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

[Ron Carnegie]

lilinah> I find that many of the recipes i've been using pretty much just list 
lilinah> ingredients and have no quantities (and a lump of butter the size of 
lilinah> a walnut is a quantity, as far as i am concerned).
lilinah> 
lilinah> For example:
lilinah> Hypotrimma. Pepper, lovage, dry mint, pine nuts, raisins, Jericho 
lilinah> date, sweet cheese, honey, vinegar, fish sauce,oil, wine, defrutum or 
lilinah> caroenum
lilinah> [Apicius, Book I, Chapter XIX]

	That's true.  This is where the art of cookery is found.  

lilinah> First, what it this? It was in a chapter with sauces. But some 
lilinah> chapters contain a variety of dishes, or the occasional dish that is 
lilinah> different slips into a chapter. So, is it a sauce, a spread, a savory 
lilinah> snack? If a sauce, what sort of dish should it accompany? It doesn't 
lilinah> say...
lilinah> 
lilinah> Because it was preceded and followed by sauces, i'm making it a sauce 
lilinah> and serving it in the Primera Mensa (main course). However, another 
lilinah> book on Roman cooking i read, one with some recipes, but mostly 
lilinah> history, interpreted this as a savory to be served at the end of the 
lilinah> meal in the Seconda Mensa ("dessert" course) (Patrick Faas, Around 
lilinah> the Roman Table: Food and Feasting in Ancient Rome).

	This is exactly the sort of thing that I DO document.   What I
didn't know and so made interpretive guesses.  (I wouldn't usually do
this on my ingredient qualities however).  I also would document
exceptionally period techniques I had used or non-period techniques and
ingredients giving the reason for them.  (Non-availability etc.).   One of the
problems I am seeing in this discussion is that we are using different
definitions of the word documentation.  This is probably due to an
internal bias as a historian.  I have always used documentation as
historical documentation.  Therefore my documentation is the receipt,
what sources I may need to defend certain options I have taken
(techniques, historic availability of ingredients, definitions of terms
etc.)   I am now seeing that for many of you, the documentation probably
includes the aforementioned but also how it tends to be used in business. 
(i.e. Documenting your actions or words).  

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

    The most vague receipt I have ever seen is actually from a far more
modern cookbook.  I do not recall the name of the book, though it is in
our  library here in the house.  Perhaps my wife will remember when she
reads this.  The receipt is Aunt (can't remember her name)'s Cake.  The
receipt, "Add some of this and some of that, use your judgement and it
will be fine".  This would either be very easy to duplicate or very
difficult depending upon your point of view!

lilinah> Second, when cooking for 80 or 90, i can't just add a dollop of this 
lilinah> or that, as i go noodling along, as i might at home. The event is not 
lilinah> *just* a feast. We have a schedule to fit into, and i have to know 
lilinah> how much to buy well ahead of time. I am not criticizing or 
lilinah> denigrating your method. It works fine when one is cooking at home or 
lilinah> for a small group or responsible only for a few dishes at a feast.
lilinah> 
lilinah> I have to write down my "redaction", so i can repeat it, and multiply 
lilinah> up the ingredients so i have enough at the feast. Of course, with 
lilinah> this kind of "creative straitjacket" you may choose not to be a Head 
lilinah> Cook, and i respect whatever decision you make for yourself. We have 
lilinah> many freedoms in our approach to historical cultures in the SCA.

   	    I did correct myself on this earlier.  I don't generally
cook for the masses.  I have cooked for our camp at Pennsic with my wife
(period food but a mixture of modern and period equipment) and I have
cooked a dayboard for an event.  Outside of the SCA period I have cooked
an 18th century wedding feast in a down hearth kitchen with a brick oven and
a number of 19th century officer meals for the staff and once the
complete complement of the Army of the Pacific's officers over a
campfire.  Our Interbaronial Twelve Night this January will be my first
proper SCA feast though the kitchen is modern.  In most of these sort of
cases I do work out qualities, though the AOP works in reverse.  There I
have to see what I have available and work out what to do with it.  I
love that challenge.

lilinah> I've chosen to "feed the masses", so i have to have written recipes 
lilinah> for my cooks. When i cook a feast entirely on site, i generally have 
lilinah> 10 or 12 helpers, many of whom have never cooked "period" food (some 
lilinah> are college students with little cooking experience of any sort). I 
lilinah> cannot just turn them loose to experiment in the feast kitchen, i 
lilinah> can't just give them guidance, i have to give them clear directions.
lilinah> 
lilinah> I would say how we deal with historical recipes depends on what we 
lilinah> are doing with them - eating them ourselves (when i cook much as you 
lilinah> do), sharing in a potluck with a household, or feeding a Principality 
lilinah> or Kingdom.

