something accurate.  Another thing might be that the general knowledge
of period cookery (or our perception of that knowledge) is not as good
as our knowledge of costuming, and so cooks as a group still feel more
comfortable copying from specific sources rather than making stuff up.

Either way, I feel fairly comfortable making up period-style recipes as
long as they use period ingredients and techniques, aren't a mad
mishmash of incompatible styles, and aren't trying to be "unusual" in
any way, and aren't trying to pass it off as a documented actual
medieval recipe.

What are your thoughts?

Yours,

Katherine
(wondering whether she should don a flame-retardant apron)

--
Lady Katherine Rowberd (mka Kirrily "Skud" Robert)
katherine at infotrope.net  http://infotrope.net/sca/
Caldrithig, Skraeling Althing, Ealdormere
"The rose is red, the leaves are grene, God save Elizabeth our Queene"