[Sca-cooks] Periodoid sallads
marilyn traber 011221
phlip at 99main.com
Tue Apr 25 17:18:40 PDT 2006
> 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
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