Rant on research; was, Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Coffyns

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Martin G. Diehl:

>I didn't read all of the 68 old messages, but there was
>quite a bit of back and forth discussion about including
>v. not including original source ... in order to check the
>accuracy of the readaction as printed. 
>
>Some voiced the opinion (YOU know who you are <g>) that
>they would never use and/or trust a reference that omitted
>the original text.

Again, I think this is a group dynamic thing: we're a bunch of people 
in Gunthar's Virtual Living Room, and sometimes odd things get said, 
without them actually being painted on Gunthar's living room wall and 
the approval of the community. Some of us have been sort of 
conditioned to think in those terms: you hear something criticized, 
or compared at a disadvantage to something else, and over time it 
becomes Evil Incarnate to some people. My own feeling is, how badly 
off-base is a modern author likely to get when the recipe is more or 
less written in modern English anyway, which most Tudor recipes are 
(or almost are)?

However, it's a fact that strange, unjustifiable changes have been 
introduced into recipe adaptations for reasons that we cannot 
necessarily fathom (see Cosman, M.P., and red licorice whip 
garnishes), and seeing something like a facsimile of the original 
text is usually a big help in distinguishing between the changes made 
because the secondary-source author misunderstood (or, for that 
matter, clearly understood) the text, or because (s)he doesn't like 
onions, not even a little bit. Or has a marked liking for red 
licorice whips.

I consider the idea that a source has no value if it doesn't quote a 
full recipe text in its original language to be extremist, and you 
may have figured out by now that I don't approve of extremism ;-). On 
the other hand, for example, the paperback edition of, say, Millham's 
translation of Platina, which does not (IIRC) include the original 
Latin text, is clearly and demonstrably not as good as the hardcover 
edition, which does. If that makes me an evil decryer/critic of 
secondary sources, so be it, but I prefer to see it as a preference 
for working with the best tools I can get in any given situation. To 
me, it's a pleasant and effective marriage of practicality, 
expedience, and optimism. If all I have is somebody's translation to 
work with, that's fine, but I can't ignore the fact that it's 
possible that that person (or, for that matter, I) made a mistake 
somewhere along the line. A source where this stuff is checkable is, 
for the wise researcher, to be preferred. That doesn't make the other 
sources bad. If anyone on this list has promulgated such an idea, it 
only exposes them as poopyheads, and as such, constitutes no stain on 
the Public Thing.

>  The SCA-Cooks archives should help with reserching this
>authorship question ... see August and September of 2003.

I'm sure it could. Would you like to get back to me when you have it 
all sorted out? [Extra big ;-)] I'm not in a big hurry [Another extra 
big ;-) ]

Adamantius, Blissfully Ignorant
-- 




"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?"
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