[Sca-cooks] Substitute for Potatoes?

[David Friedman]

>We
>should look to these books and these recipes for general ideas and not
>specific things that cannot be changed.  At least that is my interpretation
>of "creative anachronism".  We should strive to know what has happened
>before, what might be good to keep and what should be amended and then
>document what we have changed so that we can show the relationship between
>the old and the new.

The problem is that, at least until you've cooked and eaten lots of 
dishes that are from period recipes, you don't know what changes are 
consistent with their cuisine, so using the recipes "for general 
ideas" risks morphing them in the direction of modern culinary tastes.

To put it differently, the people who wrote those recipes down knew 
more about their period cuisine than any of us know. So if our 
attitude is "it would be better if," we are likely to be changing 
away from what they would have done.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com