[Sca-cooks] Foods for Begining SCA Cooks

[Celia des Archier]

David/Cariadoc quotes the below conversation and asks:
> >>  Does anyone have any suggestions for good foods to introduce to
> newbies?
> >>  The
> >>  recipes must be able to be made the night before and served room
> >>  temperature
> >>  or cold.
> >
> >I've had a good deal of success at demos with meat pasties which are
> sweet
> >rather than savory.
> 
> Do you have period recipes for them?

I intentionally gave only ideas and not recipes because a) I'm not a purist
and I don't know how authentic the original poster wants to be (and I
figured the ideas might lead her to her own versions which would be suited
to her desired level of authenticity) and b) this was more than 20 years
ago, so, no I don't still have recipes.  That said, 

> >  There used to be an introductory SCA cook book which
> >had a recipe in it for "rabbit stew".
> 
> Did it give a period source? SCA publications are sometimes
> historically reliable, sometimes not.

I can't vouch for the reliability of the source I used at the time, as SCA
publications were even more tolerant of things being perioid rather than
period back then. 

In addition, as an SCA cook, unless I'm cooking for an arts competition
where the requirement is that I be reproducing a redacted recipe as
accurately as possible, I'm old school about believing that *Creatively*
anachronistic recipes are acceptable.  My reasoning is this.  Period cooks
didn't write everything down.  Good cooks, modern or from any period,
generally don't slavishly follow recipes anyway... they start with what they
know and then adapt to the tastes of their diners.  I do the same thing with
my SCA cooking.  I try to learn as much as I can about period ingredients,
cooking techniques and common foods as possible, and to stay as close to my
understanding of period cooking styles and ingredients as possible, but I
rarely work from a redacted recipe feeling that I can't experiment from
there.  At most I might begin with a redacted recipe and then modify to my
tastes and the tastes of my diners (with there being rare exceptions when I
find something that I don't think should be messed with, like shortbread ;-)


Again, I expect that Celia would have done the same thing in period.  (And
to me that is the difference, as I explain to people when I'm explaining the
nature of the SCA, between a recreation group and a reenactment group.) :-)
And for "Lady Celia", as a feast steward within the SCA, I consider that to
provide an acceptable level of anachronistic illusion to enhance people's
SCA experience, at least in most cases.

*That* said, 

a) I have to apologize for a misstatement in my previous post.  The recipe I
used for the filling in the pasties was a recipe for "rabbits in sauce", not
"rabbit stew" as I originally stated.  Since the cookbook it was in is now
apparently out of print and I no longer have a copy, I had to work from
memory in researching it.  Taking things from memory, it appears that it was
either based on a period recipe originally, or recreated from period
methods, as I found a similar recipe in the Florilegium
(http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-MEATS/rabbit-dishes-msg.html )  for
"Cold bruet of rabets" which is documented as being  from " _An
Ordindance of Pottage: An
	Edition of the Fifteenth Century Culinary Recipes in Yale
University's
	MS Beinecke 163_ by that Saint of the Society, Constance B. Hieatt.
It's
	a really good book and copies are occasionally avalible through
Posion
	Pen Press.

	The original on page 71 (number 96)
	Cold bruet of rabets." 	

The recipe I used was less complex than that recipe, and didn't include
vinegar, but had many of the same ingredients and produced what I suspect
from the recipes are very similar results.  To my mind it makes the original
recipe that I was working from *reasonably* period in nature, and it makes
the idea acceptable as a working point to begin with.

b) I didn't have a recipe for the "field bread" at all.  I worked from a
standard whole wheat bread recipe used in our Barony as the staple bread,
and then added dried fruit to it.  It would quite probably be more period to
make a biscotti or other type of biscuit or hard tack, but at that point in
time (as a novice SCAer in the early '80s,) I pretty much accepted what my
Mistress told me was o.k. to work with, and since I remembered my Latin
instructor in high school telling me that soldiers in the Roman army often
carried a similar 'field bread", I didn't question the idea.  If folks want
to work with the idea but want to be documentably period, they might want to
check out this article on biscotti (which would also be more portable than
what I did) in the Florilegium:
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BREADS/biscotti-msg.html


c) The stewed fruit was simply dried fruit stewed (apples, apricots, pears
(when I could find them) and dates) stewed in pear brandy.  I know that
there's some debate on whether or not brandy is period, but I've seen enough
arguments that it is (including this argument in the Florilegium
(http://www.florilegium.org/files/BEVERAGES/Peach-Brandy-art.html )
to convince me that it's reasonable to use brandy, rather than wine, and
there are plenty of examples of dried fruit stewed in wine to believe that a
cook might have taken such a liberty.

So, I'm sorry that it was confusing that I didn't provide stringent
documentation, but my intent was not to represent my original creations as
"authentic", and I expected that the ideas would be sufficient starting
points for the original poster to begin with to find recipes which suited
her desired level of authenticity.

> Again, are you referring to a specific period recipe for stewed fruit?
> 
> Or in other words, you pushed one of my buttons.

With all due respect, my Lord... it's your button, not mine, so you'll
forgive me if I don't feel the need to cater to it.  It would be different
if I had posted recipes without documentation, or had claimed that the ideas
were period, but I didn't.  Renata ask for ideas for " good foods to
introduce to newbies" and I just tossed out ideas which had worked well for
me, and which were acceptable within my own group (at least at that time).
I expected her to take those ideas as jumping off points for further study,
not gospel.

I didn't represent the ideas as authentic and the few times I've posted in
the past I've made clear my philosophy on the acceptability of perioid
recipes and the nature of *Creative* Anachronism, so I don't really feel
required to change that philosophy because you have a button.  Since this is
SCA-cooks and not Authentic Cooks (another SCA cooking list to which I
belong, where I would not have posted without documentation) and I recall
discussions of everything from perioiod recipes to such OOP topics as
mayonnaise or Miracle Whip, I didn't feel it would be inappropriate to toss
out ideas and allow the person needing the information to make a
determination on *how* authentically period they wanted to be.  Please
accept that I did not represent, nor was it my intention to represent that
these ideas would be documentable (although it seems that it is possible to
use them to find period recipes which *would* be documentable), nor was it
my intention to either a) do the other cook's research for her or b)
interfere with her right to use her own judgment about how authentic and
documented she wished to be. 

So I do sincerely regret having offended you, my Lord, but no offense was
intended and I hope that any offense that was offered can be forgiven.  And
hopefully this additional clarification will be sufficient information for
any Renata (and other cook interested) to determine whether the ideas are of
value to them and their specific needs or not. 

In service,
Celia