[Sca-cooks] Tips on Redactions

[Mark.S Harris]

Master Cariadoc said:
> >The obvious place to start is try several
> >medieval recipes that are already redacted/adapted
> >be they from printed cookbooks or the web.
>
> This is an old argument in this group, but I think that is just where
> you should not start. For one thing, that means that you may end up
> adopting someone else's mistakes instead of going to the original
> source and figuring things out for yourself.

But then says:
> Recipes rarely include quantities, temperatures, or times. Working
> out a recipe consists mostly of discovering that information by trial
> and error. You may find a modern cookbook useful in doing so. The
> idea is not to adapt a modern recipe but to use the modern recipe for
> information on how long a chicken has to be boiled before it is done
> or how much salt is added to a given volume of stew. That gives you a
> first guess, to be used the first time you try the dish and modified
> accordingly.

I can't remember whom Cariadoc is quoting above, but it pretty much
parallels what I said in another message.

If the problem is adapting someone else's mistakes, why is it worse
to pick up a modern cook's mistakes cooking modern food than a
modern cook's mistakes interpreting period food?

I don't think either I nor this person quoted were saying to
slavishly follow the proportions given in the redaction. However, like
the use of a similar modern recipe, it does often give a better place
to start than just wildly guessing, which is what some of us would
otherwise be doing. In either case you take a chance on bringing
modern assumptions into the period recipe and thus "coloring" the
final recipe with aspects from the present. Why is using the
interpretations of someone who has presumably spent some time
studying period foods, as well as period recipes, worse than following
a modern cook's recipe for a modern food?

Yes, there can be bad period recipe interpretations, just as there
are bad modern recipes. Cosman and her recipes in Fabulous Feasts
being a prime example of poor interpetations. I'm sure there are
modern equivalents, but I don't try to remember those. I think it
is better to try to find a good recipe resource for either style rather
than start from scratch, at least unless you are an expert cook.

Stefan li Rous