[Sca-cooks] Redactions for SCA use?

[Gretchen Beck]

--On Thursday, December 09, 2010 9:02 AM -0800 David Friedman 
<ddfr at daviddfriedman.com> wrote:

> My own feeling is that getting people to try cooking from the original
> recipe, with any needed hand holding, is more useful than getting them to
> cook from someone else's redaction. That's part of the point of our
> cooking workshops. It's more interesting and exciting--you may  be
> cooking something that nobody has made for the past five hundred
> years--and easier than people expect.


I think this depends on the person and the intended purpose. For some 
people, working backwards from the recreation to the original is more 
useful than the other way around, because it works within a more 
comfortable and familiar skill (following explicit directions involving 
food). Learning to work from a description (whether medieval or modern) is 
a skill unto itself.

Also, if these are folks unfamiliar and wary or medieval food, using the 
redactions is a good way to give them a starting point -- "here's someone 
else's thoughts on this recipe, see it's not wierd at all!"...and go from 
there "do you agree, or disagree with this interpretation?  Why or why not?"

toodles, margaret