[Sca-cooks] (Yet) another translation question: cooking hard versus cooking well

[Julia Szent-Gyorgyi]

Greetings, helpful cooks!

Revisiting the 1601 cookbook, I find I'm still somewhat stumped by
what to do with Szentbenedeki's use of the word _kemény_ 'hard'.
Sometimes he applies it within the range of its modern meaning -- hard
boil, hard (stiff) dough -- but he most often uses it for 'thoroughly,
well', which in the case of something like rice porridge means exactly
the opposite of 'hard'.

Should I just use "well" and "thoroughly" (and "crisp" and "stiff"),
as context dictates, or is that too much interpretation? Am I
overthinking things? (When a word has multiple senses in its modern
use, I have no qualms about choosing the one that I judge to fit the
context best. Should archaic senses be treated any differently?)

Here's one of the affected recipes:
---
Riskását gyümölcsös lével. Főzd meg először az riskását tejben, sózd
meg, hogy kemény legyen : azután egy kevéssé tedd ki hülni, és igy
csinálj levet reá : végy bort tengeri malosa szőlőt, mandulát is tégy
belé : almát metélj hosszattában bele, mézet is tégy bele és együtt
keményen főzd, s az után borsold meg; bors, sáfrán, fahéj kell belé,
hogy fel akarod adni, rakd az kását egy széles vasfazékban, töltsd rá
az levét és egy kevéssé ha együtt forralod, add fel.

Rice porridge with fruit sauce. Cook first the rice in milk, salt it,
until done [so it is hard], then put it out to cool a little, and make
a sauce for it thus: take wine currants raisins, also add almonds:
slice apples lengthwise into it, also add honey, and cook it together
well [hard], and then season it; it needs pepper, saffron, cinnamon,
when you want to serve it, put the rice in a wide iron pot, pour the
sauce on it and after boiling it together a little, serve it.
---

(The recipe also has one of my other decision points: his use of the
word _borsold_ 'pepper it' in a broader sense of 'season it', which
makes it look like he's constantly repeating himself about black
pepper. My current decision is to use "pepper" and "season" according
to context/use.)

Julia
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