[Sca-cooks] Recipe Deal Breakers

Laureen Hart LHart at graycomputer.com
Fri Jun 6 16:22:18 PDT 2008


I will pretty much eat anything that doesn't eat me first. I grew up on
whatever was cheap,with lots of additions from uncles who hunted a wide
range of game. We ate a wide range of organ meat, though I don't
remember eating kidneys till I visited England.

I have a really low tolerance for "fiddly" cooking. 
Our mate Zillah can spend hours making cookies where you roll and cut 2
sides, put filling in the middle, and seal the pieces together. She has
done this for feasts...4 or 5 hours of little fiddly cookies. I can
barely be brought to roll out a single layer and cut out shapes. Smash
it in a pan and make bar cookies I say!

I like a good soup/pottage/stew. I am willing to make the base from
scratch, roast the veggies and meat separately, precook the grain or
whatever. But if you want it to be decorative, or anything not "hacked
to gobbetts", I am not your girl. I can be coerced to work on fiddly for
a feast, but not at home.

Other than fiddly, cost would be a deal breaker, as would be expensive
specialized equipment. I have never had to slaughter anything, nor clean
anything but fish, and casings for sausage. It would be hard for me to
slaughter any mammal, but I think I could kill birds if needed. 

If faced with ingredient or process related hitches I look towards
substitutions. If the flavor combo sounds good with lamb...and lamb is
$7/lb then I might try it with pork/beef/chicken even though I know it
isn't exactly the same recipe. 

I learned "Till it be enough" from my mom years before I started cooking
with the SCA. Middle English recipes, quantities and instructions,
weren't abstract to me since my mom was not recipe bound.

I have nothing but admiration for those of you who make "pretty food"
since most pretty food is fiddly.

Randell Raye
Madrone



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