SCA cooking judgement

[bunnyjadwiga]

an interesting point that I've been thinking about lately, because I've been reading books with other people's interpretations of pre-1650 recipes in them again.

In the SCA-cooks world, we try to limit ourselves to recipes that are fully documented, specifically ones that start with a known, extant recipe written down before 1650, and which we 'redact' (i.e., recreate in modern measurements) as exactly as we can and with great care to ingredients.

But I find myself fussing in certain ways about what people do in their redactions and in their service, and in different ways about what I do, and what corner-cutting or accomodations to modern life I find acceptable for me to do.

I, for instance, tend to fuss about modern spicing and modern expectations of textures being accomodated in redacting and menu choices. But then I smack myself about serving modern crudites in my dayboards, and my tendency to serve certain sauces to be eaten with bread. (I haven't found good sauce on bread documentation, though many of the veggies I serve in sauce are meant to be served OVER bread, such as buttered worts...)

And then there's the drinks. Infusions of herbs and jalabs of sugar syrup are very popular in my kingdom, and I've helped to make them so. But I wonder if anyone routinely drank cold mint tea or cold lavender tea rather than small beer or small mead? What about my lemon-ginger syrup jalab? I serve that at events, and people think I'm being very
period-- but I made that recipe up, using the proportions in a modern sekanjabin recipe, and I have to keep admitting it. That recipe has escaped out into the SCA cooking world and has a separate existence. People think it is period because they've had it at feasts that were full of redactions from period recipes.

I've served Vanilla pizelles in place of period wafers with something, because that's what I had time and people would eat, and comforted myself with the idea that Vanilla is the modern equivalent of rosewater. But my pizelles weren't from a period recipe, and they had vanilla in them!

And yet, I'm still cranky at Constance Hieatt because in Pleyn Delit she recommends allspice in a recipe, though the allspice can't be documented as a regularly used spice in our period, and because her cameline sauce is based on a completely obscure version, which, if tweaked by unsuspecting cooks, comes out as a raisin-nut stuffing...

Do I hold a double standard? Am I really judging my work by similar, if not the same, standards I judge others? I've served bananas at a dayboard, and will do it again. Is it right for me to complain so bitterly when someone serves Bigos/Hunter Stew with tomatoes in it at a feast?

Comments

[mistresshuette.livejournal.com]

I understand your angst. I have the same feelings also. I sometimes complain about people not even attempting period cookery, when there are times when I have cut corners, so to speak, in order to save time or effort when I am coming down to the wire/serving time. I too have served vanilla pizzelles instead of the more period wafers because I didn't have time to experiment with the period recipe and I wanted to serve something edible even if it wasn't period. However, when asked, I always tell the truth. I make no false claims to periodicity. I suppose there is the perception that because I am a cooking Laurel that everything that I make is period. That is what I try to do as a matter of course. But when I don't or can't, it bothers me. Like the last Royal luncheon that I did. The autocrat wanted a theme of following the silk road. I spent too much time researching and not enough time experimenting. The night before the event I tried making recipes that I should have experimented with weeks before. I was just too pressed for time and I started making mistakes and having disasters. But I adapted as best I could. When I couldn't get the samosa dough correct, but the filling was great, I went out and bought a lot of pita bread, and stuffed the filling in that instead. Not really period, but it saved my ass and everyone liked it. The same with the Chinese dish. I made most of it at home and was supposed to finish it up on site, but discovered when I got there that I had left at home half the ingredients I was supposed to use, and there was no time or convenient market to replace that which I had forgotten, so I improvised and turned it into a stir-fry dish. It tasted great, but it wasn't the period dish I was going to make. I think that questions like yours are only natural for concientious Laurels who are trying their best, but, at the same time, are human beings.