[Sca-cooks] Unredacting

[Sharon Gordon]

A cooks guild did an interesting exercise in UNredacting and redacting
recipes.  What follows is a description of the events as best I can figure
out.  I have not been able to reach the person in charge of the process, so
if I get more or corrected info at a later time, I'll update the list.
Likewise if someone is on the list who participated, please feel free to
correct info or add anything.


The main purpose of the exercise seemed to be to see the challenges we face
when we are redacting recipes and the next best thing to having a time
travel machine.

1) Someone (or perhaps everyone did one of these) selected some recipes
which have detailed ingredient amounts and cooking instructions. (I don't
know that they did this, but if I were choosing, I'd pick a variety that
would make a nice varied potluck meal in addition to having components that
would affect the dish.  I am not sure if this would be most effective by
picking recipes where people are really familiar with what it should be like
or only mediumly familiar.  I realize that many medieval cooks would have
been familiar with about how much of some ingredient was added to a dish,
and what it was supposed to look and taste like.  For example, we know about
what a large pepperoni pizza should look and taste like, so this would help
us if we were redacting a recipe for one.  However Chicken with September
Vegetables is a more vague concept.)

2) The recipes were then rewritten in a medieval style without measured
amounts and with minimal instructions.  I don't know if they were also
written with medieval language and spellings. They dubbed these
"unredactions."

3) Then only the rewritten recipes (unredactions) were then given to
volunteers from the cook's guild.

4) The volunteers then each took one unredaction and worked on redacting it
and developing a recipe.

5) They then cooked the dish and took it along with their unredaction and
redaction to a guild meeting. I don't know if they made copies of these for
everyone, but I think this would be helpful for discussion.

6) At the guild meeting they were given a copy of the original recipe which
they could then compare to their redaction. I don't know if they made copies
of these for everyone, but I think this would be helpful for discussion.

7) The group then discussed the redactions and got to sample the results.

If you were choosing recipes for this sort of exercise, what sort of things
would you pick?  And what sorts of decison making would you try to
highlight?  I haven't been able to zero in on any recipes, but have thought
of a few decision making concepts that I think would be helpful to
illustrate:

1) Vague water amounts.  Is it a soup or a side dish or the insides of a
meat-vegetable pierogie-like food?

2) Several herbs or spices where changing the balance really alters the
character of the dish.

3) Lack of cooking instructions for something that would taste really
different if grilled/roasted, baked, boiled, or steamed.

4) Lack of proportions for 2-3+ main ingredients.  Is it Sesame
Wheat-Oatmeal bread or Onion Oatmeal-Wheat bread or Seven Grain Onion Bread?

Sharon
gordonse at one.net