tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44179305188920444762024-03-12T16:20:34.511-07:00Stumbling Into Historic CookeryRamblings about food, cookery and dining through the ages...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.comBlogger122125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-89968540689730005322015-02-26T15:26:00.001-08:002015-02-26T15:26:50.552-08:00Life Changes all aroundMy website is running again at <a href="http://oldfoodways.info/">oldfoodways.info</a> but my life has been BUSY<br />
Just a year and a half ago, we moved, then moved again and now we just recently moved again. Stuff like work must come first though, since you need work to get money and do everything else!<br />
<br />
This time around we bought a house again so it's been work work work of another sort as we been updating it with new windows, electric and heating... though presently it's just being heated with two wood stoves in the dead of a very cold Canadian winter (well, feels like -30sC and lower weather anyway). Needless to say, I been preoccupied.<br />
<br />
Not too pre-occupied to plan a meal for an upcoming SCA event called Middleground... check out my post in oldfoodways.info (very soon to be written anyway *grin*). This makes up for my not being able to afford to do our Kingdom A&S this year, which is a bummer as it's in the principality for the first time ever and I just can't go :( But, I shall admit that my main draw to competitions is to support A&S and I feel it will be very well supported there.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-3098591543422605872014-12-15T14:56:00.001-08:002014-12-15T18:47:51.837-08:00Ruantallan Investiture/Tir Mara Championships Dayboard, recapWell it seems my website is down so an update there is pretty much not going to happen until I get that sorted out.<br />
<br />
For now, I'll toss in a bit of a recap here.<br />
<br />
Getting to do dayboard for this event was a bit of a journey in itself, originally I had to turn down cooking feast which made me very sad... booo no cooking! But Garth, who was doing dayboard had to leave, booo no Garth but yay, cooking! Figured I can sorta juggle that and other responsibilities with the help of my husband... who I could not do this without. But what to cook? I talked to the cook for the event to get an idea of how to match the dayboard and found out that she was planning to work from Pleyn Delit... ah ha, this gave me something to work with! Well... sorta... that book is a compilation of stuff but figured okay, the cook is aiming for likely 14th-15th century, I can work with that. This made my focus narrow in on 15th century (mostly) with emphasis on English (for the new Baron and Baroness and the over theme the event seemed to have) and Dutch, because well... Dutch cook :)<br />
<br />
Now came the tricky guesswork, I did not want to double on dishes (so tossed in as much Dutch as I saw fit).<br />
The original menu was to have Hichones (hedgehogs), Leche Lumbard, Stuffed Apples, Stuffed Eggs, Gouda biscuits (crackers), Apple Cake, Wafers (on a decorated iron), Venison in Broth, Quince Jelly, Puree of Peas, Fennel tarts, Beef Pies, Gingerbread, Fried Flans, Peers in Confit, Sawge Yfarcet (stuffed sage)... butter (dairy and almond), bread, water with sryups, cheeses and fruit.<br />
<br />
What happened was that I found out was that Leche Lumbard and a Pea Soup were being served at feast... Thankfully, I had did not have the leche assembled so used the pork to make sausage and I simply ate the cost of the peas, onions that would be in the soup and the dried fruit that would have gone in the leche (it isn't like I don't use that stuff typically anyway). It could have been served but I feel people shouldn't be eating too many duplicate dishes.<br />
<br />
On top of this, we also found out that we were going to be moving soon so I was also juggling house shopping in a very limited time frame given and only having limited people able to help... this meant dropping dishes and/or changing them somewhat. ... We dropped the syrups, the apple cake, did not stuff the eggs (which is fun, I love deep frying the stuff eggs, and they look so neat) and kinda simplified it, but not too much!<br />
<br />
The month of the event, the menu for dayboard was rearranged:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Hicherones (Hedgehog styled pork sausage)</li>
<li>lightly Smoked Sausage (A French recipe snuck in here from "Le Menagier")</li>
<li>Gouda Biscuits (self explanatory, much like cheese crackers)</li>
<li>Stuffed Apples (deep fried apples stuffed with pork)</li>
<li>Wafers served with Quynade (Quinade is a combination of quince paste and almond butter/cream/cheese)</li>
<li>Venison in broth (Venison stew/soup)</li>
<li>Beef Pies (beefy pies with raisins cooked up as chewits)</li>
<li>Fried Flans (fried cheese pies)</li>
<li>Pears in Confit (pears cooked with mulberries in a spiced wine syrup)</li>
<li>Fennel Tarts (apple pies with fennel seed)</li>
<li>Sawge Yfarcet (stuffed sage)</li>
<li>Rice Pottage (sweetened rice cooked in milk with saffron)</li>
<li>Gingerbread (breadcrumbs boiled in honey and then spiced and set in the shape of acorns and flowers)</li>
<li>Roffioelen (herb and cheese dumplings)</li>
<li>Roots in Pottage (garden roots being carrots and parsnips boiled and served with sweet spices)</li>
<li>Bread</li>
<li>Butter</li>
<li>Cheese (Brie, Fresh Goat and fresh soft cheese from yoghurt I made that week)</li>
<li>Hard Boiled Eggs (some I fashioned in the shape of acorns)</li>
<li>Grapes</li>
<li>Oranges (sliced)</li>
<li>Pomegranate Seeds (to eat and as a garnish)</li>
<li>Damson paste (damsons cooked to a paste that can be boxed up and sliced, I did mine up in bottles ahead of time)</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
<br />
The Dutch recipes came from here: http://www.coquinaria.nl/kooktekst/index.htm<br />
with the Roffioelen from a post 15th century cookbook (1510 actually): http://users.telenet.be/willy.vancammeren/NBC/<br />
The English recipes came from: "Two 15th century cookbooks", Rylands MS 7,/Forme of Cury, Arundel 334/Ancient Cookery, MS Harley 5401 and I did refer to "Le Menagier de Paris" for sausage ideas as I wanted to save on egg.<br />
<br />
Also, with all of the recipes I used, many of the items were made in a rather small form, the object (or theme even) that I utilized was to make many of everything but to have it all rather sample-like in form. Well, mostly everything.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Recipes</b>:</u>(at least what I can dig up from my notes atm)<br />
<u></u><br />
<u><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Urchins
[Hedgehogs].</span></u><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">
Take the stomach of a large hog, and five or six pig stomachs. Fill them full
of pork forcemeat [minced, seasoned pork mixture] and sew them tightly closed.
Parboil them and remove them from the boiling water. Make small spikes of good
paste (flour paste or dough] and fry them. Take these fried spikes and stick
them in the stomach casing of the forcemeat so they make a dense covering, made
to resemble an urchin [hedgehog] without legs. Put them on a spit and roast
them, and color them with saffron, and serve them forth. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">**For these, I used hog casings instead of bladders, first off I wanted them small and secondly not all stomachs are </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 16.8666667938232px;">available</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"> for purchase at butcher shops, they are not even permitted to sell us bladders in this country. typically only one type of cow stomach is available. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
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<u>To stuff apples</u>. (Dutch) Take unblemished apples and
cut a thin slice off the top near the stalk, and the stalk also.Then take a
little iron flesh hook, sharp enough and small, to scoop out the apple without
breaking the skin. Then stuff [the apple] with the afore said stuffing, take
the slice with the stalk and close the apple as it was before. Fix [the slice]
with a small wooden pin. Fry the apple in hot fat, and sprinkle with sugar as
is right.<br />
--Who wants to make stuffing, takes pork, lean and fat, well
cooked, and hard boiled eggs, chopped together. Put it in a mortar and crush
well and add good spices (?), pepper, saffron, enough spices, salt to taste.
And it is also good to make white sausages and pancakes, to stuff eggs,
pastries, fritters, to stuff pig's trotters, to stuff hens and young chickens,
to stuff eggs, crayfish and apples.</div>
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<br /></div>
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**I picked hundreds of little crabapples for these. First I did a test batch trying the different varieties of apples I had and chose the ones that worked best with the stuffing (pork, egg and spice based). Coring and stuffing tons a little crabapples is not for the weak lol</div>
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<br /></div>
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<u>Dough to make pipes</u> (Dutch)<br />
Take cheese from Gouda and eggs. Grind together with white flour. Lay it on dry
flour and make small biscuits of it.</div>
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<br /></div>
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**since I wasn't making pipes, I just made these up as little crackers... btw, even though I made them fresh, they do keep well and are better dusted with a little salt. </div>
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<br /></div>
<u><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Sawge
yfarcet</span></u><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">.
