[Sca-cooks] Re: Irish Stew recipe

[Hank]

I found this very interesting, since the comment that it may have been
common enough not to have been "documented" has been a theme in the past.
This would suggest that there is a body of recipes, yet to be discovered,
that "everybody" knew and so did not have to be written down.  Has anyone
done any kind of a search for such a thing?  This draws to the concept of
"if it was available in period, maybe it was used or cooked as we may
today".  At the risk of unlidding that boiling pot, it opens up the range of
possible feast options a great deal.

Yours, likely in the stew,
Muirghen
-----Original Message-----
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Date: Friday, March 01, 2002 9:52 PM
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Irish Stew recipe


<snip>>Irish cooks would put into a pot what was handy. Most didn't use
>recipes so none were written down.


<snip>
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.

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