A&S

Formed Fish

39. 40.
image

Montengarde Culinary Group’s April theme is April Fools. My wife (Kayleigh de Leis) is cooking for it this month and she asked me to find the apple pie in the shape of a fish recipe we had been meaning to make for so long.

For this we’re going to the Netherlands via Gent KANTL 15 also known as Nyeuwen Coock Boeck from 1560. Many thanks to Christianne Muusers the person behind Coquinaria for translating the recipe.

1.63. To make stuffing for formed fish when it is not Lent
For four ground apples, take two or three raw eggs, two ground cooked eggs, a small handfull of ground almonds and some melted butter. Take spices, sugar and a little saffron as follows. With this stuff the formed fish and then colour it and let it bake in the oven for about half an hour.

1.64. To make formed fish during lent and also calf ears
Crush in a mortar five or six apples, peeled and cored. Add sugar, ginger and cinnamon, and add some pound almonds or toasted gingerbread with some saffron. Bake this in oil. Or make a big fish: bake this in the oven, painted and with some holes in it.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago
cooking down the cheese

Caws Pobi

38.

You can call it caws pobi, cause boby, or even Welsh rarebit or Welsh rabbit. It’s the same thing. It’s the food spoken of in 1542 by Andrew Boorde: “I am a Welshman, I do love cause boby, good roasted cheese.” (Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge, 1542). There are earlier references to it, but by the 15th and 16th century it was essentially the Welsh national dish (First catch your peacock: The classic guide to Welsh food, B. Freeman, 1996, p. 31). It even shows up on a list of dishes presented in the late 15th century at Pembroke Castle by the Earl Marshal (likely Henry Tudor before becoming king):

Ballock broth, Caudle ferry, Lampreys en galentine, Oysters in civey, Eels in sorré, Baked Trout
Brawn with mustard, Numbles of a hart, Pigs y-farsed, Cockentryce
Goose in hogepotte Venison en frumenty, Hens in brewet, Squirrels roasted
Haggis of sheep, Pudding de capon-neck, Garbage, Trype de mouton, Blaundesorye, Caboges, Buttered worts
Apple muse, Gingerbread, Tart de fruit, Quinces in comfit
Essex cheese, Stilton cheese, Causs boby

(Mediaeval Pageant, J.R. Reinhard, 1939, p. 42)[emphasis mine]

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Daryoles

37.

Pi Night spread

Pi Night spread

As Culinary Night is on March 14th this year we’re celebrating Pi day. In honor of that I’m making Daryoles. There’s some debate about this with some saying it’s a type of proto-quiche and others that it’s a proto-custard. I’m in the proto-custard camp myself.

Daryoles show up in English culinary books early,  1390s early. But by the 17th century they are synonymous with small custards, and by the 19th century they refer to a specialized mould for making custards.

In favour of the proto-quiche side there is cheese and meat in several of the dishes. But as you will see the major factor seems to be the sweetness.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Salting Meat

After many years I decided to update my article on salting meat. Here it is as printed in the February edition of the Kingdom of Avacal newsletter the Avantgarde. You can find the old version here.

Salting Meat

The salting of meat was a preferred preservation method for most of the SCA time period (600-1600 AD). Several other methods were used as well, such as storing in cool areas, drying, etc., but salting has all the advantages of drying food with the added advantage of being much safer for larger pieces of meat.

Salting meat allowed for the preservation, storage, and transport of meat without refrigeration.  According to Food in Medieval England “it was a routine procedure on big estates for deer to be hunted according to season, when the meat was at its best, and the venison prepared and stored in larders till needed, and in this case heavier salting would be necessary” (Woolgar, Serjeantson and Waldron 2006, 181).  The salting of venison was common in great households, so much so that there were quite often men whose sole job was the preservation of food.  They would accompany the huntsmen so as to make sure that the deer were treated properly and would be preserved properly (Woolgar, Serjeantson and Waldron 2006, 181).

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Medieval Bacon

Update April 2018: I went back and reworked the entirety of this for Kingdom A&S. You can see the documentation here:Pre-17c Bacon and photos here.

