[Sca-cooks] Differing translations of Apicius

[Stefan li Rous]

Mordonna asked:
> My question to you is why on earth, with a lot of good authors out
> there, you would choose Vehling as worth saving?  He'd be the first I
> threw on the discard file.

Well, you work with what you have. Vehling may or may not be a good 
translation for these examples. I can't right now remember the strong 
and weak points of the various translations of Apicius we have 
discussed. Even knowing that Vehling sometimes makes errors in his 
translations doesn't mean his translation in this case should be 
uncritically discarded (or used). At this time, I have saved the 
message on the food adultering for a new Florilegium file.

I think though, that it would be very nice to have these same sections 
quoted from another of the Apicius translators. We are arguing about 
Vehling's quality of translation yet no one has looked up and posted, 
as far as I've seen so far, anybody else's translations of these same 
sections. For all we know right now, these other translators may say 
essentially the same thing. William did, at least, take the time to 
look up and post those sections. And I thank him for it. It at least 
gives other researchers a start on where to look.

I am debating changing the name of the new Florilegium file from p-food 
"adultering" or "adulteration" to perhaps "fixing" or some such. I 
thought adulteration was deliberately injecting in some non-food item 
as a filler or some such. Not injecting something to improve the taste 
of a food item. I'm also not at all sure these fixes are dealing with 
"rotten" food, as much as food that has "gone off slightly" or is "off 
tasting". Not the same thing. But I have a different file for the pros 
and cons of the "They used spices to cover up the taste of rotten food 
in the Middle Ages" myth. (rotten-meat-msg) This one is more on 
fixing/altering the taste of off-tasting foods, for whatever reason, 
and how they did this in period.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****