[Sca-cooks] Noty or Notye

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Chris Stanifer:
>  > > Is this the one?
>>  >
>>  > Noteye. Take a gret porcyoun of Haselle leuys, & grynd in a morter as
>>  > smal as thou may, whyl that they be onge; take than, & draw vppe a
>>  > thrift Mylke of Almaundys y-blaunchyd, & temper it with Freysshe
>>  > brothe;
>
>Anyone have a readable version of this?  I hate trying to filter out 
>that 'y-blaunched' crap.
>
>WdG

Harumph! That "'y-blaunched' crap", as you call it, is as much a part 
of the culture, and therefore the mindset and, ultimately, 
methodology as your dearly-bought modern cook's experience, which 
will tell you, for example, not to just dump the rice flour into the 
dish if you don't want it lumpy. Part of the game we're playing is 
not just to cook, but to learn to think like period cooks.

For a readable version, see my reply to Stefan on this subject.

Of course, reading and cooking a recipe directly from Middle English 
can be a chore, but most people find that reading the recipe out loud 
(as opposed to trying to visualize everything from reading silently) 
helps a lot, and, of course, you can't ignore the value of simple 
practice. I'm probably no more gifted at languages than you, but 
after years of reading this stuff, I can usually pretty much omit the 
separate translation-into-modern-English stage. The real trouble is 
when I'm tired and start tacking "for to make" such-and-such onto the 
beginning of modern recipes, and chiffonade that chervil until yt be 
ynow.

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