[Sca-cooks] PLEYN delit was Plentyn Delit, now taught to cook

[Johnna Holloway]

I think it rather matters a great deal in what one is doing with
the dish. If at home and making dinner for the family--- experiment.
A potluck dish that you never intend to make again-- fine-- have fun.
But that being said--- If you are working on trying to write 
documentation for a contest
or in writing an article or a recipe that is going to be published 
someplace,
then please take the time to get it right and make it reasonable.
And be honest. Write it as down as it really was made.
Don't microwave the dish and tell the judges that one baked it 
(especially when
in fact the original recipe calls for the dish to stewed.) Don't think
that the folks eating the dish won't notice the canned ingredients, even
if the recipe indicates that they ought to be freshly prepared. Was it 
really
4 pounds of fruit or 6 cans?
I may not always publish my exact recipes when doing a dessert sideboard,
but I have a notebook at home that records what I did, used, and in what 
amounts
for what was served. It's a valuable record for recreating recipes and
a good habit to get into doing when working with historic cookery.

Johnnae llyn Lewis

>>
>> To be honest in a situation where honesty in this may not be taken 
>> well by everyone, the fact is that some people who cook by eye simply 
>> aren't interested in reproducible or consistent results, if taking 
>> the time to measure stuff and wash the little spoons and cups is what 
>> that costs. snipped
>> And then, some of the most gosh-awful cooking (and especially baking) 
>> I've ever encountered has come from people who not only cook by eye, 
>> but who frequently use the dread expression, "Been there, done that." 
>> snipped
>> Recipes exist as either a memory aid or a teaching tool, and if the 
>> cook who is supposed to be receiving input from the recipe is simply 
>> taking the ingredients list and throwing the ingredients together in 
>> whatever way they feel like at the spur of the moment, the results 
>> may be good, but not necessarily what the original cook intended (is 
>> it in the first edition of Pleyn Delit or maybe To The King's Taste 
>> where mortrews ends up as meatloaf?). snipped
>> For period cookery, though, while I agree that it can be a better 
>> re-creative experience to simply follow the period recipe as written, 
>> filling in the missing details as best you can, instead of following 
>> someone else's opinions on the matter. But that's not the same as 
>> thinking the original cook, who did not include this information, did 
>> not care what was done, or that anything goes.
>>
>> Adamantius 
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