guenievre

So there was a discussion today of medieval mindsets on the AuthenticSCA email list...it started from a discussion of medieval mindsets about various things, like music and shoemaking. I'm mostly posting this as a spot for personal musing on the issue - but comments are great, as I know there are a few people that are interested in this kind of thing that aren't on that list (yes, I'm looking at you, Mistress K).

Bogdan, a cooking Laurel from (I believe) somewhere in the Middle Kingdom posted this:

I totally agree. There's a reason that I work directly from period recipes and don't bother trying to make a modern interpretation with rigid measurements. Cooks in period did so by taste, so that's how I cook. Keeping in mind my audience, what's in season (or would be in my target location at that time), and what's humorally responsible, I guide my cooking. That's also why I don't cook things for which I have no recipe. It's WAY too hard to figure out from where we have our ideas of how to combine spices, or even how we mix things. Eggs and oil are both documentably period. Creating an immulsion with them (so far as I have researched) isn't. So no Mayo. To just assume that they had a specific technique... that's not responsible re-creation. Just because WE use a mortar and pestil by grinding in circles... the Germans describe the motion as "stoss" which literally means "thrust" and is also the word used to describe thrusting with a sword. If that's the case, then perhaps we now use mortar and pestils "wrong" for how they would have been used in period. I have done a few dishes where I've noticed a difference created by using a thrusting motion.

I replied:

I agree with you on the "measurements" issue, but I've found A&S judges *want* that sort of "modern recipe", so I'm not sure what to do about that - I only measure things when baking in "modern" cooking, anyway, so it's a little weird to try and measure things just for the sake of competition (I only find it useful when trying multiple variations of something, I can control the variables that way so as to get the "best" result). So what *do* you do about that expectation when (or if?) you enter competitions?

To which I received the following replies (so far):
From Kass:

Guenièvre, you need to educate your judges. Write your documentation to explain that measurements weren't used in the period of study. \

And from Bogdan:
If (as is usually the case) I'm using a recipe with no measurements (If there are measurements... well I'm sure that Effingham can tell you a funny story about watching me measure out strange combinations of tablespoons, teaspoons and fractions thereof) I don't give a modern recipe.
For example, this past weekend, I made a period turkish dish (it had no name assigned to it) of sweet rice.
I'm not tacking in the German, as it's at home, but it basically said rice boiled in honeywater, yellowed with saffron, and strewn with almonds roasted in fat.
So if I was writing it up for A&S I'd say that I made honeywater, added an amount of rice that was covered by the honeywater, and cooked it. If, while cooking, it appeared that more water was needed, I added it. When the rice was cooked through, I added enough ground saffron to bring the rice to a crocus yellow (how's THAT for a circular definition? Using saffron to achieve "crocus yellow"), and sprinkled it with shelled, blanched, chopped almonds that I had roasted in fat. It should be added that it is impossible to know from the recipe the amount of saffron used, though as it was an expensive spice in period (insert reference), I chose to use as little as possible to lightly flavor, yet highly color, since the recipe emphasized the colorant effect and not the flavor of the saffron (it didn't say to spice it with saffron, but to "yellow" the dish). I also have no way of knowing whether whole or chopped almonds were used at that time, so I chose to use chopped almonds to allow for a better presentation and coverage of the surface area of the dish. Germans at this time typically blanched almonds prior to use, and as the German author makes no mention of not blanching them (and elsewhere in his account DOES point out differences between the cultures), I have blanched them. Again, the state of the almonds used were pure conjecture. Now, that being said, I know for a fact that I started out with 6 cups of water, added a cup of honey to produce a nicely colored and tasting honey water, added 3 cups of rice, and then had to add about 2-3 more cups of water while cooking. I added a pinch of saffron, and overall prepped 8oz of almonds by roasting in fat, but didn't use them all. I know the measurements more because of the containers I used to dish out the ingredients than anything else. Almost no recipes from the period on which I focus give amounts of ingredients, so I don't feel that I need to give them to others. By doing so, I'm robbing them of the chance to cook by taste and have a better understanding of how cooks worked in period. If you state that because cooks in the manuscript studied didn't give amounts which suggests a more free-flowing recipe with slight variation each time it's made that YOU CHOSE to leave out the amounts used, you have shown a greater understanding of the medieval art and I as a cooking Laurel would be much more impressed that someone who felt that a recipe isn't a recipe if they don't know exactly how much of something to use, because then some of the flavor of period cooking is lost.
Disclaimer: The personal opinions of this highly opinionated cook do not necessarily (and most likely don't) reflect on those of any other cooking Laurel, and are not meant to do so. You are welcome to your opinion and to disagree, just as I am welcome to my extremist views.
Working towards an understanding of medieval COOKING and not just medieval FOOD.
OK, so that was a really long set of quotes, but I wanted to have them for future reference (yes, they'll be on yahoo, but that's a pain to remember they're there AND find them again).

Anyway, I'm not sure how I feel about this particular attitude. Yes, having neatly measured, perfectly reproducible recipes is probably not something that the average medieval cook did. On the other hand, they cooked this stuff all the time - I mean, how many of us measure every single little thing that goes into something like, oh, say, chicken soup? I mean, yes, this weekend I cooked straight from the original recipes (well, translations / modern english versions thereof, at least). But I'm not sure that doing that is something that every wannabe medieval cook can/will do - so doesn't it behoove us to provide "modern" recipes in the interest of more people trying / liking medieval food? And how does one *judge* something if one doesn't know exactly what's in it? (well, ok, I suppose you can provide an ingredient list without providing exact quantities, but still) On the other hand, it's not like we have to provide a modern pattern if we submit an article of clothing, so there's no real reason cooking should be different...

(And on a practical level does anyone see this REALLY going over well with A&S judges? I can't imagine it being a good thing...)