Take pork and seeþ it wel, and grinde it smal, and medle it wiþ ayren &
brede ygrated. Do þerto powdour fort and safroun wiþ pynes & salt. Take
& close litull balles in foiles of sawge; wete it with a batour of ayren
& fry it, & serue it forth. <br />
--Stuffed Sage. Take pork and parboil it well [to remove some of the gamey
taste], and grind it finely [with a mortar and pestle], and mix it with egg and
grated fresh bread. Add powder fort and saffron with pine nuts and salt. Make
little balls of the meat mixture and close them up in leaves of sage. Wet them
with an egg batter and fry them and serve them forth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 16.8666667938232px;">**These are fab. and very much worth making. The ones I served did not have pine nuts (pine nut allergy and it was easy to exclude) but are still very good without them. Sadly I had a gluten free batch made up and packaged separately but with only one pot to fry them in and with the oil accidentally glutened, I did them all up with the flour based batter. If you want to make them gluten free, they do work just as well with rice starch but they will not hold together as nicely... if anyone ate one that just seemed to fall apart, it was likely meant to be gluten free. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 16.8666667938232px;">**note, I have come across many period recipes that used rice or rice starches instead of wheat, this made it a very plausible option that I explore now and then.</span></span><br />
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<br />
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<u>Fried flans (Dutch)<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<br />
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Made of dough [and] stuffed with soft cheese ground with
yolks of eggs. Stuff them and boil them in fat. Then take enough sugar and roll
the pastry through it. These are fried flans.</div>
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<br /></div>
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**super easy, I have made these often! </div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<u>To create a pie beef (dutch)</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Take 3 pounds of beef, more than two pounds of fat, 2 pounds raisins and for every pound [meat] one lead herbs / spices, one lead mace, two lead ginger, cloves and tight a lead as much pepper</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 16.8666667938232px;">**I made these up like small chewets, which is not an implausible option and it really seems to work well in small form. </span></span><br />
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<br />
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<u>To make a fennel tart</u> (dutch)</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Take flat, thin and wide bread. Cut the apples very thin and
mix with cinnamon, sugar, a little mace and a little clove. Put them over the
bread, whole spread with butter. Sprinkle with fennel seeds and then cover it with
a thin cover. Bake it, and eat it very warm.</div>
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<br /></div>
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**These did not get out very warm but I tried them room temperature and they were still pretty good. As you can see, they really are apple pies but made with fennel seed, being that I made them up small, I opted to crush the fennel a bit first. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<u>Peerus in confyt</u>. (English)</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">--Take perus & pare hem clene. take gode rede
wyne & mulberyes. other saundres & seeth the peres ther inne. &
whan they buth y sode take hem up. make a syryp of wyne greke other vernage
with blaunche poudour. other whyte sugur & poudour of ginger. & do the
peres ther inne. seeth hit a litul and messe hit forth.<br />--Take peeres and pare hem clene. take gode rede wyne & mulberes oþer
saundres and seeþ þe peeres þerin & whan þei buth ysode, take hem up, make
a syryp of wyne greke. oþer vernage with blaunche powdour oþer white sugur and
powdour gyngur & do the peres þerin. seeþ it a lytel & messe it forth</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">These are two different, yet identical recipes (I would have to go back to track which is from which book which is why I list listed sources up top)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 16.8666667938232px;">**One thing I did not use was the saunders, I have used them before and feel the only real good they would add would be for looks and they still ended up looking wonderful... what would have been better is if I still had preserved mulberries but it's something we presently can't get shipped in and I no longer have access to a mulberry tree.<br />One awesome note on these: I used all ripe, but very undergrown pears, they were all local but could not be sold for anything but seconds so also got a great price for them. This also made them very perfect for the dayboard I had planned. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 16.8666667938232px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Cxv -
Quynade. Take Quynces, and pare hem clene, caste hem on a potte, and caste
ther-to water of Rosys; do it ouer the fyre, and hele (Note: Cover) it faste,
and let it boyle a gode whyle tyl they ben neysshe; and 3if they wol not ben
neysshe, bray hem in a Morter smal, draw hem thorw a straynoure; take gode
Mylke of Almandys, and caste in a potte and boyle it; take whyte Wyne and
Vynegre, an caste ther-to the Mylke, and let it stonde a whyle; take than a
clene canvas, and caste the mylke vppe-on, and with a platere stryke it of the
clothe, and caste it on the potte; gedyr vppe the quynces, and caste to the
creme, and do it ouer the fyre, and lat boyle; take a porcyon of pouder of Clowys,
of Gyngere, of Graynys of Perys, of Euery a porcyon; take Sugre y-now, with
Salt, and a party of Safroun, and alle menge to-gederys; and when thou dressyst
forth, plante it with foyle of Syluer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<o:p> --</o:p>Make almond
cream:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Almond milk,
ass white wine and vinegar (to turn it) and let it stand a while. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Spread this
on a clean canvas to let it drain then scrape it up and put in a pot with the
quince paste. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Cook until
it boils </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
add: cloves,
ginger, grains, [sugar, already added], salt and saffron.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Dress and plant with silver.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">**Ah good intentions... I had little time to mess about with setting it so opted not to use the silver foil, which I did bring with me to the kitchen *sigh*<br />It actually surprised me how well it tasted, I was prepared to serve the quince and almond cream separately but the combination was a winner.... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">With this we served wafers</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The Original Recipe for</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Wafers (Dutch) basically translated to: </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 16.8666667938232px;">Take grated white bread. That Temper with raw eggs and add some sugar and the fat of fresh cream.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 16.8666667938232px;">**I could not get this to play nice on my iron, the problem being is that my iron is very fine and even very fine bread crumb will not pick up the decoration from my iron (it's a Krumkake iron) so I switched out the crumbs for flour (2 cups), 4 eggs, 2 cups sugar, cup of butter... lots of fat makes this work better and milk or cream (I used what I had) to make it thin enough... experiment! Then I took about a spoonfull of the batter and spread it a little on the iron and when the steam seemed to settle a bit, I flipped it and cooked more until the steam again settled (play with the timings or just get a feel for it is as best as I can suggest, the wafers should be a bit golden to work) and then while it is still hot, wrap it around a wooden dowel if you like... they should set really quickly. These keep well if kept in an airtight container after they cooled a bit. </span></span></div>
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<u>For the Venison soup:<br />
</u>-Roo in sene. Take flesh of a roo and pyke hit clene and parboyle hit, and
then take hit up and drye hit wyth a clothe, and hewe hit on gobettes, and put
it in a pot; and do thereto wyne and let it sethe, and take sage, parsel,
ysope, and hewe hit smal, and put thereto pouder of pepur, and of clowes, and
of canel, and colour it with blode, and let hit boyle, and serve hit forthe.</div>
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-Venyson in Broth. Take Rybbys of Venysoun, and wasshe hem
clene in fayre water, an strayne the same water thorw a straynoure in-to a
potte, an caste ther-to Venysoun, also Percely, Sawge, powder Pepyr, Clowys,
Maces, Vynegre, and a lytyl Red wyne caste there-to; an thanne latte it boyle
tyl it be y-now, and serue forth.</div>
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-Venyson in broth. Take rybbes of venyson, and wassh hem
faire in Water, And streyn the Water thorgh a Streynour into a faire potte, and
cast the Venyson thereto, parcely, Sauge, powder of peper, cloue3, Maces,
Vinegre, salt, And late hem boile til thei be ynow, and serue it forth.</div>
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--Dutch version (said for roast game): Deer and hind, cut in
pieces (?), well larded while still raw. Cook it in a lot of wine and a little
water, [with] chopped bacon [and] sufficient saffron, ginger and cinnamon.</div>
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**I did not have a ton of Venison so I worked from the basic above recipes with the addition of the Dutch version with bacon and said spices. To note: I have come across later period venison pies with bacon and it's a good combination. </div>
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<u>Rice Pottage:</u></div>
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For some reason I don't seem to write these down anymore and can't remember which I chose to follow... but it was Rice cooked in milk with saffron and sweetened with a bit of sugar. </div>
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<u>Roffioelen of green leaf vegetables</u> (Dutch)</div>
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One shall take
green leaf vegetables and parsley, of each the same amount. One shall chop them
together very fine; then one shall blanch them or simmer them a very little.