35. 36.

A friend of mine jokes that I beat her in an A&S competition because I bribed the judges with bacon. Well I’m a fan of bacon (though not to the extent of the bacon craziness of two years ago) but I’ve always just used a thick cut good quality bacon from the butchers. When it was announced that February’s Montengarde Culinary Group meeting was going to be all about dishes with bacon or pork my wife suggested that I try making bacon.

So, medieval bacon.

This is an interesting one because we don’t have a whole lot of period info about how they made bacon.

Bacon

Because this is such a long post I’m giving a basic summary here.

Essentially I couldn’t find any proof for smoked bacon until the very end of the 16th century. Instead the defining feature was that it was salt cured and dried. Smoke was likely an option but the concerns around the heat from the smoke making the fat of
the bacon turn rancid seem to have kept it from being the main method as it is now. Cold-smoking could have been done but only if they were using nitrites as well.

I’m using a recipe based on combining what I found pre-1600 with the 18th century recipes. The end result is a very salty bacon that should taste very very similar to what Medieval and Renaissance bacon would taste like. The addition of sugar, though likely a post period innovation, is used to cut the saltiness. Nitrites are used because most of the secondary sources mention it, for the food safety, as well as because it is heavily used by the time the first actual recipes show up; combining that with its availability at the time and I’m going to call its use plausible.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Redacting a Recipe

Note (May 18 2017): Since this was published I’ve been thinking about the terms we use. Commonly in the SCA the recreation of a period recipe with modern measurements has been called a redaction. I’m not sure why though, but the word has been used as long as the SCA’s been using the internet. I’ve come across SCA recipes calling themselves redaction as far back as 1995 and even one that may have been from ’93. Now that is of course an allowed use of the term, OED lists definition 1b as “The action or process of revising or editing text, esp. in preparation for publication; (also) an act of editorial revision.” So it’s not completely wrong. But I haven’t been able to find a use of it outside the SCA for culinary uses. Mistress Kataryna brought up that it’s used in recreating music and sometimes in bringing together multiple texts to recreate what the original text was  in English literature, but I suspect the use of the word in the SCA has gone beyond its definition. Because of that I’m now switching instead to ‘recreation’ ‘reconstruction’ and ‘interpretation’, though I may still use ‘redaction’ occasionally. However this article will remain as it is with no changes as the term ‘redaction’ is still in common use in the SCA.

Redacting a period recipe yourself is the backbone of period cooking. It lets you get the feel of how people in your chosen time period felt about cooking, how they talked about cooking, and lets you adapt within the framework of the original recipe rather than someone else’s adaptation.

With that in mind I have three rules for redacting:

Rule one: context matters
Rule two: a single recipe proves nothing
Rule three: don’t be afraid of experimenting

To walk you through the basics of redacting I’m going to uses the “Strained Peas” recipe I did a few months ago.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Syrup of Pomegranates

34.

And a third and final recipe inspired by this month’s Montengarde Culinary Group’s meeting.

While looking for a “light” recipe or one that made me think of warmer climates I decided on Andalusia. Southern Spain sounded warm to me and during the time period it would have been very exotic as well, being one of the main connecting points for Muslim Africa and Christian Europe.

This recipe was chosen mostly for my son who has decided that he loves pomegranates (pomegranate candy as he calls it).

Today’s recipe is from An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the 13th Century as translated by Charles Perry. The cookbook is originally known as Kitab al-Tabeekh fi ‘l-Maghrib wa ‘l-Andalus fi ‘Asr al-Muwahhidin or Cookbook of Al-Maghrib and Andalusia in the era of Almohads (Writing Food History: A Global Perspective)

Syrup of Pomegranates

Take a ratl of sour pomegranates and another of sweet pomegranates, and add their juice to two ratls of sugar, cook all this until it takes the consistency of syrup, and keep until needed. Its benefits: it is useful for fevers, and cuts the thirst, it benefits bilious fevers and lightens the body gently.

It’s a fairly straightforward recipe. A few points need to be added though.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago