Dembinska Re: [Sca-cooks] large dayboard feast: need advice . . .

[Nick Sasso]

----- Original Message -----
From: <jenne at fiedlerfamily.net>
> Not that far out, but it certainly isn't up to SCA Cooks 'you have
to
> include the period recipe you adapted from' standards.
>
> Basically, Woys Weaver and Dembinska sat down with lists of foods
> mentioned on period menus, lists of period ingredients and
references, and > other Northern European cookbooks, and tried to come
up with recipes for> foods that were documentably served, using existing
recipes (If you squint> hard and turn your head the right way you can
tell which recorded period> recipes went into some of the 're-created'
recipes).
<<<SNIP>>>>
> -- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa

I only mention this for new folks who weren't around for the first go
on this topic. (or the second)

The standard I find not met is using marginally related cookbook
sources to develop recipes included in a text presented as scholarly.
If you look at the sources they used, you'll find Forme of Curye and le
Menagier among them (IIRC).  It is a bit of a stretch to use texts like
those as foundations for recipes that "were documentably served" in
Medieval Poland.  The authors did a thorough job describing foodstuffs
and menus, then make no connection that I could find between that
information and  the references they used to develop the recipes.  One
must make one's own ethical decisions about whether to call the recipes
"medieval recipes" or not.  I personally quote the text, but not the
recipes for any definitive evidence.

They even make a statement to the effect that the recipes are made up
and are simply contrived by merging their documentation with the recipes
they had available from other cultures.  The info is useful, but the
recipes should be used with caution and appropriate understanding as
they are further from documentable than simply not including a period
recipe.  That said, I personally believe it is the best source we have
so far (in English) about foodstuffs in that part of the world.

pacem et bonum,
niccolo difrancesco