When it is cooked so one shall grind them small [in a mortar]. Then one shall
take wheat flour and mix them [all the ingredients] together just like thin
dough. Then one shall take English cheese* ground or crumbled very small and
mix it with the dough; from this one shall make long, narrow, thin lumps and
boil them thoroughly in a pan with water. When they are thoroughly boiled so
one shall take them out with a fish slice. Then one shall lay them to drain.
When they are drained so one shall take clean dishes and lay them therein. To
wit, in each dish two or three or four. After that one shall take butter and
melt it in the dishes and one shall take some [more] of that cheese and scatter
it over. Then take Lombard powder; strew that also on top. You shall know that in
Lombardy one customarily serves this in the evening and at noon in the place of
vegetables at the beginning [of the meal] before one serves anything else.</div>
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**This ended up reminding me of Malfatti which are basically little dumplings with greens and cheese. </div>
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<u>Pottage of Roots</u>: This came from Rapes in Pottage recipes that explain they can also be used for paternakys and sterwytes (I still conclude that as parsnips and skirrets, but did it up as parsnips and carrots many of which were grown in my garden this past summer and consisted of a lot of white and pale yellow varieties). This is boiled and dressed with saffron and sweet spices.<br /><br />**A reason I opted for cook veggies instead of raw was in some effort to bring things back to medieval thinking. Would I serve raw roots to people to dip in things (modern thinking) or would I cook them first? Typically, roots would not have been eaten raw from what contemporary literature I could find, presumably this would have a lot to do with the edibility of the roots without cooking where the cores would be so woody they were often mention as needing to be removed (excluding the turnips though those seem commonly cooked as well). There are health reasons as well, but I was not getting overly complicated with this menu. </div>
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"<u>Gyngerbrede</u>.--Take a quart of hony, & sethe it,
& skeme it clene; take Safroun, pouder Pepir, & throw ther-on; take
grayted Bred, & make it so chargeaunt that it wol be y-lechyd; then take
pouder Canelle, & straw ther-on y-now; then make yt square, lyke as thou
wolt leche yt; take when thou lechyst hyt, an caste Box leves a-bouyn, y-stykyd
ther-on, on clowys. And if thou wolt haue it Red, coloure it with Saunderys
y-now."<br />
To make gingerbrede. Take goode honye
& clarefie it on the fere, & take fayre paynemayn or wastrel brede
& grate it, & caste it into the boylenge honey, & stere it well
togyder faste with a sklyse that it tren not to the vessell. & thanne take it down and put therein
ginger, longe pepere & saundres, & tempere it up with thin handes;
& than put hem to a flatt boyste & strawe theron suger, & pick
therin clowes rounde aboute by the egge and in the mydes, yf it plece you,
&c.</div>
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**easy to make bit of festiveness for the dayboard :) I made both variants and rolled them out and cut them as tiny acorns.</div>
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There are more recipes, this is just what I could find from my horrible note taking :P </div>
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A friend of mine, Cindi (Lady Cat of Lennox) took pictures of the dayboard... **NOTE** Not all the food was actually out at that point! and I did have white table cloths but thinking they may have been used elsewhere... which is cool :P<br />
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cindihachey/15925858002/">https://www.flickr.com/photos/cindihachey/15925858002/</a></div>
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Thank you everyone who helped, mainly my youngest daughter, my husband (Shannon/Wolfgang), Bob/Snarfi and Garth... also Maud./Laura for getting the dishes in order!<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-33834137329789562272013-12-12T23:54:00.001-08:002013-12-12T23:54:26.504-08:00Moving but not deletingI will likely make the majority of my food posts over at <a href="http://www.oldfoodways.info/">http://www.oldfoodways.info/</a> rather than here, at some point anyway, but I won't be getting rid of this blog anytime soon. It will also likely be updates just as infrequently as this one ;)<br />
<br />
Just finished migrating a lot of stuff into the new site format, which I am hoping will be easier for readers to use and for me to update overall.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-52024201257222846422013-12-05T05:10:00.003-08:002013-12-05T07:12:48.491-08:00The follies of using documentary for research<br />
There are few things I would actually use for research, mostly, given that I enjoy the history of food and dining the most, I tend towards original documents. This isn't an argument about primary, secondary and tertiary sources that we could easily get caught up in and lose the original point being made here. This is about using something made for the reason of modern entertainment, though they feature some historic study, a documentary is still subject to entertainment first... they need to arouse us and get us watching, they need to sell themselves to broadcasters as something entertaining and what they do not need to do is cite all their sources or back up everything presented to us.<br />
<br />
This comes back to a little film called "A Tudor Feast at Christmas", released in 2006, where people are gathering items for a presumably 1590s dinner from a lush garden with a Peacock pie (obscuring the pie) and sillibub... where freelance historian Ruth Goodman says:<br />
<br />
"courses as such didn't really exist at this point, you have removes, so you fill the table with food, and when everyone is finished eating it, you remove it, and that's one remove. And you fill the tables again and usually it's no more than two removes, it's very unusual to go to three."<br />
<br />
So here we are given all this information by what the documentary tells us are "experts" so who are we to disagree?<br />
<br />
Of course, I might point out that she never says they called them "removes" but rather calls them this herself to differentiate her modern vision from the period vision which really is not different, a course being several dishes being served together. What this really sounds like, to me anyway, is the someone trying to differentiate between services, which is how the food is served. My 1960s Betty Crocker book (yes, I was looking for something modern), for example, lists two types: one called "Russian" where a servant delivers individual dishes to the table, and "English" where courses are served out to the table and administered from there. The 1590 equivalent is not much different than this, where a servant may bring food to the table, set it, and may even carve it at the table (growing less common by this time according to a book on servicemen of the period, for which sadly I can not remember the title on writing this). After this point, another "course" of food would be brought to the table, and so on. She is correct about the number of "courses" however, though by this time, the banquet had begun to start in popularity which could add a third.<br />
<br />
On "remove" however, I tend to react because of it's frequent use in groups such as the SCA to describe a course of food for the table, I know not of it's use by the "Tudor Group" for which this person belongs. The problem I have with using the word to describe an early course of dishes is that the word already has a use to describe a replacement of a dish within a course. While I can not give you the earliest recording of this, I have not seen it prior to the 17th century but have seen it afterwards, but regardless, the very suitable word "course" is already present for our use.<br />
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Fun tidbits on a 1590's feast in England, not a whole lot was seasonal... The best meat would be pork, the best dishes including the Brawn which would have a secure standing of being the first to be brought in. Baked, and even roasted, Turkey was gaining popularity, it is even compared often to Peacock and if we were to look at post period paintings, we can see the outer form of a Turkeycock displayed on top of a large pie (there are examples of the same for peacock) though I don't have much by good evidence of this display appearing in 1590 so it's guesswork there. Another very seasonal food were oysters, said to be in season year long... many other foods, if they could not be had fresh, came preserved.<br />
An item I also would like to touch is the Silibub, I do wish they shared their source and can only hope it came from a manuscript rather than published works, because between the two, the earliest I could find was from the 1620's. A posset curd would probably have been a better choice being well documented to that era.<br />
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But... don't take my word, read through some books written in the period, look at some art, view some artifacts, play with your food... have fun!<br />
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<br />
<span style="color: #990000;">EDIT: </span>I managed to get an awesome reply on the Silibub, as stated I hoped that it had come from a manuscript of some sort because I lacked any actual recipes from the period and only as early as the 1620's.<br />
In the response were some of these sources: (yay for the OED! and P. Troy, hope you don't mind some sort of credit here)<br />
