[Sca-cooks] A question of philosophy

Antonia di B C dama.antonia at gmail.com
Sun Jun 5 13:59:49 PDT 2011


On 5/06/2011 8:55 PM, Claire Clarke wrote:
> Anyway, what I'm wondering is, as period cooks, what you think the
> appropriate approach should be:
> 	- no cinnamon if there's no cinnamon in the period recipe (the
> 'we're trying to give people a mediaeval experience' philosophy)
> 	- cinnamon makes it good so put it in (the 'we're trying to make
> people's stomachs happy' philosophy)
> 	- put no cinnamon in the fritters but sprinkle them with cinnamon
> sugar, 'cos even if it doesn't say specifically to do this with the
> fritters, because they did that in period with other things (the
> 'desperately trying to justify oneself' philosophy)?
>
> Personally my approach is generally the first, but I also know I have made
> adjustments on other things, beyond making necessary ingredient
> substitutions, incorporating what I know are more effective or safer
> techniques, or using period variations on recipes. I feel rather more
> resistant to making changes purely on the basis of taste (in the general
> rather than specific sense).


Generally, I'm more of a "no cinnamon if there's none in the recipe" 
kind of thinker, but I can end up in the third approach under a limited 
range of circumstances (that is, if "period" is very narrowly defined in 
terms of time and place and "other things" means "other quite similar 
things").

The second approach isn't really my thing at all, except in the sense 
that I'm pretty sure at least some period authors assume that you don't 
need to be told to add salt.


-- 
Antonia di Benedetto Calvo
----------------------------------------------
Dulce et decorum est pro patria pavlovam coxi.




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