[Sca-cooks] Re: (Period cookery questions)

[Elizabeth A Heckert]

On Thu, 9 May 2002 00:50:45 -0400 "Robin Carroll-Mann"
<rcmann4 at earthlink.net> writes:

>This is not to say that sources such as inventories, health
>manuals, tales, and guild regulations don't have their uses, but I
>believe that they are most helpful when used as a supplement to
>the recipes.

    A good example (and the only one I am familiar with) are the two
volumes on Anglo-Saxon Cookery by Ann Hagen.  Ms. Hagen was working with
an era in which there weren't even the kinds of recipes you have in Forme
of Cury etc.  She gathered (what I assume to be) boatloads of evidence
from archeological sites in England and connected what she found as raw
remains to laws, taboos, and home health manuals.

    But because she (apparently) is not familiar with Menagier, she
decided grain of paradise was cardamom (which is a grave disservice to
both spices, and I'm sure causes the author of Menagier to spin in his
grave!!!)  Other than that little error, she has presented  a wonderful
trove of information about a lot food that we are familiar with, both as
modern cooks, and as people trying to study food in history.

    With her data, you have three choices:  you could readily cook
something which wound up tasting modern American--there are plenty of
recipes that don't use New World foods; you could try to guess how Roman
recipes might have influenced the Britons, and how it might have trickled
into Anglo-Saxon culture, or you could look  early Medieval works, and
extrapolate backwards.

     Without recipes, we can't say which course is correct--I vote for
number 3, generally, because I'd rather be off by about five hundred or
so years (using Medieval sources) than a thousand (using modern sources).
 And, as much as my formerly rebellious heart may hate it, there is a lot
to be said for the discipline of following the recipes as written.

     Art students are frequently advised to copy works by famous artists,
and aspiring musicians are often recommended to practice rote exercises.
Their teachers want them to completely intimate with their medium of
expression before they go on to create individual pieces, and it's a
valid tool to explore whatever aspect of Medieval culture we're trying to
recreate.

    Elizabeth


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