originals and redactions Re: [Sca-cooks] "All the King's Cooks"

[Daniel Myers]

On Thursday, August 28, 2003, at 12:18 PM, <jenne at fiedlerfamily.net> 
wrote:

>> But this is the question that comes up whenever one approaches any
>> cookbook that features traditional or heirloom or historical recipes.
>
> Nope, not really.
>
> I'm wondering why we seem to prefer books with the original source but
> really lousy and misleading redactions to books with good redactions 
> the
> original sources are only cited, not reproduced. (I can provide
> examples...)

I personally don't like either of these choices.

Redaction is often (always?) a matter of interpretation, and what seems 
like a good redaction to one person may be a terrible redaction to 
another (consider the Great Cuskynole Debate), so a book with 
redactions but no source does not allow the reader to fully examine and 
understand the author's interpretations.

I am extremely reluctant however to recommend books where the 
redactions are (in my opinion, of course) way out of line with what the 
original source, and when I do recommend one, it's usually with a 
strong warning.  I feel that such books do a horrible disservice to the 
field of historical re-creation/re-enactment.  Note though that I would 
not recommend such a book if the original source were not included 
along with the redaction.  The original source is a must for there to 
be any kind of historical accuracy - without it you're not re-creating, 
you're just cooking.

To me a book consisting of the original source, photographically 
reproduced or carefully transcribed with as few modifications as 
possible, is the ultimate.  The more editing that has been done, the 
less useful the book is, and when there are only redactions the book is 
pretty much worthless ...

... for recipes, that is.   There are a number of secondary sources 
that provide a great amount of historical information, which the author 
has collected and processed and is presenting in a more comprehensible 
form.  Examples of this type are "Boke of Keruynge" [Brears], "Fast and 
Feast: Food in Medieval Society" [Henisch], and "The Great Household in 
Late Medieval England" [Woolgar].  For this sort of book though, it's 
value rests on the skills and respectability of the author.  But that's 
a whole 'nother matter.

I guess it all comes down to personal preference and how the book is 
going to be used.

... We now return you to your regularly scheduled program of dance 
music ...

- Doc


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  Edouard Halidai  (Daniel Myers)
  http://www.medievalcookery.com/
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