New World Foods- was Re: [Sca-cooks] Earthapples eyc

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> Bless you!  I haven't done much period culinary research, more
botanical/herbal of what was actually available, herbal usage, growing
habits, etc.  I was under the impression that earthapples were only eaten
raw, and of course, that they were one of the "evil" New Worlde things....

New World foods aren't evil, they just need to be used appropriately in our
recreations- I think any of us who are serious about cooking in period would
agree with that.

The problem is that they AREN'T used appropriately. Too often, some Queen
somewhere will declare chocolate candy period, or someone will declare white
potatoes period, and declaring something so doesn't make it so.

My thought on the topic is that we're trying to learn about the Middle Ages
as they were when people actually lived in them. With that in mind, I've
been experimenting over the years at Pennsic with period meso-American
foods. I'd dearly love to do a Spanish feast, with the chocolatl drink as
part of it, but you'd never find me trying to make, say, a chocolate/vanilla
swirl cheesecake and corn on the cob as part of a period northern German
meal, and pretending "Well, they COULDA done it." It's just not something
people would have done at that when/ where.

I have no objection to New World foods at all- love most of them- but I
don't like to see them in places they don't belong. My SERIOUS objections
come whe someone makes what's called "perioid" foods because they're too
lazy to try to study what was actually done. As Adamantius has said, period
minced beef with white bread buns, etc does not mean that hamburgers are
period.

If you want to make and serve a modern meal, do it, and do it well. If you
want to serve a period meal, do THAT, and do it well. If you want to
gradually experiment, and start adding period recipes to your modern menu,
do that, too, just as you might add items from any other cuisine to your
repertoire. But don't be dishonest about it, or lazy, and pretend something
is what it isn't. If you're going to try to break the barriers, break the
barriers in your own abilities Medieval foods are perfectly fine as they
are.


Saint Phlip,
CoD

"When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a hammer."
 Blacksmith's credo.

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....