Subject: Recipes, Redaction and Re-invention

From: [email-masked] (Jeff Berry)
Date: 28 Jan 1995 11:14:20 -0500

A while back, a propos of the Medieval recipe discussion centering around
Leach/Leche/etc, someone made a comment about how much updating should one
do and so on.  Is it enough that the result is the same, or must the 
ingredients and all intervening steps be the same as well?
I've given it some thought since then, and thought that I would toss out a 
few ideas.

At what point does the recipe cease to be Medieval and become, instead, modern?
Let's take as an example the Leach recipe from Hugh Plat's "Delightes
for Ladies", c. 1609:
To make Leach
Seeth a pint of Creame, and it the seething put in some dissolved
Isinglasse, stirring it till it be very thicke, then take a handful
of blanched Almonds, beat them and put them in a dish with your Creame,
seasoning them with sugar, and after slice it and dish it.

The recipe itself is straightforward, requiring only the knowledge that
Isinglasse is fish-gut based gelatin (or so says my dictionary).  So,
does the recipe remain "period" if the Creame is heated over a modern
gas stove?  Over a modern electric stove? 

At this point, the purpose of using the medieval recipe comes into play.
When I first approached this recipe with the intent of redacting it, it was
in the full knowledge that I was going to serve it to 150-200 people at
a Twelfth Night celebration.  Given that restriction, I knew that, for
instance, I was not going to limit myself to period stoves or open fires.
For me, in this case, the result - heating a lot of milk/cream - was
important, not the process.  If, on the other hand, I was making it for, oh,
a demonstration at a library or something similar, I might be tempted to
try for an open fire, or if I had access to a period stove I might try it
with that.

The same reasoning applied to my use of Knox gelatin rather than Isinglass.
Know gelatin had the advantages of ease of acquisition, ease of use and
relative cheapness.   Again the result, gelatin, seemed to be the important
consideration.

Add to this another Leach recipe that began by extracting gelatin from pork,
and the use of a more general gelatin seems reasonable.  So, now the question
is "May a specific form of gelatin be replaced with a different form without
destroying the period nature of the recipe?"  In the case, I think the
answer is yes.   The recipe has been altered slightly but the
essential nature of the recipe is the same.  The result is the same and the
change seems slight enough.  Admittedly, the amount of "slight" change
which is acceptable seems to be a judgment call.

Well, I suddenly ran out of steam, so I'll stop here.

Jeff Berry, [email-masked], Alexandre Lerot d'Avigne
"You're a notch and I'm a legend"-------Alice Cooper
"I don't need TV when I've got T-Rex"------Mott the Hoople

---

From: [email-masked] (Matthew Hill)
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 01:02:25 GMT

Sorry, the peculiarities of the reply system or my coping with it have
led to elimination of the original poster's name.  Recent posting brings
up some interesting questions. 

>At what point does the recipe cease to be Medieval and become, instead,
>modern? Let's take as an example the Leach recipe from Hugh Plat's
>"Delightes for Ladies", c. 1609: To make Leach Seeth a pint of Creame, and

>gas stove?  Over a modern electric stove? 
 
In my less than humble opinion, it ceases to be midieval when read and
acted upon by a modern.  That makes it, de facto, a modern interpretation.
The question then becomes how liberal do you wish that interpretation to 
be?  Why did you not question whether it what the same recipe if you heated 
rather than seethed?  
 
Now the results may be quite similar to what the ancient intended, though
how anyone could know eludes me.  However, I in posting recipes to modern
food groups always admit that my version varies in significant ways, many
of which i am probably not aware of, from the relatively modern source 
whence I derived them.   
 
As a concrete example, while the physical properties of gelatin as gelatin
may not differ if it is modern commercial gelatin or gelatin derived from
pork bones, it is certain that the flavour will.  Pork bones contribute
a lot more than just gelatin. 
 
Isinglass incidentally is derived from the swim bladders of sturgeon, 
not a part of the 'guts' as normally considered. 
 
--My point - Recipes - verbatim probably qualify as authentic reproductions. 
Adaptations should be labeled as adaptations which probably result in
something vaguely similar. 
  
Picky Pickey Pickey Picky -but then I'm an archaeologist

Matthew Hill ([email-masked])

---

From: [email-masked] (Jeff Berry)
Date: 30 Jan 1995 18:42:26 -0500

>up some interesting questions. 

Well, that was me, Jeff Berry or Alexandre d'Avigne depending on your
Anachronistic preference.

>be?  

Fair enough.  So, apart from some recipes which or so simple or trivial
as to be identically reproducible (and none leap to mind:-), they are
more or less by definition a modern interpretation.  I can live with
that.

>of which i am probably not aware of, from the relatively modern source 

This raises a point which I had not considered in depth, to wit: how does
one determine the intent?  In detail, I don't know either.  But in some
broad strokes, one can bring to bear both hints in the recipe itself and
similar modern recipes to accomplish a synthesis which seems reasonable.
Perhaps, then, that is the only standard towards which one can strive:
reasonableness.

Let me jump back a step to the sample recipe, at the end the reader is
directed to slice and serve, therefore we can assume that the result must
be slicable.  We have a gauge to relative consistency of the result.  

Now, back to reasonableness.  Without perfect knowledge, which seems unlikely,
the best we can hope for is a reasonable approximation.  
Rather, we can hope for a best approximation.  What is "best" will
depend dramatically on the circumstances.  For example, I mentioned that
I intended (and, in fact did) to serve the Leach to 175 people or so
at an SCA Feast.  Cost became an issue in the approximation, historicity
was subordinated to the practical necessity of producing sufficient quantity
in a safe fashion to feed to the masses who had paid for their supper.

>not a part of the 'guts' as normally considered. 

Mea Culpa, my original interpretation of the recipe was done in an article
for a local newsletter, and I casually used the term guts.  It has since
stuck in my mind.  (Although, not being an expert in fish, I'm not quite
sure where swim bladders would be:-)

>something vaguely similar. 

Agreed.  Of course, leaving the recipe untouched and uncooked seems a
waste, and not as much fun as giving it a try, even if it is only
a reasonable approximation.

>Picky Pickey Pickey Picky -but then I'm an archaeologist

Not at all - these are the details which make this interesting.

Jeff Berry, [email-masked], Alexandre d'Avigne, Whyt Whey
"You're a notch and I'm a legend"-------Alice Cooper
"I don't need TV when I've got T-Rex"------Mott the Hoople