Methods and Methodologies

So what am I doing here? I mean, first I said I wanted to re-create medieval life and then in practically the next breath I’m laying down newspaper. So what are my real goals? What am I really trying to achieve here? What am I willing to do and what am I unwilling to do?

There are several keys. First off, I have to succeed. This one is personal and unprofessional and indicative of the hobbyist nature of the project. If I spend weeks working on a project only to have it fail, I stand a good chance of getting disappointed and quitting or taking a break. I don’t want to do that.

So I’m starting off using a modern wheat strain rather than an ancient one. So I’ll use pre-packaged yeast to make bread or ale. So I’ll start off with a steel grain mill. The point is that once I become comfortable using these modern methods, I can always go back to the historically accurate version.

Secondly, if a bit of modernity helps me or is cheaper, and I can’t see any real difference in how it will effect the project, I’ll go with the modern. I may wind up being mistaken about whether a piece of technology makes a difference or not, but I’ll be honest about what I do use and will consider changing the experiment if I later learn that it makes a difference.

For example, while fermenting the mead, I plan to use a glass carbouy. I would expect that this would have been done in a ceramic vessel in earlier times, but I don’t have one and they are probably expensive. I’ll also use modern sterilization methods to make the stuff safe to drink.

There are also a few things that I just can’t do. I don’t have a team of oxen. I can’t even borrow one from my fellow villagers. I don’t have access to a lot of the tools, supplies and know-how that a good Iron Age or medieval farmer had. So I’m just going to do my best, trying to stay away from chemicals.

The last one is also a bit of a personal conceit, but the one that bothers me the most. The results of these experiments will result in food and other products. Those products are going to be consumed and used by me and my friends, so they have to conform to my tastes.

I’m not going to deny it. I have a sweet tooth, like many modern Americans. After years of Wonder Bread as I child, I expect my bread to have a pretty sweet taste to it, so my recipes are going to have more honey in them than they should. In my daily life, I still drink a 6 pack of soda a day, so I’m shooting for a sweet mead.

There’s not a whole lot I can do about this one. I want to enjoy the fruits of my labors. Since this is a hobbyist venture, I _need_ to enjoy it in order to keep it going. I do feel guilty, though, that my palette is far from medieval and so that is going to skew my results.

I will be honest about what I am doing and open to comments and criticism. I’m going to try to post frequently (I’m not sure how long I can keep it daily . . . ).