[Sca-cooks] Fadalat: Stuffed Eggs

[Lilinah]

Alys wrote:
>Urtatim wrote:
>>Again, i know i'm being rather literal, but i want this to sound like
>>a Medieval recipe, not a 21st C. recipe. Since Medieval English
>>recipes say to "cast" ingredients into pots, that's what i've used
>>instead of a more "modern" term.
>
>Well, if I may add an alternate view... The only reason medieval recipes
>sound "medieval" is because they were written so long ago.  They didn't
>sound "antique" to the people of those times.  I would propose putting a
>translation into more current language with the medieval word perhaps in
>parentheses.  While we might understand "cast" and other similar words, not
>everyone will.  And, word order reversed sometimes is which confusing might
>be to readers.  Perhaps two versions could be offered?  A more literal one
>with the punctuation as in the original and a modernized version with more
>appropriate wordings and modernized punctuation??
>
>Alys, quibbling

Hey, quibble all you want. This is a great place to express opinions 
- reasonably, of course, but we know YOU are reasonable :-)

See, many recipe authors have a particular style to their writing. 
Now, obviously in this case i don't know how much the Spanish 
translator kept the flavor of al-Tugibi's writing... i'll be taking a 
good Arabic class this year, so i hope i'll be able to work on some 
of these in their original forms - but for now i'd like to keep some 
of the flavor of the translations, at least.

Sometimes one can tell that a cookbook is not by one author, but 
actually a collection from different books, by the variations in 
style and turn of phrase used. So i like to retain aspects of the 
original style in my translations.

And I really DON'T want Medieval recipes to read like modern ones. I 
like archaisms - not added gratuitously, of course, but right there 
in the originals. I like those turns of phrase that seem awkward to 
us now but are inherent in the original languages.

I don't want Forme of Cury or the Apician cookbook to sound like "Joy 
of Cooking" or the Betty Crocker Cookbook.

But, hey, that's just ME quibbling :-)
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita