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

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Kirrily Robert wrote:

> 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


<snip>
"might", of course, being the operative term.


> 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.

Well, that last bit is the key. Speculation is fine so long as it is
clearly identified as such. Unfortunately, half the time, a third party
will go and say, "Yeah, well Lady Katherine has a period recipe for beef
stew that is to die for," and someone will ask where the recipe comes
from, and varying degrees of huffiness tend to result. Also, we often
can't tell why a medieval cook does what he does. Does he parboil the
meat first because of the medical implications, say, the removal of
choleric humors, or is it just to make it tender? I've been cooking from
medieval recipes and have stopped using other people's modern
adaptations as a rule, for about fifteen years now, and I still can't be
sure if a recipe I create is in a period style.

  If I'm just fooling around, which is pretty frequently, actually, then
I don't worry about it, but if I want to do period food that I'm sure is
period, then I would go with an extant recipe. And there are really
quite an astonishing number of them that have survived.

I really don't like the catch-phrase "period". Chocolate is period.
Vikings are period. Firearms are period. Vikings with shotguns and
chocolate are just silly, but thinking of this game in terms of what is
period, meaning, "what is permissible", leads to such interesting
combinations.

For myself, as a means of learning about period food, I will never get
tired of the actual, surviving recipes. It's not like I'm going to run
out of them in my lifetime, which is why my teeth itch when people tell
me, "Been there, done that, now I want to expand beyond the narrow
confines of slavishly following period recipes." Sounds just a bit like
Frank Sinatra, who, when it was too much trouble to learn a song that he
didn't write, would make up words to suit the occasion. Yeah, it was
creative. It also was kinda stupid ;-).

  I guess what it boils down to is one's motive for creating a peri-oid
dish, and whether it is responsibly presented in our organization, which
is theoretically education-oriented. I have no problem with doing it,
but I always am sure to make it clear that it is a speculative work or
even just a joke of some kind.

Adamantius
--
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com

"It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98