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

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

> 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.

Ok, most people who have been on this list for a reasonable amount of time
are aware of my stand on this one. But I feel the need to state my ideas
again (apologies, maestro)...

It seems to me that a) the cooks tend to hold themselves to a standard
that is less 'creative' and more 'interpretive' than other disciplines in
the SCA. That's fine as long as they don't try to force other disciplines
into it.

The attitude is such as to quash any kind of general theoretical
construction of food along period lines. Unfortunately, I'm not into that.
If I have in hand 7 or 8 recipes for a fairly straightforward item, like
mustard sauce, pepper sauce or cameline, and I have the general SCA cook's
understanding of medieval cooking, spicing and ingredients... I can make
some fairly educated guesses about producing a mustard, cameline sauce or
pepper sauce, and I would then say it is _based on_ recipes x, y and z but
NOT a _redaction_ of recipes x, y, and z.

Further, if I know that a grain porridge was produced with grain X in
period, but I don't have a recipe, then I go look at a bunch of other
recipes for other grain porridges and produce a porridge of grain x based
on these grain porridge recipes x, y, and z. Still not a redaction.

If I have a boid of some kind, and I don't have a recipe for boids of that
kind in that period/place, I can look up recipes for cooking boids and try
to determine how to cook it in a similar manner. It's not a redaction.

On the other hand, I've seen some real creativity exercised in so-called
redactions. (Randomly remove/add/change spices, change to vegetable broth,
etc.)

Every year I think about teaching a mustard class, to offer an alternative
to dumping in packaged dijon, which definitely has non-period ingredients.
But my attitude about making mustard is 'we know what kinds of spices were
used. We know what other ingredients were used. Combine to taste.' And
I think y'all would be bothered by that, and feel I was giving out
misinformation and get annoyed.

On the other hand, if a cook says to herbalists that they cannot in good
conscience produce a lohoc of hyssop and horehound for congestion and
coughs and enter it in an A&S contest, because no period recipe exists for
a lohoc of hyssop and horehound... well, I'll be very very peevish.

-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
jenne at fiedlerfamily.net OR jenne at tulgey.browser.net OR jahb at lehigh.edu
"Are you finished? If you're finished, you'll have to put down the spoon."