Let’s look at one line of our ‘lamb jam’ recipe:
The pomegranate fruits should be baked using one cup of vegetable oil and
a lump of asafoetida the size of a garden pea.
Here are my list of variables:
- Pomegranate fruits:
- Are pomegranates the same today as they were back in the Yuan period?
- When they say ‘fruits’ do they mean the entire fruit or just the arils?
- Ripe fruit? Early fruit? Late fruit?
- Are there any properties of the pomegranate fruit that I need to be aware of?
- How do I weigh the amount of pomegranate I will be using? In skin? Out of skin?
- What is the easiest way to deseed a pomegranate?
- Bake:
- What temperature?
- How long?
- In what?
- How does one bake pomegranate to begin with?
- Is this something that would have been done over an open fire? Or in a more traditional oven? Or are we baking in a lidded wok?
- One cup of vegetable oil:
- I have never seen a cup measure in Mongolian cooking from this period. How much is that?
- Or does it mean something totally different to amount?
- What type of vegetable oil are they suggesting we use? What were their oils generally made from?
- A lump of asafoetida the size of a garden pea:
- How am I incorporating the asafoetida?
- Do I mix it through the oil? Or does it sit on the top/bottom of the container?
- Perhaps I should mix it through the fruit?
- How does that work with a whole fruit? Perhaps down the opening?
- A garden pea? How big was that back in the day?
- And are we talking a well watered pea or one not being watered?
Obviously, we could go on and on with the variables. Without even trying, I have noted twenty for just this one sentence of twenty-three words. There is a lot of assumed knowledge in this one sentence suggesting that baking pomegranate could have been something that everyone knew how to do. After all, our current cookbooks don’t cover how to make corn flakes for breakfast.
So, now that we know our variables, it’s time to make a few assumptions. These are our best guess or our work around (in cases where we do not have access to those things we would have in period).
Let’s look back at our sentence:
The pomegranate fruits should be baked using one cup of vegetable oil and
a lump of asafoetida the size of a garden pea.
My assumptions:
- Pomegranate fruits: I am going to try using our current, domesticated variants (because I can’t access period varieties at this time). I am going to try both whole fruit and aerials and see which ‘bakes’ better and they will be from the shops, so whatever ripeness I can find. I will use my standard way to deseed the fruit and I will weigh the cooked amounts.
- Bake: I am going to use a medium hot oven and bake for 10 minute periods. These assumptions are made for convenience more than anything else.
- One cup of vegetable oil: I am using commercial vegetable oil because I have access to that. But how much is a cup…I will be trying several different amounts.
- A lump of asafoetida the size of a garden pea: So, peas are larger now than they were back in the day. And given asafoetida is potent, I am opting for a small pea sized lump. I will try mixing it with the oil.
There you go, one set of variables and assumptions. Now I need to try it. Let’s do that next week.
Until then, enjoy your cooking time.
~Natal’ia