[Sca-cooks] Following a recipe...

[Gorgeous Muiredach]

Talking with Phlip off list, I had a bit of insight that just might be the
basis for a part of our argument of period recipes, peri-oid, in the style
of, etc...

I had said that I didn't even follow modern recipes.  But then I started
thinking about the following question:

"What *is* following a recipe?"

When I read an expression such as slavishly following a recipe, I am
reminded of my aunt, who will read a recipe and refer to it every single
step of the way.  She trusts the recipe implicetely, and when it says cook
the meat for 3 minutes on one side, and 3 minutes on the other, that's what
she does, timer in hand!  In the end she offen swears that the recipe was
wrong to start with, because a lot of her food isn't as good as it could be.

And I started to think of how I handle recipes.  A lot of the time, I'll
look at a recipe, and then do it.  I won't be *following* the thing step by
step by step to its minute details, but I have enough understanding of what
I'm doing to just do it.  I guess one might call that following a recipe.

When I do Boeuf Bourguignon, I make sure to have the appropriate garnishes,
otherwise I call it beef stew.  The result I get from cooking it is either
the same or close enough to the result I'd have gotten had I "followed" the
recipe.

Anyway, this is just a thought I'm throwing out at you to add oil to the
fire :-)  Would love to hear your comments and thoughts on this :-)

Gorgeous Muiredach
Rokkehealden Shire
Middle Kingdom
aka
Nicolas Steenhout
"You must deal with me as I think of myself" J. Hockenberry