[Sca-cooks] paella

[Volker Bach]

Am Samstag, 10. September 2005 08:22 schrieb Stefan li Rous:
> Caelian of Moray replied to me with:
> >   Actually that's what I am going after is it or isn`t it period. I
> > have
> > found several shadowy references in historical accounts in the Iberian
> > peninsula about soldiers, and local populations using shields to cook
> > a meal upon.
>
> Huh? I've always heard that shields were made out of wood, not metal.
> How would you cook on them? Perhaps you are thinking of cooking in a
> helmet?

The source may be talking of using metal bucklers or shield bosses. Generally 
speaking, shields in the medieval Med would have been wood or leather, but 
many had dish-shaped metal bosses that could have been converted to cookware, 
and from the 1300s onwards (possibly earlier, but I doubt it personally) you 
get all-metal bucklers that would answer the purpose even better. By the 
Renaissance, some full-size round shields were made of metal, and in Spain 
these remained part of regular military kit into the 17th century. So, 
possible. Nonetheless, all told this sounds like a Victorian tale. I wouldn't 
use my shield to cook with any more than my sword (metal generally reacts 
badly to heating) and any kind of dish could be made in pans much more 
easily. After all, there were metal pans in very large sizes. 


> > The only common thread is grain or legumes. Meats, fowl, sea
> > food ,
> > ranged depending on where your making the dish. Real thin thread some
> > what
> > stretched to the breaking point thread. But what is the point of
> > going after
> > the easy. After all is it not what we are about in the end of things.
> > Finding out the little bits of reality within the time frame.
>
> I think though that we need to be careful of all those little bits
> and assembling them into something that wasn't really there. As well
> as the exceptions and one of a kind items. Personally I have a
> preference for useable A&S objects. We often tend to make our
> medieval replicas based on what survives in museums and collections.
> Often, the reason we have those items is that they were special
> pieces and were never used, and may have never been made to be used.
> They were handed down from generation to generation because they were
> art pieces rather than practical pieces. The useable, practical
> pieces were used until they were worn out or converted into something
> else. End of rant.

My main question here would be whether there actually is such a thing as a 
paella 'recipe'. Admittedly I don't know very much about Spanish food, but to 
me the basic principle of Paella always seemed to be 'take rice and whatever 
stuff you have on hand'. In which case we are unlikely to find any such 
recipe. Not unless it really is a survival from the days of Al Andalus and we 
have a genuine al-Paheliyya manuscript hidden away somewhere :)

Giano


	

	
		
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