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

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> Well, if you want to get down to brass tacks, I believe the SCA 'period'
is supposed to be
> restricted to Western Europe.  Meso (or any other) American food would be
right out.
>

I beg to differ. Corpora states the "culture and technology of the period in
an enviroment which evokes the atmosphere of the pre-17th century European
Middle Ages and Renaissance." While it's true that the Americas are not
Europe, they certainly had an impact on Europe before 1601, and thus they're
a legitimate field of sudy- just as are the Middle East and Asia, both Minor
and Major. I feel it includes Africa as well, but there's not much known of
sub-Saharan Africa, although super-Saharan Africa was certainly well known.

> I take issue with this kind of thinking.  There is absolutely nothing
wrong with someone trying to
> have fun with period (or 'perioid' or whatever) cooking.  If the person in
question were to make a
> hamburger, and actually try to pass if off as 'period food', then yeah,
they should be admonished.

I don't belive I disagreed with people enjoying themselves- I stated that,
" 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. "

WHEN they're too lazy, not that everyone experimenting is too lazy.

>  However, there is no harm in taking period ingredients and techniques,
and creating new dishes
> using them, if that's what the cook wishes to do.  This does not, in any
way, shape or form,
> indicate that the cook is 'lazy'.  That's a derogatory remark which I find
offensive.

Well, please feel free to be offended. There is nothing wrong with
experimenting- I said as much. Where the wrongness comes in is when the
"experiments" become the entirety of the cook's study of Medieval food.
Unfortunately, most of the experiments that I've seen are by people who are
using modern foods as a template to make pseudo-period foods- and research
will show that never in a million years would a Medieval cook put certain
foods trogether in quite that way. Moyonaisse is and excellent example- they
certainly had all the ingredients, but there is absolutely no evidence I've
seen that Medieval cooks made that type of emulsion- although at one point I
had a recipe that worked out suspiciously like Hollandaise Sauce.

Stefan and Christianna- do either of you (or anyone else) have the recipes
from the lamb butchering class I taught, or from the Potluck that followed?
It was the one using the lamb brains. I had it, but that hard drive went
south on me.

> I think there are two camps in the SCA... those who believe that the only
'serious' cookery is the
> ceremonial reproduction (and re-reproduction) of extant period
recipes...and those who like to
> experiment a little with it, as well.  I think there is plenty of room in
the SCA for both camps,
> but I think they need to learn to respect one another.

I think you need to listen to your own words. There real;ly AREN'T twop
camps, unless someone decides to set them up. I DO experiment, and my
experiments have paid off, by finding similar recipes to what I was
speculating about. The thing is, you're just NOT going to find a "stew" in
the modern sense, for example, in the recorded cuisines of Europe, although
you will find things similar to a moden stew in the Middle Eastern/Arabic
and Mongol cuisines. By the same token, although it was never formalized,
I'm furthermore betting that in times of food shortages, everything would go
into a pot that would fit ;-) That does NOT, however, mean that the petit
nobility _which we are supposed to be trying to reproduce_ would serve a
modern style beef stew at a formal banquet, yet the most common version of a
so-called "perioid" stew that we see is served at formal banbuets, and
consists of meat and  root vegetables found in period, leaving out potatoes
and tomatoes. THAT is the sort of thing I object to.

>  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.
>
> We'll have to disagree on that one.  I can't get my brain around this kind
of thinking.  It just
> doesn't make sense to me.  Maybe that's the difference between a chef and
a scholar or historian,
> I don't know.
>
> William de Grandfort

Dunno- I got taught this sort of thinking by a chef. Which historian taught
you?

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....