[Sca-cooks] So what's new was Period or no? Beets

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Johnna Holloway wrote:
>I just couldn't believe that the list was back to beets and leaves again.
>  Pumpkins maybe-- it's that season or even favorite apple recipes.
>
>  So what are folks doing with their next feasts or projects?

Well, i haven't head cooked any feasts for a year, although i've 
assisted at a couple. And there are a couple more this year with 
which i may help.

As far as projects:
I counted all the spices, herbs, sweeteners, souring agents, murri, 
etc. in both al-Baghdadi and the Andalusian cookbook (although i 
skipped the sweets, since that would skew the information), then i 
put the data in tables, and did a little comparison.

I had done most of the al-Baghdadi/Andalusian count at the end of 
last year/beginning of this, but most of the data was lost in a 
catastrophic hard drive crash at the end of February, so i pretty 
much had to start over.

I've even got it HTML'ed, but i haven't loaded the three pages up to 
my site yet. I felt that perhaps my analysis was limited (maybe i 
wasn't seeing things that were there), and i wanted some other input 
from people more used to data analysis. So I showed it it "my Laurel" 
(a Ph.D. in Linguistics who is a fabulous researcher and who likes 
counting and compiling data), and she thought i'd done ok - asked the 
right questions...

I guess i should load it up and ask listees here to comment on it...

I am also thinking of going through al-Baghdadi and the Andalusian to 
note the spices used to season particular main ingredients to see if 
there's more or less generic or random seasoning, or it there are 
particular combinations that are used with lamb as opposed to other 
combinations used with fowl... This will take a lot longer to 
compile, but i'll probably get around to it. Since the Andalusian is 
compiled from a number of other books, which appear to be lost now, i 
expect some inconsistency.

So, if folks are interested in what i've done so far, let me know, 
and i'll put it on my site and send the URLs to this list...

Anahita