[Sca-cooks] Re:Documentation

[Stephanie Ross]

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Whew!! Thank you so much for your informative post. I am awed...

Aislinn

Message: 13
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 09:04:07 -0400
From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Documentation was Re: Botched Chicken Attempt
Reply-To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

It's boxed in the basement with the rest of the collection. Almost all
of my French collection is in fact boxed with the exception of what I
kept out for a working collection. Even the Time Life volumes are there
too. Given that I have something like 10,000 plus volumes, the fact that I
have out at least a thousand or so available is remarkable given the
size of this house. The contest was 23 years ago this fall and we were
allowed to document to 1650 that year so I suspect that some of the
sources I used would be past a 1600 cut-off. The actual items had to be
dated 1625 or earlier, but we could cite later recipes to 1650 if we
could produce mentions or menus that indicated the dishes were served a
generation or two earlier. We could cite earliest available recipes
given evidence then. I can remember that there were original French
sources, translations, and then working recipes for everything I
prepared for the French course.   I remember that there was a major
bibliography attached. We had to turn everything in on note cards. I
used 4 x 6 cards, not 3 x 5s and still managed to produce 100 or so
cards for the two meals of 4 dishes each. That was single spaced typing
too and took hours and hours to produce. (At that the time my "Period
palate" articles would routinely cite 50-60 sources for background and
more information, although the bibliography usually ended up scissored.)
The rule was to cite everything relevant. The entries cost something
like a 1/2 a month's grocery money and took simply days and days to
arrange, cook and transport the two-three plus hours distance to the
event. Having I won, I quit entering culinary contests because I
promised my husband of two months that I would if I won. It's one of the
compromises that one makes in married life. Giving it some thought, I
would guess that by starting with Wheaton and her bibliography and
backtracking and picking up Vence and Courtine, Oliver and Guy and the
bibliographies in those that one would get to various sources like I did
then. Certainly the new materials coming in from France should help too.
There is so much more available today that was not available then. Take
a look for instance at all the stuff on Amazon France that one can
order. Too bad the Euro is up and the dollar down.

Johnnae llyn Lewis  Johnna Holloway

Stephanie Ross wrote:>
> Where can I find this documentation please...
> > Aislinn
(We were discussing deboning a whole chicken while leaving the skin intact)

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