[Sca-cooks] Overdocumentation with food content

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Well, there are a bunch of different issues now in this thread and i 
won't address them all. Note, there is a RECIPE at the end of this 
message :-)

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As for authenticity, well, i'm for it. I view it as a challenge and a 
delight. I *_love_* doing research and then attempting, however badly 
to put it into practice. I'm certainly not perfect yet, and i do 
compromise in some areas. But that won't stop me from continuing to 
do research and trying it out. This is a creative process.

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As for "authenticity nazis" - i *_hate_* that term. I find it really 
deeply disturbing. I believe the people using it have no idea what 
the Nazis actually did.

No matter how rude and offensive someone in the SCA may be, they will 
not arrest you and your family, steal all your property of value and 
destroy whatever else remains, imprison you and your family and kill 
you, by working you to death as a slave laborer while starving you 
and maybe performing hideous "scientific" experiments on you, then 
take out your gold teeth if you have any and hoard them.

Nope, these people may be rude and insensitive, but they are 
certainly not Nazis.

Why not just call them what they are? Rude!

So far i haven't experienced such people although i keep hearing 
about them (OK, i've experienced rude people but not rude about my 
garb or my food). I went to my first event in silver lame pants and 
was introduced to many Royal Peers and Laurels and no one said a peep 
about those obnoxious pants. And no non-Peer toddled over to me to 
berate me, either.

In fact, i was once excited about discovering some Medieval Egyptian 
shoes that looked a lot like some Ren Fair shoes i had (the soles 
were different but the upper was very similar). I have foot problems, 
so i won't soon be wearing period shoes, but i like to wear shoes 
that don't scream 20th or 21st century. So it was cool to find these 
shoes and i was talking about them to a friend. A woman passing by 
came over to reassure me in a pleasant way that i didn't have to wear 
period shoes.

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As for contests, i don't like them. But i have been the Arts Minister 
for my Principality and i am now the Silver Spoon Minister for my 
Principality, overseeing cooking competitions. I've entered very few 
- Arts: illumination, Sciences: cooking, and a Spoon (cooking 
competition) - scored well in all of them, and actually won one 
(knitting).

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And persona? Well, i would like to play in persona, but that's hard 
to do when running an A&S  or Silver Spoon competition or operating 
Gold Key (yes, i'm Kingdom Gold Key, too) which i spend much of each 
event doing. Don't get me wrong, i like doing stuff - i wouldn't have 
volunteered to do these things otherwise. But none of these jobs is 
particularly "period". Heck, being Gold Key in persona could be very 
off-putting to the newcomers and visitors with whom i am dealing. I 
spent a long time as a Ren Fair actor, and i know how off-putting 
being in persona could be to paying customers who thought i was 
either very weird or crazy or both (what the heck were they 
expecting?). Nor would it work for the kinds of classes i teach at 
Collegia and our A&S Tourney. But i used to hang out with a couple 
friends who liked playing in persona and we'd go around events are 
our personae. Alas, both have moved to The East, to, uh, Carolingia i 
think.

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Anyway, this all has little to do with cooking. I'm still looking for 
Spanish recipes. Several of those mentioned here were already on my 
"short list", but that list is darn short for the Spanish and seems 
to be entirely sweets. We already have eight Near or Middle Eastern 
recipes - that includes recipes from the anonymous Andalusian 
cookbook.

I'm *excited* that we plan to make a 9th or 10th century Abbasid 
recipe for chicken on a bed of pomegranate seeds and chopped cucumber 
with an almond-mustard sauce and decorated with olives.

Barida
David Waines, "In a Caliph's Kitchen", pp. 82-83

Waines' Comments:
This cold dish made from chicken was devised by Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi. 
The recipe is expressed in poetic form, not surprising from a man who 
was not only a gourmand, but well known as a poet too. He describes 
the dish as perfect summertime fare. The physician al-Razi observes 
that such dishes of the bawarid type, when made with vinegar or with 
the juice of sour fruits, serve to cool the temperament and moderate 
it. Qutha and faqqus, mentioned in the original recipe, are species 
of cucumber.

ORIGINAL:
Two parts almonds and sugar and two parts vinegar and mustard mixed 
together in a vessel with partially dried safflower adding colour 
around the [one short word not legible in my photocopy, may be 
"edges"]. Cucumber peeled, qutha and faqqas and pomegranate, chopped 
up small and sprinkled around the vessel. Add a little oil. Take a 
fine young chicken, cooked in vinegar, jointed and cut up in pieces 
and placed over the other ingredients in one vessel. Decorate the 
dish with pomegranate (seeds) and with almonds and olives chopped up 
fine.

Since we haven't made it yet, we don't have a worked out recipe to 
offer, but i'm really looking forward to making this. Because we're 
serving this in a hotel and it's a vigil, not a sit-down dinner, we 
will skin and de-bone the chicken and cut the meat into pieces of a 
reasonable size to make it easier on the diners.

Anahita