[Sca-cooks] roast turkey

[Bill Fisher]

On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 17:13:53 -0800 (PST), Chris Stanifer
<jugglethis at yahoo.com> wrote:
> That having been said, one could argue that the Artichoke is just as period as the turkey, since
> it was known to have been minimally available towards the end of the 15th century, as a cultivated
> version of the Cardoon.  However, the Artichoke does not appear in any known extant cookbook of
> our period of interest, nor has it ever grown wild in any part of the world. 

Well, we just don't have the documentation of the crossbreeding done
to create it.
Cariadoc, Jadwiga, or Adamantius would be the ones to ask about how it came to 
be.  There are many foods that are cultivated in an area that are a
local staple, and
once discovered they spring fully formed onto dinner tables as they spread and
gain popularity.



 I, personally, am of
> the opinion that those foods which were relegated to 'curiosities', or very difficult to find,
> should be excluded from the mainstream SCA gastronomique.  Potatoes, Corn, Turkey, Artichokes,
> Chocolate, etc...

I would say if you are doing a strictly documentable feast (I know
there are recipes in
period for the above items, but I don't have them) then yeah, don't
cook with them.

If you were to do a feast featuring foods available in period, sure. 
It would be a fun
feast to take these ingredients and use them in a period context. "A
pottage of maize"
"a fry of turkey"   or even "Arytichoke Pye".  To take them out of
context and use them
as if you had never seen them before would be a fun thing to do,
refreshing even.

But to just re-iterate modern recipes, that would not be fun.

> Now, don't get me wrong.... I'm not saying these things aren't delicious....merely that the mere
> presence of those items within our time frame does not, necessarily, mean that they were widely
> available or even commonly used in the regions in which they *were* available.

Nope, just means they were there.

> As for the right noble Turkey, I adore the ugly bastards, and find them about as far from
> 'Mundane' as I do Lamb, Venison or any game meat.  The flesh is flavorful and versatile, and I
> feel it requires as much respect as any of the 'period' birds of Western Europe.  It's big enough
> to have kicked all of those other birds' asses, anyway :)

Yeah, a wild turkey is a worthy opponent, and they taste completely
different than
the schwarzzenturkies we get "all pumped up" from the store these days.   If 
I could do a feast where the only meat was wild turkey (or we could just serve
Wild Turkey...who would care about the feast then?) and make it feasible, I 
would.


Cadoc

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