[Sca-cooks] Honey Butter

[David Friedman]

>I was introduced to honey butter in the late 60s in the mundane world by my
>grandma. The Red Roof Inn (?) or a restaurant that was near one had honey
>butter and fresh baked bread. Also had a huge hive on one side of the
>restaurant behind glass.
>I had understood that honey butter became a staple at feasts due to a
>misunderstanding that the recipe was from a medical manuscript and for
>medicinal purposes.

I think that's wildly unlikely. The medicinal reference is from 
Anthimus. So far as I know, I was the first person in the SCA to 
discover Anthimus as a very early cooking source, and that was long 
after honey better use was widespread.

>But back then people grabbed whatever
>Medieval/Renaissance recipe they could find. I remember in the early
>eighties the beer bread that was always served as the dessert at 4 local
>events in a row due to the lack of recipes. And then there are the
>experiments that should have been pre tested. Like the sweet and sour kidney
>beans at one event. Looked bad, smelled bad, and yep, tasted bad.

And kidney beans are from the New World.

By the early eighties--or for that matter the early-seventies--there 
were lots of period recipes findable. The sort of things you are 
describing weren't--and aren't--the result of grabbing whatever 
medieval/Renaissance recipe someone could find. They were the result 
of grabbing modern recipes that the person doing the grabbing either 
thought sounded as though they might be period or liked.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com