[Sca-cooks] Intro

[Mark S. Harris]

Greetings Apllonia,

Welcome to SCA-Cooks!

 >Unfortunately I am not able to make it to Pennsic this year, and I don't
 >know of any cooks guilds, although I haven't really looked.  [:)]   I like
 >cooking mundanely, and I want to try medieval cooking, but the only book my
 >local library has is Fabulous Feasts....

While some of the introductory material in that book is good, the
recipes are of dubious quality and source. For more on this book
see this file in the Florilegium:
Fabulous-Fsts-msg (18K) 12/25/01    Reviews and comments on Madeleine Pelner
                                        Cosman's "Fabulous Feasts".
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BOOKS/Fabulous-Fsts-msg.html

While you are there in the FOOD-BOOKS section you might want to look
at some of the comments on various period cookbooks. I would also
recommend the several annotated bibliographies there such as:
cookbooks-bib     (40K)  6/ 9/01    Cookbook bib. by Mistress Jaelle of Armida.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BOOKS/cookbooks-bib.html

You can find many of these books through these merchants:
merch-cookbks-msg (10K)  8/31/99    Merchants selling period cookbooks.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BOOKS/merch-cookbks-msg.html

 >Anyone know any good books I can ILL?
And there is also this file:
online-ckbks-msg  (23K)  4/11/01    Online versions of period cookbooks.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BOOKS/online-ckbks-msg.html

I also recommend Master Cariadoc's Miscellany for recipes, which often
include his and Elizabeth's redactions. There is also a version of this
online. I think the address to get the paper copy as well as the address
of the current webpage can be found in this file:
cookbooks-SCA-msg (27K)  9/29/00    Cookbooks written by people in the SCA.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BOOKS/cookbooks-SCA-msg.html

And this file might also help:
cb-novices-msg    (13K) 10/14/98    Cookbooks for those new to medieval cooking.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BOOKS/cb-novices-msg.html

However, be aware that these are mostly the original period cookbooks or
translations of them. You may find that a difficult place to start. I
think most people are better off looking at some cookbooks which have
some example recipe redactions. Others, such as Master Cariadoc, disagree
with me on this.

Oh, and if the Florilegium is new to you, take a look around while
you are there. If these several files aren't of interest, there
are about 1500 others files that might be. :-)
--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas          stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****