[Sca-cooks] Period or no?

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Stefan li Rous:
>Adamantius commented:
>>That said, variations are fine, as long as we have a realistic view
>>of what changes we made from the original process, and don't attempt
>>to fool ourselves that what we've done is more than conjecture, at
>>best. I do that a lot. I just get a little leery when I hear
>>arguments like this one (or the great 'well, they _could_ have done
>>it'), because they are sometimes [often] used as a sort of excuse for
>>all kinds of weird stuff that doesnt get us any closer to
>>understanding the craft of a medieval cook.



>Okay, I just thought of an example that might help explain this. 
>We've talked about this item before on this list.
>
>If I give you some basic instructions for a modern hamburger, Take a 
>bread roll. Slice it and put inside a patty of grilled, ground meat. 
>Top with some cheese and lettuce and feel free to make changes to 
>suit your taste.
>
>Now, an Australian may likely add a slice of beetroot. But an 
>American is unlike to ever consider doing that. Does the beetroot 
>taste good on a hamburger? Maybe. I'm reserving judgment.

I've never tried it in that context, but I figure it's just another 
pickle. Some people might not even notice, if they weren't so busy 
enjoying the culture shock aspect.

>  But apparently the Australians think it does.

And/or perhaps developed this tradition when cucumber pickles were 
scarce, for whatever reason.

>  But if America and the hamburger recipe is the equivalent of the 
>period food item and its recipe and the Australian is the modern 
>modifying the period recipe, you can see how difficult it is to 
>guess correctly.

And my suspicion is that that even though the two additions in 
question are so different, they're there for basically the same 
reason, which might make it a little surprising that it should be 
hard to predict the exact nature of the change until you see it, but 
that's just how it is.

>  Even for two cultures in the same time, unless you go by a recipe. 
>Much more difficult for two cultures centuries apart.

Well, again, everyone does make some changes. In my own case, since 
I'm not speaking for Stefan, I'll say that it's more important how 
you characterize and represent the changes than whether you make 
them. If you make the leap from, 'period cooks _may_ have departed 
from the original process in this way' to 'well, they _could_ have 
done it: they had chopped beef and beets, after all... you can't 
prove they _didn't_ do it that way even once...', you've probably 
done your target group an intellectual disservice, in finding 
evidence in support of what you want to believe, rather than basing 
your conclusion on all the available evidence.

>
>Stefan
>And I'm sure the Americans can come up with something on their 
>hamburgers and pizzas which the Australians, or the Europeans, would 
>never consider putting on there on their own.

Americans are just jealous because they never invented the pie 
floater ;-) !!! And on an unrelated note, I'm here to report that 
while I'm not surprised that the deep-fried Mars Bar, and the 
deep-fried Twinkie, have hit our shores, I am surprised that people 
are treating it as both innovative cuisine and a piece of news worthy 
of network news coverage. I forget where I saw this, one of the 
network TV news broadcasts, but it concerned the deep-frying 
adventures of an expatriate Englishman living and owning a 
fish-and-chips shop in Brooklyn, New York. No mention was made in the 
story of the... ahem... ancient and venerable tradition of the 
deep-fried Mars Bar as found across the stormy sea...

Adamantius



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