The Red Kaganate

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Creative Medieval Cooking by Dr. David D. Friedman This is an excerpt from Dr. David D. Friedman's collection of materials on medievalism "Cariadoc's Miscellany". Dr. Friedman's full collection of articles is online at Recreational Medievalism - http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Medieval/Medieval.html. It should be noted that Dr. Friedman's articles were written for the Society for Creative Anachronisms - a group whose Scope focus is based on Western Europe prior to the 17th century. The Kaganate reader should keep in mind the difference in Scope (the Kaganate being focused on the Turko-Mongol world 560 - 1530 CE). It is sometimes claimed that the dishes served at an SCA feast are medieval even though they do not come from any period cookbook. The idea is that the cook is producing original creations in a medieval style. After all, there is no reason to assume that all, or even very many, medieval cooks used cookbooks. In principle, this is a legitimate argument-if it is made by an experienced medieval cook. Since we do not have the option of living in the Middle Ages, the only practical way to become an experienced medieval cook is by cooking from medieval cookbooks. In my experience, however, the people who make this argument have rarely done much, if any, cooking from period sources; their "original medieval creations" are usually either modern ethnic dishes or modified versions of standard modern recipes. Even if "creative medieval cookery" is done by taking period recipes and modifying them, it is a risky business. Unless the cook has extensive experience cooking medieval recipes in their original form, he is likely to modify them in the direction of modern tastes-in order to make them fit better his ideas of what they should be like. But one of the attractions of medieval cooking is that it lets us discover things we do not expect-combinations of spices, or ways of preparing dishes, that seem strange to modern tastes yet turn out to be surprisingly good. I would therefore advise anyone interested in medieval cooking to try to keep as closely as possible to the original recipe. There may, of course, be practical difficulties that prevent you from following the recipe exactly-ingredients you cannot obtain, cooking methods you cannot use ("hang it in a chimney where a fire is kept all the year"), or the like. But I do not think it is ever desirable, when first cooking a dish, to change it merely because you suspect that if you follow the recipe you will not like the result. The people who wrote the recipes down knew a great deal more about period cookery than we do; it is our job to be their students, not their teachers.