[Sca-cooks] Is cooking like costuming?

[Glenda Robinson]

Jadwiga wrote:

> Costumers are not expected (as the only possible thing they can do) to
> produce a _reproduction_ of a recorded piece (illustration, pattern,
> whatever).

<sound of clearing throat>

I do. So do the groups I'm with.

> What is expected is a redaction from a _SINGLE_ extant period
> recipe. It must be the most exact COPY of the dish we can make from the
> information in that recipe (and for the more broadminded, perhaps also
> information we have gained from other sources).

For my 17th century Trayned Bandes group, while on long campaign, the proper
food served should have been whatever one could scrounge, all cooked
together in a pot. No recipes, no exact figures. However, we do use extant
recipes for formal dinners, things 'donated by local housewyves (biscuits
etc)', fund raising cake stalls, and for getting to know what the 17th
century person thought would go together in the big pot. On a short campaign
(one or two days), the soldiers brought their own provisions.

Seems like my kilometreage varies a bit down here in the reenactment groups
in the antipodes.

Glenda.