[Sca-cooks] Re: Irish Stew recipe

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach Mór Dhàna:
>I'm just beginning in this redaction thing, but in my experience if
>you have an idea of the history, then you can "flub" a recipe.
>Irish cooks would put into a pot what was handy. Most didn't use
>recipes so none were written down.  For good modern irish stew I
>would recommend the Frugal Gourmets immigrant ancestor cookbook. The
>irish, scottish, and welsh sections are very good.  And if you use
>period vegetables and meats, it's a pretty good bet that an irish
>housewife did it, too.

Sure, you can flub it, as long as you realize that it's a flub,
meaning it has a chance of being accurate, which isn't quite the same
as being accurate. There's an awful lot of factors to take into
account. For example, are we considering cooking methods in
conjunction with the fact that a lot of Ireland seems to have been
deforested by the Vikings?

As HG Cariadoc mentioned, as an example, we have Irish Stew, which
doesn't seem consistent with medieval concepts of stew in its use of
vegetables. Or doesn't it? (See, this can work both ways.) Real Irish
Stew contains two vegetables, potatoes and onions, and I suppose it's
conceivable the potatoes were added later to a concept extant in
medieval Ireland.  Actually, I'm deeply interested in the fact that
early nineteenth century recipes for fish chowder are nearly
identical to Irish Stew recipes, only made with fish instead of kid,
lamb, or mutton, and thickened with crackers, fairly similar to the
effect of breadcrumbs. No potatoes, no milk or cream, just a little
butter stirred in at the end. Not too different from one of Markham's
pottages, or possibly something even earlier.

But it is very hard to tell for sure.

Adamantius