[Sca-cooks] Am I at least minimally clueful? (Period cookery questions)

[johnna holloway]

Would you like a reading list on the
history of cookery or would you like to share
your sources first and then perhaps receive
a reading list for other things to read on
the subject that you haven't already read.
How much was "your recent bit of studying"?
I can suggest a dozen or twenty books to start.

Johnnae llyn Lewis  Johnna Holloway

El Hermoso Dormido wrote:snipped
> In my recent bit of studying, I've developed some impressions regarding
> medieval cooks and cooking, and figured this would be the appropriate place
> to ask whether or not my impressions are accurate or not, so here goes:
> > 1)It appears that there really is no analogue for MODERN-style recipes in
> "period". >
> 2)The implication I get from this is that most medieval cooks wouldn't be
> cooking from a recipe as most modern cooks seem to, but rather by "intuition"
> and experience, examining what's available for ingredients and what sorts of
> cooking techniques the cook's been exposed to that are appropriate, and going
> from there by "feel".  Am I correct in that assumption?>
> 3)I get the impression that unlike (thankfully!) SCA cooks, in "period",
> cooks (for noble folk) were simple servants, and
> not-particularly-well-thought-of ones in most cases.
> Signed,
> El Hermoso Dormido, eagerly seeking culinary education...