[Sca-cooks] Is cooking like costuming?

[Elaine Koogler]

You have made my point for me.  I have to wonder about someone saying that
one shouldn't try to use a period recipe if they are missing an ingredient,
even though there are comparable substitutes available, because it is then
no longer period.  My point is that, if you follow this line of reasoning,
nothing that we cook is really period.

Kiri

-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-admin at ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-admin at ansteorra.org]On Behalf Of Decker, Terry D.
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 12:08 PM
To: 'sca-cooks at ansteorra.org'
Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Is cooking like costuming?


Consider that cooking is inexact.  No two cooks prepare the same recipe in
precisely the same way and the same dish will not come out precisely the
same twice running.  This means that any cook trying to follow any recipe
even with the exact ingredients and societal tastes is producing a modified
version of the original dish.  Thus a period cook produces a "perioid"
dishes.  Your argument reducto ad absurdum.

Your point is because we do not have precisely the same ingredients or have
the tastes of a preceding society, we can not recreate the dishes of that
society exactly.  True enough, but we are not doing "period cooking."  We
are doing historical recreation. Historical recreation is an approximation
of the past and it is a tribute to our knowledge and abilities to make our
recreations as accurate as possible.

The premiere Laurel of Calontir made a linen tunic.  According to several
acquaintances, he grew the flax, retted it, spun it to thread, wove the
fabric, made the pins, needles and scissors to tailor it and made the tunic.
Was it a "period" tunic?  No, but it was a superb historical recreation.

If you are not doing historical recreation, then your argument has no
bearing on the issue.  If you are doing historical recreation, the argument
represents an excuse for avoiding historical accuracy.  It is an argument
that acts as a culinary Philosopher's Stone turning kitchen fantasies into
historical research.

Bear


> I know we have said in the past that any modification to a recipe that is
> not actually mentioned as a possible substitution in the recipe makes what

> we produce "period-oid" rather than period.  OK, consider this thought:
then
> everything we cook is period-oid unless we are using a recipe that has all
> of the quantities specified AND we are using ingredients that have been
> grown/produced and are of the same strain/variety/blend as what was used
in
> period.  Whenever we redact a recipe that doesn't have exact quantities
> specified...or we redact one that uses huge quantities of
spices/seasonings
> that would make it inedible today (changes in tastes/differences in the
> strengths of the seasonings), we are modifying the period recipe, imposing
> on it our modern tastes.  Also, whenever we use modern ingredients, we are
> modifying the recipe because we are not using the same ingredients used in
> period...milk is pasteurized, eggs are treated, meat is grown differently
> with the animals being fed different types of feed, etc....I can't really
> think of anything we could use that would be truly a period ingredient.
>
> I know I'm carrying this point to its extreme, but it's a logical
extreme....
>
> Kiri
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