[Sca-cooks] Mustard

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Terry Decker:
>>>While I don't disagree with you, you are making the assumption 
>>>that the mustard would have been added to improve the taste rather 
>>>than be left out because it would be humorally harmful or 
>>>inappropriate in the dish.
>>>
>>>As for the term authentic, I would point out that both dishes 
>>>described are authentic, but yours is not historically accurate.
>>>
>>>Bear
>>
>>But, and I don't have a source with me, wasn't mustard often
>>on the table as a condiment? Sounds like such a case to me. "These
>>french fries are good, but better with some ketchup. Or, more
>>to my mind, I like mustard with corned beef but add it after the cooking
>>process instead of during. Now, the recipe doesn't state to add mustard
>>but neither do most modern recipes when discussing condiments
>>that can be used.
>>
>>Just a thought.
>>
>>Gunthar
>
>My understanding is the mustard was being added in the kitchen, 
>which, in accordance to the recipe, would be historically inaccurate 
>(unless of course there is an attribution to "scribal error").
>
>Condiments on the table are in the province of the diner not the 
>cook, so they might or might not have been added to any individual's 
>portion of anything.  Without actual reference to how they were 
>used, we can only assume they were used in the same manner we use 
>them.  Safe assusmption, but not necessarily historically accurate.
>
>At the Protectorate feast where you presented me your Iris ribbon, 
>I sent out fish with apple and wine sauce and chicken with orange 
>sauce and there were mustard and marmalade on the table.  At the 
>tables, the sauces, mustard and marmalade got added to dishes in 
>strange and curious ways.  I hewed to the recipes and made the 
>dishes as historically accurate as I could.  They were eaten as the 
>diners chose to eat them.  Authentic, yes.  Historically accurate, 
>unproven.
>
>Bear

I don't know whether mustard would have been a discretionary table 
condiment or not, except in certain cases. It may be as it often is 
today, where you're more likely to find mustard on the table, or even 
serve it, as an accompaniment to, say, corned beef or various smoked 
sausages, but less likely when poached filet of sole is served.

Interestingly enough, one of the more fun aspects of the text of The 
Enseignements, a short French cookery text (kind of a proto-Viandier 
pre-Taillevent) is full of cases where it'll say things like:

Fresh pork is eaten roasted with fine salt and verjuice only, the 
salted gets mustard.

Fresh herring are eaten fried and then baked in a pasty, then removed 
and served with green sauce made from parsley, garlic, and bread 
crumbs moistened in verjuice. And the salted gets mustard.

Adamantius Bob says check it out:

http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~gloning/1300ens.htm


Adamantius
-- 




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them 
eat cake!"
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
	-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry 
Holt, 07/29/04