[Sca-cooks] originals and redactions, was "All the King's Cooks"

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Ranald, you make some excellent points. And i'm glad you have delurked.

You wrote:
>    Yes an no.  I was trained in a period kitchen (though not SCA period).
>We had almost no measuring equipment available to us (just as our
>predecessors didn't).  There is judgement being used yes (just as in
>period) but if it calls for butter the size of a walnut, that what I add,
>butter the size of a walnut.

I find that many of the recipes i've been using pretty much just list 
ingredients and have no quantities (and a lump of butter the size of 
a walnut is a quantity, as far as i am concerned).

For example:
Hypotrimma. Pepper, lovage, dry mint, pine nuts, raisins, Jericho 
date, sweet cheese, honey, vinegar, fish sauce,oil, wine, defrutum or 
caroenum
[Apicius, Book I, Chapter XIX]

First, what it this? It was in a chapter with sauces. But some 
chapters contain a variety of dishes, or the occasional dish that is 
different slips into a chapter. So, is it a sauce, a spread, a savory 
snack? If a sauce, what sort of dish should it accompany? It doesn't 
say...

Because it was preceded and followed by sauces, i'm making it a sauce 
and serving it in the Primera Mensa (main course). However, another 
book on Roman cooking i read, one with some recipes, but mostly 
history, interpreted this as a savory to be served at the end of the 
meal in the Seconda Mensa ("dessert" course) (Patrick Faas, Around 
the Roman Table: Food and Feasting in Ancient Rome).

This extreme vagueness is not common, but not rare in later European 
recipes. I found quite a few in Marx Rumpolt (16th c. German) that 
were almost this vague - they included some cooking directions, but 
not even a hint of quantities.

Second, when cooking for 80 or 90, i can't just add a dollop of this 
or that, as i go noodling along, as i might at home. The event is not 
*just* a feast. We have a schedule to fit into, and i have to know 
how much to buy well ahead of time. I am not criticizing or 
denigrating your method. It works fine when one is cooking at home or 
for a small group or responsible only for a few dishes at a feast.

I have to write down my "redaction", so i can repeat it, and multiply 
up the ingredients so i have enough at the feast. Of course, with 
this kind of "creative straitjacket" you may choose not to be a Head 
Cook, and i respect whatever decision you make for yourself. We have 
many freedoms in our approach to historical cultures in the SCA.

I've chosen to "feed the masses", so i have to have written recipes 
for my cooks. When i cook a feast entirely on site, i generally have 
10 or 12 helpers, many of whom have never cooked "period" food (some 
are college students with little cooking experience of any sort). I 
cannot just turn them loose to experiment in the feast kitchen, i 
can't just give them guidance, i have to give them clear directions.

I would say how we deal with historical recipes depends on what we 
are doing with them - eating them ourselves (when i cook much as you 
do), sharing in a potluck with a household, or feeding a Principality 
or Kingdom.

>This does of course require interpretation,
>yes, and if your knowledge of period technique is poor so will your
>interpretation be.  This is why I want the original source.

I always start with the original recipe, and preferably a copy of the 
original book. And i try to give myself some knowledge of how one 
acquired ingredients, cooked, ate, etc. in the time and place from 
which my recipe came.

>Many modern
>books are written by modern cooks and affected by their modern thoughts
>more than period technique. I suppose I could say all, myself included.

I agree. And i know i am (and my food is) affected by my limited 
experience with "period" techniques. But at least i know these 
differences exist.

I don't have access to a "period" kitchen. I cook on a gas stove (or 
electric in some feast kitchens). I know that the process would be 
very different if using a wood fire in a fire place, and i'm sure it 
would affect the finished dish. Roasting meat in a pan in a modern 
oven gives an *extremely* different taste than roasting over a fire, 
something i can only occasionally do at camping events - i live in an 
upstairs urban apartment with no balcony, so i don't own a barbecue - 
and i don't own a fire pit (no ground fires allowed here in The West, 
except at the rare site).

When cooking for 80 to 150 people, i do not have the tools or minions 
necessary to grind ingredients by hand (no big mortars, no one whose 
job this is) and time limits (gotta get the feast courses out on 
schedule), so i rely on modern tools like food processors, blenders, 
and electric grinders. I do have a variety of mortars and hand 
grinders that i use at home.

Also, when i'm preparing for a feast, I like to look at the 
"redactions" of others, if they are available, and often they are 
not. I feel quite free to interpret the original differently, as 
seems right to me, from that of some published modern author. Often 
it seems to me the modern chef has taken liberties that go far beyond 
what is implied by the original.

>I believe that my finished product is close to what was intended by the
>original receipt, but one can never know for sure.

Indeed. I have eaten quite a few Cameline Sauces by different chefs 
and every one has been distinctly different.

>     Apparently your definition of redaction is bigger than mine.  For I
>have always understood the word to mean a process of determining modern
>measurements for ingredients, and I really do not do this, written or
>otherwise.  If the receipt is not specific, I simply add until it
>seems right at the time, as I suspect the period cooks did.

When i cook for myself, it tends to be "by feel". Even when i use a 
recipe, i almost never follow it to the letter. When i lived in 
Indonesia i bought a lot of Indonesian cookbooks - i.e., books 
written by Indonesians, in Bahasa Indonesia, and printed in Indonesia 
for the benefit of Indonesians - and brought them home with me when i 
moved back to the States. When they give quantities, they say "a 
glass of..." (and what size is that glass?), or "enough". At least 
i've eaten many of the dishes, so i have an idea of how they're 
supposed to taste.

However, i frequently use historic recipes for feasts for 75 to 150 
people. When i have 6 to 10 cooks helping - and especially when i am 
asking them to cook some of the dishes at home and bring them to the 
event, i feel i need to be more specific. One of my helpers is a 
semi-professional chef. She'd feel comfortable making free with a 
vague modern recipe, but is still insecure with Medieval and 
Renaissance food. I have found, to my disappointment, that when i 
pass along recipes, my cooks have been trying to follow them exactly. 
While i think my recipes taste fine (i get this impression from the 
diners, too, although i've had my share of "problem" dishes), i feel 
that a good cook can, nay, should leave his or her own distinctive 
touch on a dish.

>     This is a sore spot for me, which is the only reason I have delurked
>here.  I have been marked down in competitions for not including my
>redactions.

Well, i know that in competitions, the judges want to know how much 
of each thing you used. So perhaps you could compromise for them, and 
write down more or less what you used for their benefit.

Anahita