[Sca-cooks] terminology

[Phlip]

> I'm bringing this up here because here is the issue.
>
> Phlip just used the term 'not documentably period' about some food at a
> feast on the EK list. Of course it started a firestorm. Phlip, please
> don't think I'm flaming you on this, 'cos I certainly knew what you meant!

Actually, it hasn't started a firestorm, but it has allowed some serious,
intelligent questions to be asked, and to be answered. I think most of us
want to understand more about period matters, but there is only so much time
in a day, or a lifetime, and there is SO MUCH TO LEARN in so many subjects,
that it's really hard to keep track.

> But the way SCA-Cooks uses the term 'documentably period' is confusing to
> non-cooks. Because what we mean is specifically 'created from a period
> recipe'. [Presumably we also mean 'with period ingredients' but that's
> another kettle of fish: if someone uses a period recipe for gourds and
> uses acorn squash, what do we call that?)

Well, since you asked ;-)

My take on that sort of thing is that either I'm going to use the proper
vegetable, or I'm at least going to try the proper vegetable myself, and see
if there's one that might make an accetable substitute. If there isn't, then
I'm going to cook something else if I can't get the right one.

On meats, I tend to want to use what we have available in the US, for the
simple reason that there aren't any reliable sources of period livestock
yet. I'm loking into it. In the meantime, when I do something like the Bal
Po Soup, from "Soup for the Qan" I will ask someone who should know what
sort of lamb would have been available during the period and in the culture
that the recipe was described. In that case, I asked one of the authors,
Paul Buell, and he described the sheep of that time/place as smaller and
more strongly flavored than modern sheep. I therefor will, at some time in
the future, butcher my own older, smaller sheep for the recipe, and see what
I think.

> We have the luxury of saying, and doing that, because we have recipes. We
> don't have to work just from descriptions and pictures like other arts. We
> also have the need to do that because we don't have as many pictures as we
> would like and besides, pictures don't help that much with food!

Truly. You can look at a loaf of bread, know what grains were usually used,
use experience to get workable proportins, and still miss out on the
rosemary or whatever they may have added on St Slumbersnorius' Day ;-)

> But when we say, "it wasn't made from a period recipe so it's not
> documentably period" people get confused. To them, it's like saying that a
> dress made from period fabric, using period methods, to match an extant
> picture, isn't documentably period because it didn't use a period cutting
> diagram.

Yes- that's why I explained what "conjecturally period" means, in another
post.

> To make things worse, the phrase 'not documentably period' is also used by
> people in the arts community to describe things that we have no evidence
> for at all, but sensible people aren't willing to say, "Look, this isn't
> period"  because someday someone might come up with evidence that there
> was a whole culture doing crochet or wrapping rattan swords with fibrous
> sticky tape or wearing medieval garments that expose the belly-button.

Yep.

> I'm as ready to insult people's sensibilities if I think they are being
> stupid as anybody, as everyone on this list knows.

I try not to insult folks, but sometimes straight talk has that effect ;-)
Of course, unfortunately "You are an idiot" is an accurate description, and
people don't like hearing that ;-)

> But, well, sometimes words get in the way of what you are trying to say
> and it's a good idea to think about that, even if you don't agree with the
> person.
>
> Feel free to flame me on this one.

Why flame you? You made some good points and saved me some typing. Every Art
or Science has its own ways of doing things, information sources and
expectations. It is never a bad thing to explain things so people understand
things better.

Phlip