      I think this is a very good point, and probably has a lot of
bearing upon why my wife and I stand where we do, as opposed to most of
the commenters on this list.  Working down hearth in period conditions
is what I am most interested in.  Heck in the kitchen I used to work in
I tried to light my fires properly (by the banked embers of the previous
night hopefully or by flint and steel).  Most of my coworkers thought I
was a loon and would happily toss in a match and maybe even an "easylite"
brick!  I like to experience the skills and environment of the past. 
Working in this sort of environment I think does change some of your
attitudes in a very liberating fashion.  No timers, thermometers,
tempeture gauges, measuring cups.  I did tend to cheat with some spices
using pre-ground for ease and preground sugar for expense, budget could
only afford so many cones a year and 18th century receipts use heaps of
sugar.  Our cones were mostly used, like most of our spices for hands on activity
sake.  This does cause you to rely a lot on judgement and experience.



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

	I do not miss the fire restrictions of living in Caid or the
West!  In fact little I miss from out there save friends family and the
lack of humidity!  Where in the West do you live?  There may be a Living
History Museum that can help you gain some time in a period kitchen
though it is unlikely to be SCA period.  Today much of my cooking is
again restricted to electric, or campfire.  My next house WILL have a
hearth however!

lilinah> When cooking for 80 to 150 people, i do not have the tools or minions 
lilinah> necessary to grind ingredients by hand (no big mortars, no one whose 
lilinah> job this is) and time limits (gotta get the feast courses out on 
lilinah> schedule), so i rely on modern tools like food processors, blenders, 
lilinah> and electric grinders. I do have a variety of mortars and hand 
lilinah> grinders that i use at home.
lilinah> 
lilinah> Also, when i'm preparing for a feast, I like to look at the 
lilinah> "redactions" of others, if they are available, and often they are 
lilinah> not. I feel quite free to interpret the original differently, as 
lilinah> seems right to me, from that of some published modern author. Often 
lilinah> it seems to me the modern chef has taken liberties that go far beyond 
lilinah> what is implied by the original.
lilinah> 
lilinah> 
lilinah> >     Apparently your definition of redaction is bigger than mine.  For I
lilinah> >have always understood the word to mean a process of determining modern
lilinah> >measurements for ingredients, and I really do not do this, written or
lilinah> >otherwise.  If the receipt is not specific, I simply add until it
lilinah> >seems right at the time, as I suspect the period cooks did.

	I have since learned that my definition of redaction was
incorrect.  Figures!  I had never heard the word before it came up in a
SCA context.  Never heard it in my non-SCA foodways experience.  I
checked the OED the other day and the word's current use is specifically a
text reproduction of process.  Important lesson here, learn the meaning
of a new word before you use it? :)

lilinah> When i cook for myself, it tends to be "by feel". Even when i use a 
lilinah> recipe, i almost never follow it to the letter. When i lived in 
lilinah> Indonesia i bought a lot of Indonesian cookbooks - i.e., books 
lilinah> written by Indonesians, in Bahasa Indonesia, and printed in Indonesia 
lilinah> for the benefit of Indonesians - and brought them home with me when i 
lilinah> moved back to the States. When they give quantities, they say "a 
lilinah> glass of..." (and what size is that glass?), or "enough". At least 
lilinah> i've eaten many of the dishes, so i have an idea of how they're 
lilinah> supposed to taste.
lilinah> 
     This is a big part of what I am referring to.  I remember a thread
her some time back regarding using the candied peel of one orange and
there was a number of rather scientific methods presented on how to
determine the amount of peel.  I would a grabbed a bunch until it
looked good and tossed them in.  I might lean on the large side as I
like candied peel (though I don't like candying it).  Heck was size
orange anyway?

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

   Actually I don't enter a lot of cooking contests, having already
followed advice as given by some one earlier on this thread.  
-- 
Ron Carnegie <r.carnegie at verizon.net>
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	"The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that
	 once on this earth, on this familiar spot of ground walked
	 other men and women as actual as we are today, thinking
	 their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions but now
	 all gone, vanishing after another, gone as utterly as we 
	 ourselves shall be gone like ghosts at cockcrow."
				G.M. Trevelyan
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