[Sca-cooks] Eleanor Fettiplace, was: Re: The purpose of SCA-Cooks from Isabella de la Gryffin and a Culinary Question

[Helen Schultz]

Huette:
   
  I have the 1986 version of Eleanor Fettiplace (by Spurling)... is that a good one or a not so good one?? It is a single volume, so I guess the latter. <sigh>
   
  ~~Katarina Helene

Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com> wrote:
  Hi Renata!

There are two editions of Fettiplace. The one that is easiest to find is the bad one. It is not
just what Eleanor Fettiplace wrote, but there are recipes added to it for several generations
thereafter. And, unfortunately, Spurling doesn't date the different recipes at all. She does
make mention of this in her foreward, but there is no way to know which are the 1604 recipes and
which are not. The reason that I bring this up is that quite a few years ago we had someone post
that she had found a period recipe for chocolate mousse. We thought that she had been kidding, so
we asked her where she found said recipe. She said she found it in Fettiplace. And it is there,
but it dates actually from the 18th century. If you have the multi-volune edition, you can see
that it is from a later addition to Fettiplace. Unfortunately, the single volume version doesn't
have this distinction and I hesitate to recommend this book to anyone unless they understand that
there are many recipes in that book that are _not_ even remotely period.

Huette

       
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