-"c1537 Thersytes (1848) 79 You and I..Muste walke to him and eate a solybubbe."<br />
-1570 in J. J. Cartwright Chapters Hist. Yks. (1872) 55 They brough this examynent a selybube to drynk.<br />
-1584 T. Cogan Hauen of Health cc. 166 A posset or Selibub made of Verjuice, is good to coole a cholerick stomacke.<br />
-1601 P. Holland tr. Pliny Hist. World I. 348 They vsed to thicken their milk into a kind of pleasant soure curd in manner of a Sellibub.<br />
γ.<br />
-1591–2 ‘A. Foulweather’ Wonderfull Prognost. in Wks. (Grosart) II. 165 Maides this quarter shall make sillyebubbes for their Louers.<br />
-1602 in Lyly's Wks. (1902) I. 492 First you shall haue a dayntie sillibub; next a messe of clowted creame.<br />
-1598 J. Marston Metamorph. Pigmalions Image 60 Ye Granta's white Nymphs, come & with you bring Some sillabub.<br />
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I especially enjoy the mentions eating a sillibub in the earliest mention, though it would also be drunk, a posset was also mentioned, quite often, as something you would eat... much like we would a junket which is curdled with rennet.<br />
And this my friends... and random people I don't know, is why I encourage further reading!<br />
Enjoy!<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-13571845559714557432013-11-19T07:50:00.001-08:002013-11-20T10:22:15.767-08:00Problem with Picky eaters and Feasts<br />
This is not about food contamination and making sure we don't kill, or physically harm people with our food (be it allergy or really bad kitchen practices), but rather about picky eating and expectations to be able to partake in food served at a re-enactment or history club functions where the food has become part of the over all experience.<br />
<br />
This initially came up through a medieval club forum where it was suggested that either the meals conducted be either changed to suit children's eating habits or a separate list of food offerings be made available for them, namely food they would typically enjoy.<br />
Avoiding the whole, what is wrong with allowing even more modern wants to seep into historic venture, there is a bigger and more evident problem here. We are discussing how to meet the needs not of children but rather of picky and unadventurous diners. I say this because children are not all cut from the same cloth but are as every much individual as the adults attending these would-be period meals. Indeed, what we are really asking is how can we make a menu more acceptable to 10-30 more, all individual, and potentially very picky, diners on a limited budget with a limited staff in sometimes limited space while also feeding 2-60 more people for whom a good number are there for the more historic dining experience. Well, indeed... how?<br />
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Now, this is not to say that perfectly good period based food can not be found for the picky diner, it sure can, but it's foolish to say that there is a set list of foods that is going to be acceptable to a certain age group of picky diners. Look at ice-cream, what if I wanted an early 1900's ice-cream social? I knew a young girl who hated ice-cream, she hated frosting and icings as well and it is plausible that a few may show up who dislike those very things. Does this mean something special should be prepared for those children by the event staff or should the parents take something for the children to eat so they can still attend and enjoy the activities of the day? Change the period and the issues remain.<br />
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From my own experience, as both a parent, someone who dined, someone who served meals and someone who cooked feasts/dinners for crowds, the general answer was if you did not like something, you did not eat that item. If the menu was not suitable, you would choose not to partake in the meal (typically negating paying for it as well) and instead you would either eat out or take-in food that you like or your family member liked. Often people with specific nutritional needs or with family members under their care needing more, or different offerings, would bring food into the event to consume and were generally permitted to do so as they saw fit. This is a very welcoming and wonderful thing since it's not something often permitted at many paid venues outside of these clubs where food and drink it limited, or not permitted at all, inside the door/gate.<br />
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Now, if someone does have a picky eater in their care that must be present, and they can not, for whatever reason, prepare and take food for their charge, and wish to, then an alternative can/should be made but I do not see it as a necessity to create more work for the kitchen when it needn't be done <i>(because there is no such thing as a catch-all child's menu, even a restaurant menu with several offerings is not always going to appeal to every child)</i>. If anything, work out something with someone who can help you... ask! be it another cook, or just a friend who can help. Be prepared to have limited, or none at all, refrigeration and heating options available, the kitchen may, or may not, be able to deal with such requests and do not blame for not, or expect them to, cater to everyone's individual needs. Yes, it may be done on some occasions, but just because this or that cook managed to make it available, does not mean most kitchens should be expected to provide such service. Keep in mind that some kitchens come with one oven, an already partially full fridge, limited counter space and cooks help, in fact we can expect most kitchens to be as individual as the people who attend to dine.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-36234404325476279082013-10-01T11:22:00.002-07:002013-10-01T11:25:54.185-07:00A wee board for a vigil.. <br />
Just this weekend I had two honors, one was getting to go to Endeweard's first Baronial Investiture and the other was getting to make a small board for D'Unstable's Laurel vigil. Now to set the scene a bit more clearly, I am still not yet moved into a home of my own and we are presently staying with friends while my husband is away for a week at a time so this end of things have been interesting...BUT between that and having to work out the food between two countries, relying on dear old friends and one very new one, and a few minor glitches where food got scattered and didn't quite make it to site or had to be removed from the list, we made it happen.<br />
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In the end, this is what ended up on board:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-p7fmbd-R2bBo7wFd_kNjVK1WWdW6v1kIJC7-9w5MXHGpmqZaa32eyHILs-dN4zBFQeRTNqfGX_mzIO7q-2HsXTHmRFdw0ZTJ8qe2qotDAy4A6X5Hyztl9uj-k1DQXIoC8W3GwBVnZ9nk/s1600/vigil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-p7fmbd-R2bBo7wFd_kNjVK1WWdW6v1kIJC7-9w5MXHGpmqZaa32eyHILs-dN4zBFQeRTNqfGX_mzIO7q-2HsXTHmRFdw0ZTJ8qe2qotDAy4A6X5Hyztl9uj-k1DQXIoC8W3GwBVnZ9nk/s320/vigil.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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This is the vigil board, well a larger portion of it. I might note though, that the item right down center front are butter tarts made by popular request by (looking this up so I can spell this correctly) Mistress Bess Darnley, and while they may be a period food, they are not an SCA period food so I shall consider them some possibly odd new English dish due to the huge masses of sugar in them (in reality, they are a Canadian thing).<br />
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<u>What was missing from the board</u> (yes, am telling you what was left from it) were <u>Dainty Pottages for Oyster, Snail</u> (because I like to toss in something really different) <u>and Mushroom</u>, these are supposed to be served on toasts. Some cheese (including some of Mistress Bess's feta and a round of Brie *sigh*) got left behind and also missing were <u>Lombard tarts</u> and due to not being able to retrieve my casings... period sausage which I made before and are really good and was very sad not to be able to provide.<br />
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Next time maybe?<br />
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To make these, take 1 tsp salt, a few grinds of really chunky pepper and enough fennel to be really visible when mixed in. (fennel optional and for fresh sausage) This is a Good Bolognese sausage (15th century).<br />
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of course what makes them really good is hanging them in a nice smoke though because I stuck to the recipe and did not add any cure, just salt, I would not have tried to keep them for too long.<br />
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Now... should I ever get set back up with a smoker and all my stuff, this can happen again and I would love to make more!<br />
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<h4>
<u>So... what did show up?</u></h4>
Well...<br />
Closest in the picture are <u><b>Royal White Tarts</b></u><br />
The pastry I chose to make for most of them was rather short, meaning I used more rather than less butter, and thus they were flakier than most period pastry but being a later period recipe and coming from Scappi (1570's), it wasn't wrong to do so... and also considering their size since I purposefully chose not to make full sized tarts.<br />
For this, I considerably shrunk the size of the recipe but this is the original:<br />
2lbs fresh provatura (I used provolone)<br />
2lbs sugar<br />
3 oz rosewater<br />
3 cream tops (3 small cups)<br />
15 fresh egg whites<br />
About the only variation I made was in dropping the sugar a bit but without dropping the sweetness too much, this was in effort to allow D'Unstable to have at least a little.<br />
