[Sca-cooks] Re: period cooking questions

[Vincent Cuenca]

You don't necessarily have to be tied to the recipes, but they are a
useful tool, probably the best tool we have, for learning and
teaching not only what _was_ done, but what _might have_ been done.

Adamantius

What he said. J Seriously, in order to get a good sense of how a Spanish
cook would have approached a larder full of food, you're going to need to
read the recipes and work with them.  Cookery was a trade, taught with a
combination of oral and written instructions.  Since we don't have time
machines to go back and get oral instruction from Chiquart or de Nola or
Granado, we have to make do with what they've written down.  The closest
thing you'll get to a "philosophy of cuisine" from them is "cook to please
your lord".  This is an important consideration: if you make something he
doesn't like, you could lose your patronage and position.  Examination of
the recipes will give you an awareness of approaches and techniques; a set
of rules, if you will.  Once you learn the rules, then you can start
improvising.  De Nola expects his readers to go ahead and create new dishes,
according to their estimation and good judgement.  But you have to know the
rules before you can break them.

I can understand not wanting to be tied to recipe books.  Of the primary
sources in Catalan and Castilian, de Nola has over 200 recipes, Granado has
over 700, the Llibre de Sent Sovi has around 150, and I have no idea how
many are in Hernandez de Maceras.   There's a lot to work with.  You'll have
to know the works backwards and forwards in order to be able to improvise in
the way that you eventually want to.

­despiertate, y a cocinar!

Vicente

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If you get into a jam, you can always eat something, blow something up or
throw penguins. --Jim Henson


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