From: mejeep	Date: December 31st, 2012 01:52 am (UTC)		(Link)

Agreed, the "u" is high on top & bottom, and looks like an upside-down 'n'. I had only one semester of calligraphy, long long ago, so I never got to advanced serifs, but I've got to fault that font for cheating.

	From: khromat	Date: February 11th, 2013 12:44 am (UTC)		(Link)

Well, I didn't build the font, so I have to make do.

As it is, I fixed it in Photoshop so that the X accender is now aligned with the other lowercase characters. That puts the u's baseline slightly lower than the others, but it looks better.

	From: khromat	Date: February 11th, 2013 12:53 am (UTC)		(Link)

Well, my primary source material is a book called "Elinor Fettiplaces Receipt Book", published by Viking Penguin Press in Briton: this compilation is the result of a playwright's wife discovering a small handwritten cookbook in her husband's late great-aunt's attic... the frontispiece had a date of 1604. Over 20 years, Hilary Spurling cooked the little cookbook, translating and redacting the 400 year old recipes until she was commanded to publish what she had written. :)

Some of my other period books are things like "The Closet of Sir Kenelme Digby's Closet, opened" which is a reproduction of a 1615 cookbook so there's no modern translation in it, I get to do that myself.

Most of the compilations I use have a copy of the original recipe next to the redacted modern version, which allows me to see what was originally done and if the modern version is close enough or whether I have to do my own version. :)

	From: khromat	Date: February 11th, 2013 05:21 am (UTC)		(Link)
	Favorites

Actually, I have several favorites. The mincemeat recipe is great and I made the spanish marmalade and one of the rabbit pye recipes my signature dishes at RenFaire.

I had not tried any of the alcoholic beverages which looked appealing. In general, the techniques of the time had to do with understanding the levels of heat one could get with a open flame... and of course there are a few examples of recipes that our modern palettes (and understanding of chemistry) would avoid.

	From: khromat	Date: February 18th, 2013 11:00 pm (UTC)		(Link)
	Re: Favorites

Remembering that any trade skill was taught through an apprenticeship system, cook books rarely had any *techniques* listed in them, as it's assumed you already know them. The neat thing with Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt book is that it's a noblewoman's house book, a gathering of recipes from friends rather than a commercial book by a professional. So there are occasional references to techniques ("have it close by the coals") ("meke sure it be thoroughly boiled und skim it").

By the same token, there are very few recipes for vegetables (or "vegatives") because, like today, vegetables are predominantly simply cooked (Roasted, steamed, boiled, etc.) and so no recipe was needed to be written down. Now, the few recipes that exist are more complicated endevours like the tansey pancakes, grand sallets (what today we'd call Chef Salads) and the like.

Predominantly, the kind of recipes that were passed around were methods of preservation (how many ways can you make Marmalade? I have at least 40 now!) medicinals (which includes liqueurs), banquetting items (what we'd think of as fancy desserts for parties) and sauces -- they loved sauces for their meats!


Edited at 2013-02-18 11:08 pm (UTC)

	From: khromat	Date: February 19th, 2013 10:02 pm (UTC)		(Link)
	Re: Favorites

I still want to have cooking dinner parties... and it would be neat to have a Cooking Panel at a FurCon..... :)

	From: khromat	Date: February 18th, 2013 11:07 pm (UTC)		(Link)
	Re: Favorites

I wish I could talk with that gentleman sometime! While the table being presented is very pretty, it's also rather sparse for the time and doesn't have as much color as contemporary references I have indicate they'd lay out.

On the other hand, he did do what I had planned for my next Renaissance Cooking Competition -- before they told me I couldn't enter, as they made me a judge. Instead of a White Gingerbread Cloister, though, I had intended on making a proper Red and White Gingerbread Manor, with stained glass windows, half timber intrusions and candied-flower knot garden. :)

	From: khromat	Date: February 19th, 2013 10:10 pm (UTC)		(Link)
	Re: Favorites

Then, as now, centerpieces were more for decoration, even if it was made with edible materials.... in my case, for the cooking competition I had intended it to be completely edible, with extra bits like the knot garden having individual 'plates' of edibles.... which, by the way, were themselves edible. A popular banquet feature used 'candyplate' as the table settings, which is a hard marzipan-royal icing like material.