What was particularly interesting to me with this particular tart is that it is noted as being a favourite of Pope Julius III... now apparently he lived a rather luxuriously so guessed his taste in food might be similar... and they were rather tasty.<br />
Sadly... yes, there is a sad story, I did make up some without pastry but the sugars darkened too much to be presentable. I would try it again though, but with more time to dedicate to watching it while they bake.<br />
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These are <u><b>Bread of Walnuts</b></u>! (not seen in above picture)<br />
The test piece I initially made was bigger but I quickly discovered that these could be easily rolled, cut and/or shaped. In this case I just broke the dough into somewhat equal portions and shaped them into leaves.<br />
<br />
The original says to make the ground walnuts into a paste with herbs (for which I used very little in this case), grated suet (I only had cold butter but feel marrow would have been a more correct substitute as it gets suggested in various recipes of the period) and sweet and strong spices. For the spices, for which I used a good amount, was cinnamon, nutmeg and mace, cloves, pepper, grains and ginger.<br />
Then we get to the questionable part. It says to take flour and make a sheet of it in the way of lasagna. This could be just to lay out flour flat, which I did but then I was to somehow put the past over this and make in the way of bread. I seriously thought about it and ended up adding an egg yolk as I would to many of my noodles or breads and also added a very little water (this is all heavily kneaded together until uniform). I'm not sure it would have worked out otherwise where these held together quite nicely, shaped easily and baked well. I baked these on parchment at regular baking temperature and watched the edges of the bottoms for turning darker and then took them out.<br />
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The pies I did up as crescent shaped on the far right were <u><b>a mushroom cheese pastry</b></u> I did from memory, I *think* they are from a Spanish source rather than Italian such as the rest of the board but did feel they would fit in well without being implausible, and I did try to keep in line with herbs/seasoning from Italian cookery. So... the filling for these were cooked/cut mushrooms, Parmesan cheese and various herbs mostly being parsley, mint and basil. <br />
<br />
The little round tarts at the far back, were <u><b>Garlic Tarts</b></u> from "di cucina" (wish I had a more proper name to give you). With these you peel and boil the garlic then you soak them in cold water, pound them (I used a processor this time but would have used the mortar just because if I had it present) then add saffron, fresh cheese (I used a pressed curd/cottage cheese but believe I tossed in a little extra provolone as well) and beaten lard (I substituted butter which is a good substitute in this case), sweet and strong spices which were basically the same as above but with added long pepper. Temper with eggs and currants for which I kept out the currants to keep them as less sweet as possible for the recipient. As I write this, I can not remember if they were to be covered or not but decided that the built up ones would be open due to their size and somewhat delicate fillings.<br />
<br />
Another "libro di cucina" recipe that his the board was "<u><b>preserved nuts</b></u>", though these ones were still a few days shy of being "sunned" but I rushed it along as best I could.<br />
These ones were the pistachio nuts which I gathered were the Persian nuts the recipe called for. To prepare, soak the nuts to soften and then boil them until they are tender and then let dry. Of course this will also cause any skins to loosen, so I pushed all the skins off as well. To this, we add cloves, cinnamon and saffron and then boil this in honey until the pot is almost dry (I added enough honey to make sure the nuts were all covered and had something to cook in). Then boil in another honey (I just scooped out the heavily spiced honey and added some more) so that much of the honey is cooked. Then, put the pot in the sun for 15 says, noting to cover the pot so am guessing it is mainly for heat and not necessarily direct so I put them in a bowl and let them stay in the oven while I heated other things.<br />
I would like to do these again, but not on a board unless I could get them somewhat dryer<br />
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Other items that ended up on the board were red and black grapes with green and black olives and some Genoa Salami, feta cheese and Gouda, because hey, my persona is Dutch and wanted it as a little "hi, this is from me for you"<br />
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and that was our food adventure for the end of the week.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">plate made for recipients dining pleasure</td></tr>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-12802876291441833122013-10-01T05:17:00.003-07:002013-10-01T05:41:23.768-07:00Thinking about authenticity and allergies...I have been thinking a bit about authenticity and allergies and how they play together, namely in an SCA environment. Some who know me, know I dislike making any substitutions whenever it is possible to provide the proper ingredient, or when I do that there had better be a decent reason and that the substitution is the most appropriate one for the recipe.<br />
<br />
The biggest obstacle that has come of late are the growing number of people requiring a gluten free diet where a medieval kitchen really isn't designed to be free of all these gluten containing cereals. Now, obviously, it is not difficult to find recipes that contain gluten free items without compromise, the dietary charts I made from a few example cookery books shows this (and I believe are still up on this blog from the top menu, if not, my website at least). The compromise comes when preparing a number of feasts that actually could have been served within their time period, such as a dinner that could have been prepared in 1531, somewhere in Spain (yes, I'm being a bit vague) as opposed to a feast that encompasses dishes that may have been served at various meals in various places somewhere within the limits of the SCA timeline. Obviously the latter would be much easier to do without compromises to the individual dishes and far more difficult to achieve without compromise to the entire feast, unless we were just looking to re-create a smaller/private meal.<br />
<br />
Gluten is not the only issue we have though, but thankfully we can happily not worry about the more common peanut allergies or any new world food allergies (unless we were making some very strange substitutions). There are an innumerable amount of dietary issues that many SCA cooks meet and I'm not going to make any bones about it, it can be tough for anyone to deal with this because not only are some cooks trying hard to provide a more authentic eating experience for those in our medieval/renaissance club, but can also be untrained cooks or working with untrained staff, people walking in and out of kitchens (I don't have to explain the problems that can come from this to most), working in very unfamiliar kitchens and a myriad of other things that can occur in the process of creating a meal for 20 to 200 people. For someone used to cooking for their dietary needs, this might not sound as impossible (though under the circumstances, things can still get out of control), but for someone dealing with several different needs and not necessarily their own, the odds increase towards the negative.<br />
<br />
For some examples of what any cook can expect, here is a list, and likely not a complete one, of some food issues I've come across. (note: I say "food issue" but it's not meant to offend or imply the importance is lesser, it's a catch all for allergies, food intolerance, religious needs and dietary choices, all of which is a very serious matter).<br />
<br />
<u>allergies covering period foods</u><br />
-pork<br />
-any dairy<br />
-gluten<br />
-pectin<br />
-fish and/or shellfish<br />
-egg<br />
<br />
On top of this, I've found people with corn and other grain allergies which are used in alternative mixes for people with gluten allergies. Because of this, I find it's actually better to just not substitute and pick a recipe that just doesn't have it.<br />
<br />
Besides allergies and food intolerance, I had to deal with other important dietary needs that excluded:<br />
-alcohol<br />
-meat, and meat products, in general<br />
-...and various combinations<br />
<br />
It brings to mind, "The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey", try and try as you might, you can't please everyone, there is no solution beyond what people can do for themselves.<br />
We can not please one person and be fair without attempting to try and please everyone but on looking at the list above, and I have seen <u>more</u> than 3 of these needs at the same meal, the reality comes down quickly.<br />
<br />
A well thought out meal of many cultures and areas is going to have at least two of these food items in it and some not in a small part. There is a degree of authenticity that we would have to give up in some cases, this beyond the amount of authenticity we give up normally with modern versions of food items and in some of it's preparation with our modern equipment and methods.<br />
<br />
