[Sca-cooks] "The Medieval Kitchen"

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

I wrote:
> My biggest frustration with the book is that the recipes in their
> original languages are in the waaaaay back of the book and they're in
> a medieval-oid typeface. That is, my two biggest frustrations with
> the book are...

And Stefan replied:
> I'm not sure if you are mainly complaining because the originals were  
> in a separate section or because they were done in the "medieval"  
> type.

I set it up like the old Monty Python "Spanish Inquisition" routine, where they say they have a certain number of methods and then always enumerate one more...

I have two complaints.

> If the originals are facsimiles of the original document, then  
> I don't see a way around it,

I wouldn't complain about facsimiles, 'cuz that would be as close as i'm likely to get to "the real thing". In fact, i do own several facsimile cookbooks, and, yes, they can be a bit difficult to read, but that's how they really looked.

As for "The Medieval Kitchen", i would prefer to have had the original recipes in their original languages just before the translations. Barbara Santich in the much shorter "The Original Mediterranean Cuisine" (another of my favorite recipe compendia) has them side by side, with her modern "redaction" underneath. I think that or something like that would have worked fine.

Second, the original language recipes, for reasons known only to the book designer, are set in some iteration of Ye Olde Type Fayce, which definitely makes them hard to read.

> but I often have real problems with   
> publishers and people using a medievalesque font just to look  
> medieval, since I often have to take extra time figuring out what the  
> letters really are. The same goes with the important details of SCA  
> event flyers and map directions.

I can deal with some variation on Ye Olde Type Fayce for titles or headers. But frankly they  suck for a body of text. And for directions! Sheesh! Fortunately no one has lost their senses like that around here.

It's annoying enough to me, and i can read fine, but that must be terrible torture for anyone with vision problems or dyslexia!
---
Urtatim (that's urr-tah-TEEM)
the personal formerly known as Anahita