[Sca-cooks] Funges Follies-

[Laura C. Minnick]

Hi folkes!

Since everyone seems to be gone today, I have come up with a question to
think on when y'all come back!

I've been thinking about how otherwise respectable cooks cook read
recipes differently (and nearly come to blows, but I won't mane any
names ;-) and because their amounts/instructions/ingredient list/etc is
sufficiently vague, there is the possibility that they both are right.
After all, my mom taught me how to cook when I was old enough to stand
on a stool in front of the counter- yet my cooking has significant
differences. Even if we work from the same handwritten recipe, what we
turn out is likely to be different.

So I have an example to put out- as to what is interpretation and what
is Heresy From the Pit of Hell Which Must Be Punished With Fire and
Badly Sharpened Dicks! (sorry, got a little carried away there...)

When I make Funges (_Forme of Cury_, no.12), I make it as a pottage,
with a fair amount of broth. I rather like it, being pungent and warm
and filling but not 'heavy'. However, I have been served Funges done as
boiled mushrooms with leeks, served as vegetables, with a little broth
poured over. I was taken aback, but you know the recipe doesn't specify
how much broth. My only argument is that it is included among a number
of soups and pottages- the first couple dozen of that part of the text,
in fact. And as they do tend to be grouped by type, and Funges is in the
middle, it would stand to reason that it is also a pottage, yes?

But how do we know? Could it be that one day King Rick was headed out on
a hunt and wanted to take some picnic with him, and asked for 'the
mushroom thingie' without the soup part? (Pure speculation, I know ;-)
And how do we know how much soup is well, soup?

Yes, I'm poking the stick in the badger's den, but heck, we haven't had
a _real_ good one going for awhile, and besides, there's new folks on
board who might benefit from seeing how things can be hashed out.

So.. whaddya think? Ideas?

'Lainie
it's Saturday, I'm home, and I'm even outta beer. :-(