My preference for a meal is to provide enough variety using different ingredients so that most people can have enough of at least a few items each from a menu and to have enough at once not to be sitting all night with an empty plate. With enough information from diners ahead of time, this can be arranged without making too much compromise at all, and depending on time and staff, sometimes something extra can be arranged for a limited number of people (example: making a few extra pies in pots instead of pastry).<br />
<br />
But in the end, the best advice I could give to the cook with an interest in authenticity, is compromise only in a way you can be comfortable with. Obviously, the first job would be to deliver food that people can both eat and enjoy but the SCA cook also has an added responsibility and that is in keeping with the theme set out by the SCA which is to re-create the middle ages. If we had no interest in the dining part of the middle ages, then we have little business bothering with feasts in the first place as it would be a lot easier to just bring a lunch or maybe go out for dinner after the event (note: most people pack up and leave after feast anyway, of course we tend to have dinner in the supper hours as well). <br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-25576211927896298362013-08-13T15:41:00.002-07:002013-08-13T15:41:36.061-07:00Studying Food, Cooking and Dining through history...Just like a good costumer can not depend solely on art, a food historian can no solely depend on cook books to understand food, cooking or dining through history. I will say now, if you do, you will be missing a large part of the picture.<br />
<br />
Now, keeping in mind that I'm somewhat focused on some areas more than others when it comes to culinary history so I miss a lot of stuff, but some things remain the same, and this is how I compile information.<br />
<br />
Cookery books are a good place to start, here we have period accounts, contemporary to what ever period we are studying, of direction on preparing, serving and sometimes description of the food and ingredients to dishes we are trying to re-make. We can even compare with recipes both before and after and see trends, but we are only getting a portion of the picture from this.<br />
<br />
Another source we have available is art. Here we can often find pictures of food being prepared, served, sold and so on. Of course this is best pared with collected written information. Sources I don't rule out when looking for artwork are, but not limited to, prints, paintings, illustration and carvings from the era.<br />
<br />
Actual food and food preparation antiquities, and with this, any info taken from them. This is the actual thing! but to make use of it, the last two items come in handy in order to put it all into context.<br />
<br />
Food related writings and writings with food related items: Notice I have been posting transcriptions of animal husbandry books? Those are just one of many sorts of books related to food production. We also have books on grains and farming in general, milling and factory production and so on. We also can find various accounts in fictional and non fictional literature written in the period, basically items of text describing parts of common domesticity, it's valid... look at how many people refer to Chaucer for food description, it's because it placed it as an everyday known item into his stories.<br />
<br />
That said, there are even more places to look and rocks to overturn....<br />
as a parting gift, here is a pinterest page I made up of various images of Cooks from the medieval era to the 17th century: <a href="http://pinterest.com/landverhuizer/some-medieval-cooks-along-with-a-lot-of-16th-and-1/">http://pinterest.com/landverhuizer/some-medieval-cooks-along-with-a-lot-of-16th-and-1/</a><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-44508291491030320902013-08-12T16:50:00.003-07:002013-08-13T01:03:49.137-07:00Sheep, a portion of text from the 4 Books of Husbandry, written in 1578, Barnabe Googe<span style="color: #660000;">(note, for some words I switched the "i" and "y" in their modern places, example: instead of writing "ioyntes" I wrote "jointes" though left them in place where it is still easy to read, example: "mornyng")</span><br />
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HEIDO. Next unto the greater sort of cattell, the cheesest place is to be assigned to Sheepe: yea if you consider the greate commoditie and profite, they are to be preferred before them: for as Oxen serve for the tylling of ground, & necessarie use of men, so is to this poore beast ascribed the safegard of the body, for the Sheepe dooth both with his fleese apparayle us, and with his milke, and holesome flesh, nourish us (as the Poet witnesseth.)<br />
<br />
<i>Poore beast that for defence of man, at first created wast,</i><br />
<i>And in thy swelling udder bearst, the juice of daynty tast:</i><br />
<i>That with thy fleese kept of the cold, that should out limbs assaile</i><br />
<i>And rather with thy life, then with thy death, dost us anaile.</i><br />
<br />
Of sheepe there are sundry breedes. The ritch and the champion countrey, bredeth a large, and a greate Sheepe: the barraine and the clyffy, a resonable stature: the wylde and the mountaine grounde, a small and weerishe Sheepe. The olde husbandes, did greatly commend the breede of Milet, Appulia, and Calabria, and most of all the breede of Taranto, nect of Parma, and Modena. At this day for the finenesse of their fleese, are most in price the Sheepe of England, of Germainie about the Rhine, and of France. Varro councelleth all such as would bye Ewes, to have their cheese consideration of their age, that they bee neyther to old nor to young, the one of them not yet come to it, the other already past profite: but better is that age, whereof there is some hope, then where there followeth nothyng but a dead carcasse. Your best is therefore to bye them at two yeetes olde, and not to meddle with such as are past three: their age is to be knowen by their teeth, for the Teeth of the olde ones are worne away: next must your looke, that your Ewe have a large body, deepe wolled, and thicke over all the body, specially about the necke, and the head, and good store uppon the belly: for such as were bare necked and bellied, the older husbandes always refused. The neck must be long, the belly large, the legges short, though the Sheepe of England be long legges, the taile in some countrey short, in others very long: for in Arabia some have tayles a cubite long, but woonderfull broade: other, (as both Herdotus, and AElianus affirme) three cubites long, so that the shepheardes are forced to tye them up, for the beyng hurt with trayling upon the ground. In AEgypt, a Rammes Tayle hath ben found to waye twentie pound, and more. The Ramme must have his horned greate, wyneding inward, and bendyng to the face, though in some place they have no hornes at all, and yet no better Rammes: the hornes must rather crookle inward, then growe straight up. In some countries, that are wette, and stormie, Goates and Rammes are to be chosen, that have the greatest & largest hornes, whereby they may defend their heads from storme and tempest: and therefore in cold and stormy countries, the horned Rammes are best: in milde and gentle climets, the pold. Beside, there is this inconvenience, when he knowes hym selfe to be armed, he will alwayes be fighting, and unruly amog his Ewes: and though he be not able to serve the turne hym self, yet will he suffer no other Ramme in the flocke, till hee be ever cloyed and lamed with lechery. The Pollarde on the other side, finding him self unarmed, is milder and quieter by much: wherefore the shepheards, to restraine the rage of the unruely, do use to hang before his hornes, a little boorde with sharpe prickes upwards, which keepes hym from his madnesse, whyle he perceyueth hym selfe to be hurt with his owne blood: others say, that if you pearce his hornes with a Wymble next to the eares where they winde inward, he will leave his braulyng. In some places also the Ewes are horned: but to the Ramme hus eyes must bee browne, his eares great, his brest, shoulder, and buttocks broad, his stones great, his tayle broade, and long: you must looke beside, that his tong be not black, nor pecled, for somonly such will geat blacke and pied Lambes, as Vigil noteth.<br />
<br />
<i>And though the Ramme in sight be white as Snowe,</i><br />
<i>If black within his lawes his tongue be wrought:</i><br />
<i>Refuse hym quite, least if he leape thy Yowe.</i><br />
<i>He doo infect thy folde with colour nought.</i><br />
<br />
