[Sca-cooks] Culinary Philosophy was Tree Saps: Was New World Food
Terry Decker
t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net
Sat Apr 26 16:09:54 PDT 2008
By this logic, we can make a perfectly good case that MacDonald's hamburgers
are period (in fact Adamantius has done just that to the vast amusement of
the list). The proper term for what you support is "speculation." Absence
of evidence is not evidence of absense, but it's not historic fact either.
If you produce something in a Medieval manner for which there is no
evidence, that is not a historic fact either. It is your modern "perioid"
creation.
The name of the game for a number of us on this list is "historical
accuracy." We take what we can document (culinary history) and try to
reproduce it as close to the original as we can (historical cooking). When
discussing it, we try to distinguish between fact, interpretation and
speculation. It doesn't always work that way but we try.
"Period" covers at least a thousand years and numerous cultures. Magyar
horse steak tenderized under the saddle and capon in orange sauce are both
period, but serving them together is not historically accurate. As for
blancmange, how many centuries and countries do those variant recipes
represent? What is the evolution of those recipes? Simply equating all of
the blancmange recipes as "documentation" suggests that you may be using
"creativity" to mask a limited knowledge of the subject rather than as a
tool to enhance your knowledge.
How you play this game is, of course, up to you. I like to take transcripts
or translations of period recipes and work out how to prepare the dish.
I'll take a group of recipes that are appropriate for a time and place and
create a feast from them. My last feast was Italian. The one before it
Elizabethean. And they were both very creative, very satisfying and totally
documented. I enjoy chasing odd tid-bits of history and researching pieces
of the march of culinary history. I've been wrong, I've made errors, and
I've tried to learn from my mistakes. Working inside the constraints of
documentation actually expands knowledge and creativity in ways that pure
speculation can't.
I hope you will create your own version of the historical accuracy game.
Bear
>
> Well there is the difference I suppose. I don't think we have to have it
> in the written word or a painting to believe that someone, somewhere,
> given the tools, and skills of the time, wouldn't have tried it.
>
> There are hundreds of thousands of things we do everyday that aren't
> written down in a book, or a picture painted of. It doesn't mean it
> didn't happen, only means that no one bothered to record it.
>
> I think that this documentation is good for base, it gives us what tools,
> processes, techniques, and goods were generally available, but I don't
> think I need limit myself to only those dishes we have recipes for, or
> only those techniques dipicted in paintins and tapestries.
>
> If I'm using the same tools, etc, and stumble across mixing two things
> never mentioned as mixed, or cook something using a different process that
> was available then, I don't feel it's less period because I can't document
> this very dish.
>
> We know people played with recipes and techniques even back then. Look at
> the variations of 'documented' recipes for Blancmanger. I agree we need
> to be as period as we can, but don't think we should leave out creativity
> for the sake of documentation.
>
> Eira
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