[Sca-cooks] Norse Pies (was period cookies)

[Lonnie D. Harvel]

Phlip wrote:

>But, can't you taste a food, in your head? 
>

Most modern cuisine, yes. Medieval, no (at least not yet).

Being able to form an accurate mental response model is a subjective 
process based on experience. For example, if I asked someone to describe 
the color "Papaya Whip" to me, they most likely wouldn't have much 
success. If they were familiar with the color of papaya's, they would 
get closer. If they knew that "whips" in decorating mean a color just a 
bit to dark to be an off-white, they might get closer yet. Often in 
fixing food in the SCA period I am: using techniques that I am not 
familiar with and not exactly sure what the results should be, using 
ingredients (like spices) that I am not familiar with, or using 
ingredients in combinations that are outside of my current experience. 
These days I can usually make a fairly accurate guess, but I am a long 
way from having enough experience to taste in my head unless the dish 
has a strong resemblance to a modern dish I am familiar with.

Remember a good while back I posted a message having to do with my 
troubles in redacting recipes. In stead of redacting /from /the 
medieval, I tend to redact /towards/ the modern. A subtle but important 
difference. To often, the recipe being "correct" is based on my modern 
palette. I believe the two issues are related.

Aoghann