Bye not your Sheepe but washed and bushorne, that the colour may plainlier appeare, the white colour, as it is the beautifullest so is it the profitablest. In March is your best bying of Sheepe: for the shepheardes like such as have well worne out the Winter. Whosoever will bee a sheepemaister, must regarde the abilitie of his ground: for it is not yenough to have pasture in sommer, but must be provided for in winter : in any wyse, you must have store of pasture, and better it is, and more profitable to the Master, to keep a fewe Sheep well, then a greate number with scarsitie of pasture. Florentinus is of that fancie, that he woulde your number should rather bee odde then even, thinking that number more fortunate, for the healthynesse, and long continuance of the cattell: but these are superstitious toyes, as are a great number of thoers imagined by the faithfulnesse. Be sure every yere once, to make your muster, and supply the places of such as are dead, or sicke, with a newe and sound number, so that the Master, hee not deceived with an olde unprofitable stocke. The hardnesse and crueltie of the colde Winter daoth oftentimes begule the shepheard, and destroyeth many of his flocke: whereof (presumyng of their strength in the ende of the Sommer (he hath made no supply, and therefore Columella is of oppinion, that the age for breede ought not to bee lesse then three yere, nor above eight, both because that neyther of the ages is meete to be kept: and also that whatsoever commeth of an olde stocke, hath lightly a smack of his ould parentes inperfection, and provesth eyther to be barrayne, or weake. The selfe same Columella would have the Ewes to be put to the Ramme, after they had passed two yere olde, and the Ramme to be of five yeere olde, and after seven, to decay. On many places at this day, they suffer both the kindes to breede, from two yeere olde, to niene: but before two yeeres, it is not good to put eyther the Ramme, or the Ewe to breede, although in most places they suffer the Ewes at a year old. The Ramme is put by his purpose, by the Wyckers, or Bulryshes, tyed to the Ewes tayle, but more commodiously, by goyng in severall pastures: howbeit, they are commonly severed, but suffered to goe togeather. The Rammes that you would have to serve your Ewes, must afore the blossomyng, bee kept in good pasture, for two monethes, whereby they may be better be able to doo their buunesse: but in our countrey, we commonly suffer them to feede togeather. To encreasxe their Iust, you geve them in their pasture, the Blades of Onyons, or Knotte grasse: they rather couette the olde Ewes, then the young, because they bee eassyer to bee intreated, and the Rammes them selves in age be the better. By knitting of the right stone, you shall have Ewe Lambes, and of the leaft, Ramme Lambes: also their blossomyng in the Northwind, greateth Ramme Lambes: and in a Southwinde, Ewe Lambes. One Ramme (as Dydimus afirmeth) suffiseth for fiftie Eawes: when they have all conceaved, the Rammes must againe bee banished, for dangering and harming the Ewes. During the tyme of their blossoming, they are to be watered in one place (as both Varro, and Plinie affirme) because the change of water both discoloureth the wool, and dangereth the Lambe. The pollicie of the lacob the Partiarch, in procuring of partie coloured Lambes, is well yenough knowen. The best tyme for blossoming, is from the settyng og the Beareward, to the setting of the Egle: (as Varro and Columella have written) whiche is (as Plinie interprettes it) from the third Ides of May, till the thirteene Kalendes of August, other think it good all the yere long, many prefer the Winter Lambe before those that fall in the spring, as a creature that of all others, best brooketh his Wonter byrth. The thunder, is the Ewes goe alone, makes them cast their Lambes, and therefore it is good to let them goe with company, for avoyding that perrill: they goe with Lambe. I 50 dayes, or five monethes: such as are afterwarde dammed, are feeble and weake, and such were of the olde wrighters called Cordi: for the most part they bring but one Lambe a peece, yet oftentymes two, and if they bee well fedde, sixe at a tyme. It hath been seen in Gelderland, that five Ewes have has in one yeere, five and twentie Lambes: it may seeme paraduenture ta many uncredible, and yet not great marveyle, since they have twice a year most tymes two, and sometime sixe at the time. The shepheard must be as carefull as a midwife in the yeanyng tyme, for this poore creature (though shee bee but a Sheepe) is as much tormented in her delivery, as a [shrewe?], and is oftentymes the more dangerously bered, and payned in her labour, in that she is altogeather without reason: and therefore it behoueth the shepheard to be skillfull in medcenyng of his rattell, and so cumyng and a widwyfe withall, as if neede require, he may helpe his Ewe, what danger soever happen. The Lambe as soon as hee is fallen, must be set on foote, and put to the dammes udder, and oftentimes his mouth held open, the milke must be milked in, that hee may learne to sucke: but before you doo this, you must be sure to milk out the fyrst milke called Colostra, whereof I will speake hereafter: for this, except some quantity be drawen out, doth hurt the Lambe: if the damme dye, if you muste suckle it with a horned: the Lambe will not of hym selfe sucke, he must be put to it, and his Lipped noynted with sweet Butter, and Swynes Grease, and seasoned a little with sweete milke. As soon as they are lambed, they must be shutte up together with thier dammes, wherby both the damme may cheerish them, and they learne to know their dammes. Afterwarde, when they begin to waxe wanton, they must be severed with Hardelles, or (as Varro wryteth) after tenne dayes they must bee tyed to little stakes with some gentle stay, for hurtyng of thier jointes, and waxing leane with to much play. The weaker must be severed from the stronger, for hurtin of them. and in the mornyng betymes, before the flocke goe to pasture, and in the evenying when they be full, the Lambes must be put to their dammes: and when they waxe strong, they must be fedde in the house, with Clover, and sweete grasse, or els with Branne, and Flowre. And when they have gotten greater strength, they must be let out with their dammes about noone, in some sunny and warme Close neare adjoyning, In the meane tyme, you must not deale with milkying of the Ewes, so shall you have them to beare the more wooll, and bryng the more Lambes.<br />
<br />
When the Lambes are taken from the dammes, good heede must be had, that they pine not away: and therefore they must be well cherished in their weaning tyme with good pasture, and well kept, both from colde, and extreame heate. Now after that they have forgotten the udder, that they care not for their dams, then shall you let them feede with the flocke: howheir in moste places the Lambes are suffered to feede in the flocke togeather with their dammes, & to suck till harcest tyme, til the dammes them selves doo weane them. Varro would have you not to geld your Lambes under five monethes old, and that in a season neyther too hot, not too colde: but experience teacheth us, that the best gelding is under the damme when they be youngest: for iix the elder (as in all beastes) it is dangerous. Chose that you will keep for Rammes, you must take from such Ewes as use to have two at one tyme.<br />
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The best pasture for Sheepe, is the grasse that is turned up with the Plowe, and groweth uppon fallowes: the next is that, that groweth in drie Meddowes: the Marchy ground is to be redused, and that whiche groweth neare unto Lakes, and Fennes: the plaine and the champion feeldes and Downes, are beste for the delicatest and dynest wooled sheepe. To be short, the shorter and finer the grasses, the meeter is it for sheepe: and yet is there no pasture so good, or so fine, but with continuall use, your sheepe will be merry of, except the shepheard remedy this fault with giving them Salt, whiche as a sauce to their foode he must set redy in Sommer when they come from Pasture, in little Troughes of Wood, by licking whereof they geat them an appeite both to their Meate, and their drinke. For where as sheepe waxe soonest fatte with watring (as Aristotle affirmeth) you must iu Sommer everie fifth day let them have Salt, a pecke to every hundred: so shall your sheepe be alwaies healthy, ware fatte, and yeelde you plentie of Milke. Moreover, against the Winter rotte, or hunger roote, you must provide to feede them at home in Cratches. They are best fedde in the warmer countreys, with the leaves and brousinges of Elme, and Ashe, and the Haye that is made after Harvest in the ende of Summer, because it is softest, and therefore sweete[s]t then the other. Whith what heede and carefulness this cattell is to be fed, Virgil declares, who wills a regard to be had of the tymes, both of their watring, and feeding.<br />
<br />
<i>When Sommer fayre with Westerne windes dooth call,</i><br />
<i>Tour lusty flockes, to woods and pasture send</i><br />
<i>Betymes, when day doth spring and over all,</i><br />
<i>The gladsome grasse the hoarie dew doth bend.</i><br />
<i>From thence when as the fourth houre of the day,</i><br />
<i>With lo fry Sunne dooth make them dry to bee,</i><br />
<i>To welles or waters deepe goe take the way,</i><br />
<i>And make them drinke in Troughes of Oken tree.</i><br />
<br />
But in the noone tyme, and the heate of the day, you must drive them to the ballyes, and shades (as he sayth) a little after.<br />
<br />
<i>Wheresorever of love the ancient Oken tree,</i><br />
<i>His broade and mightie branches spreades, or where:</i><br />
<i>In sacred Groves of Holmes the shadowes bee</i><br />
<br />
After when the heate is past, you must drive them agayne to the water, and so bryng them agayne to feelde.<br />
<br />
<i>When Sunne is set, and evening Starre appeeres,</i><br />
<i>That cooles the ayre, and deawy Moone she cheeres.</i><br />
<br />
Varro affirmeth, that they devided their pasturyng tymes in Puglia, after this maner. First they put them out to pasture betymes in the mornyng, when as the deawy grasse doth farre exceede in pleasantnesse, and sweetenesse: the grasse that beeyng burnt with the heate of the Sunne, is over dry. About the noone againe, till it waxe cooler, they are to be driven under some cold or watry Rockes, and broade shadowed trees, and towarde the evenyng be suffered to feede tyll sunne set, alwayes hauyng regard, that in their drivying, their heada be from the sunne: for no beast is so tender headed. Within a little after the settyng of the sunne, they must be driven to warter, and after suffered to feede agayne, till it bee darke: for then is the pasture sweetest. This order is to be ovserved fro the rising of the seven starres, and the lesser Dogge, till the latter AUqumodtial. The like doth Columella and Plinie teache, that after the fising of the Dogge, the flocke must afore Noone be driven Westwarde, and feede with their face towarde the West, and after Noone they must be brough agayne Eastward. The feeldes whence the corne is newly had of, is good to pasture them for twoo causes, both for that they are well fedde with the leavinges of the sheaves, and that with the trampling of the strawe, and doungyng, they make the ground richer against the next sowing: but our countrey men doo not well like, that Sheepe should feede uppon the eares of Wheate. The padturing of them in the other seasons, as winter, and the spring, differs in this poynt, that they put them not abroade, tyll the sunne have drawen up the deawe, and hurtfull vapours of the ground, and so feed them all the day long, thinking it suddicient to let them drinke at noone: but out husbandes use not to suffer their Sheepe to feede abroade in the Sommer tyme, neyther before the sunne rysyng, not after the settyng, by reason of the deawe beyng more hurtfull in sommer, then in winter. In winter, and the spring tyme, they keep them in the folde, till such tyme as the sunne have drawen up the rymes and hoare frostes from the feeldes: for the frostie Grasse as this tyme of yeere, doo stoppe their heads with Rhume, and fylles their bellyes full of water: and therefore in the4 colde and wette seasons of the yeere, it is yenough to let them drinke once a day.<br />
