Why Cooking is like Piracy
WARNING : Recipes are like the Pirate Code, they’re just guidelines I find exact proportions in cooking totally overrated. I love the way old medieval recipes were written: they just listed ingredients and then gave you a rough idea of how to assemble them. I admire the confidence that old recipes required that you have in the kitchen, the ‘just wing it’ attitude that compels you to trust your ability as a cook. Consider this awesome fourteenth century recipe for apple pie from The Forme of Cury compiled in 1390 by the master cooks of King Richard III: XXVII For to make Tartys in Applis “Tak gode Applys and gode Spycis and Figys and resons and Perys and wan they are wel ybrayed colourd with Safron wel and do yt in a cofyn and yt forth to bake wel.” In other words, mix together apples, pears, raisins, figs and spices—probably cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and saffron—mix and put it in a pieshell, the ‘cofyn’, and bake. That’s it! Seems very low maintenance, doesn’t it? It...
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