[Sca-cooks] Periodoid sallads

[marilyn traber 011221]

> Greetings.
> 
> I have a simple question for my fellow cooks.
> 
> Would you attempt to make a period-style sallet with period salad 
> greens and dressing, but not exactly following one of the extant recipes?
> 
> If so, how would you do it?
> 
> -- 
> -- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net 

_IF_ I were to find a specific recipe, expressing a specific proportion of 
various _specific_ greens, as the Arabs and Chinese tend to do, and _IF_ I 
wanted to make that specific salad, for whatever reason, yes I would. 
However, as we all know, most of the European recipes tend to say that this, 
that, and the other thing are good, with, occasionally specific greens, but 
not specific proportions, so in a case like that, I'd use those specific 
greens, or choices from them (depending on what I could get my hands on) in a 
proportion that seemed good to me. I'd take a similar approach to a salad 
dressing, keeping in mind admonitions such as to be a miser with vinegar and 
a spendthrift with oil.

We need to keep in mind that many of the recipes we work with read as notes 
from one experienced cook to another, and there are admonitions to adjust 
things to one's Lord's taste. A sensible cook in that era will not make 
salads heavy on rocket for a Lord who dislikes rocket, any more than a modern 
cook would for their diners, for example.

As far as the non-specific recipes we have, I'd do as I did for the feast you 
helped me with, and try to find out what would have been available, and 
choose my ingredients from that list of items, using any specific information 
about the ingredients that I had, such as their humoral properties, to make a 
salad balanced in humoral properties. Thus, for example, if, say, lettuce 
were cold to the first degree, and rocket hot to the 3rd degree, I'd make a 
salad proportionally with larger amounts of lettuce, compared to the amount 
of rocket. If, however, I didn't know, I'd simply make a salad that felt 
right to me, as in any other food preperation, where the ingredients are 
known, but not the proportions.

Make any sense?

Phlip