<br />
Moreover the shepheard, as also the keeper of all Cattell, must deale gently, and lovingly with their flocke, and comfortyng, and cheering them with singing, and whystling: for the Arabians (as Alianus writeth) doe finde, that this kind of cattell taketh great delight in musicke, and that it dooeth them as much good as their pasture. Beside, they must be well ware in the driving of them, and rulyng of them, that they guyde them with their voyce, and shakying of their staffe4, not hurtyng, nor hurlyng any thyng at them, nor that they bee any tyme farre of from them, and that they neyther lye, nor fitte: for if they goe not forwarde, they must stande: for it is the Shrpheardes office to stande alwayes as hie as hee can, that hee may plaine and easely descerne, that neyther the flowe, nor the great bellyed in lanyng tyme, nor the quicke, nor the lively, whyle they roame, be severed from their fellowes: and least some theefe, or wyldebeast, beguile the necligent shepheard of his Cattell.<br />
<br />
Of theyr pasturyng, I think I have spoken suffieicntly, and therefore I meane nowe to shew you of their houses, or sheepecots, where of there ought to be a speciall regard, that they been conveniently placed, not subject to windes, nor stormes, and that they rather stand toward the East, then toward [the] south, Columella would have them built lowe, and rather long, then brode, that they may be warme in the winter, and that the straightness of the roome hurt not the younf. And beside, hee would habe them stande towarde the Southe: for this beast (though his Garmentes be warme) can not away with cold weather, neyther yet with the greate heate of the sommer. I have seen some sheepe houses so framed, as they have their gates toward the Southe, and toward the East, that they might aunswere to the seasons of the yeere. Columella woulde hatte the house sette towarde the South, and on the Bacside a close Posterue, where they may safely take the ayre. You must looke besides, that where they stande, the grounde bee made fayre and even, some thyng ha?ging, that it may be cleane kept, and that the Urine may bee well boyded away: for the wetnesse herof doth not onely hurt and corrupt their feete, but also spoyleth their Coates, and maketh them rowfe and ilfavored. Let there therefore bee no maysture, but alwayes well strawed with drye Fearne, or strawe, that the Ewes that be with young, may lye the softer, and cleaner. Let their Beddes bee verie cleane, for the cleaner they lye, the better they feede: let them in any wyse bee well fedde: for a small number (as I sayd before) well fed, yeeld more profit to their Maister, then a greate flocke barely kept. Yoy must also have severall partisions to keepe the weaker and the sicke, from the strong and unruely. And thus muche of housed Sheepe, that are every day brought home, but in some places they are kept abroade, farre from either towne, or house. In forestes, and uppon wylde feeldes and Downes, in these places the shepheard carrieth with hym his Hardelles, and his Nettes, and other necessaries to folde his flocke with all. In the desarte feeldes, when as the Winter pastures, and the Soummer pastures, are distant certayne myles of a sunder) as Varro saith) he would have the flockes that wintred in Apulia, to be kept in sommer uppon the Mountains of Krete, and Virgil thus writeth of the shepheardes of Lybia,<br />
<br />
<i>What should I here of Lybian shepheardes tell,</i><br />
<i>Or of their pastures wryt, and dwellinges poore.</i><br />
<i>That night aay on downes, and desartes dwell, Where wanders still the flocke without the doore.</i><br />
<i>And on the ground doth lye the shepheard heare,</i><br />
<i>Whyle he removes with him continually:</i><br />
<i>His house, and all his houshold goods doth beare,</i><br />
<i>His staffe, his dogge, and all his armory. </i><br />
<br />
The like have I my selve seene in Swytherland, and other places of Germany, where the shephearde, lying styll abrode with his flocke, foldes his Sheepe in the night with the Hardels, tying their dogges about them for watchmen: the shephearde hym selfe in a little house uppon Wheeles, sleepes hard by his charge. The Sheepe of Greese, Asia, and Toranto, and those whiche they call covered Sheepe, are commonly used to bge kept in houses, rather than abroade, for the excellencie and dinenesse of their wooll.<br />
<br />
EVPHOR. What tymes doe you appoynt for the shearing of your Sheepe.<br />
HEDIO. The times of shearing, are not in all places one, but varry, according to the disposition of the ayre, the cattell, and the countrey, the best way is to have good regarde to the weather, as the Sheepe bee not hurt by shearyng in the colde, nor harmed by forbearyng in the heate. In some places they have two seasons in the yeere for shearing of their Sheepe: the first season for their shearing, is either with the beginyng of May, or els with the endyng of Aprill: the seconde season of their shearing, is about the beginnyng of september. such as foo use to sheare their Sheepe but once in the yeere doo commonly appoynt for their season, the tenth of the moneth of June, about whiche tyme also such as doo sheare twise a yeere, so sheare their Lambes. Three dayes before you sheare them, you must wash them well, and when they be full dry, you may sheare them: the doo not in all places sheare their Sheepe, but in some places (as Plinie sayth) pull them. The old Husbands did account for the best wooll of Puglie, and that whiche in Italy was called the Greeke fleese: the next in goodness they tooke to bee the Wooll if Italy: in the thirde place they esteemed the Milesian sleese: : the Wooll of Pullie is but short, and meete to bee worned onely in ryding Clokes. The wool about Toranto, and Canas, is thought to be passing good: but the best as this day, is the Wool of Englande. The fyner your pasture is, the fyner (as is thought) you shall have your woll. The wooll of suche Sheepe as are slayne by the Woolde, and the garmentes made therof (as Aristotle saith) is apteff to breede Lyse. If you happen in the shearing to clip the skinne, you must foorthwith annoynt it with Tarre: when you shorne them, some thinke it good you amioynt them with the juice of sodden Lupines, Lees of olde Wyne, and the dragges of Oyle made in an oyntment, and after three dayes to washe them (if it be neare you) in the sea, or in the sea bee farre of with rayne water sodden with Salt. And being thus ordered, you shall not have them to lose their wooll all the yeere, but to be healthy, and to carry a deepe and fine fleese, and therefore Vigil biddes you,<br />
<br />
<i>Goe Plonge them oft in healthy streames.</i><br />
<br />
There be some agayne, that would have you annoynt them three dayes in yeere, the sayes beyng soon after you have washed them, with Oyle, and Wine mingled together. Against Serpents, that many tymes lie hid under their Cribbes, you must burn Cedar, Galbanum, or womans heare, or Hartes horne: in the ende of Seommer is your ryme for drawyng and severyng of them (as I told before) when you must sell your Sheepe, that through feebleness, they sayle not in the Winter. Beside, killyng on or twoo of them, you must looke well uppon their Livers, and if the Liver bee not founde (for herby is forseene the daunger) then eyther sell them, or fatte them, and kill them: for very hard is it to save them, their Livers beeyng perished. Infected Sheepe, are more subject to skabbes and mangeinesse, their any other cattell, which commeth (as the Poet witnessed)<br />
<br />
<i>When coldest stormes doo wette them neare.</i><br />
<i>And hoary frostes on ground appeare.</i><br />
<br />
Or if you wash not the sweate of the Sommer with Salt water, or otherwise. If when they be shorne, you suffer them to be hurt with brambles or thornes: or if you put them into houses, where either Horses, Mules, or Asses have stand, but specially lacke of good feedyng, whereof procedeth poorenesse, and of poorenes, Skabbes and manginesse. The sheepe that is infected, is thus knowen: if he either scratche, stampe with his foote, or beate him self with his horne, or rubbe him selfe against a tree: whiche perceiving hym so to doo, you shall take hym, and openyng his wool, yoo shall side[could be "find" with typo] the skinne ruffe, and as it were itchy: divers men have divers remedies for this malady, bnt suche as are not at hand to be had, Virgil thines there is no presenter remedie.<br />
<br />
<i>Then at the dirst to clyppe away the sore,</i><br />
<i>For being hidde, it festereth the more.</i><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
<span style="color: #660000;">(continuation on the section on Sheep containes more illnesses and cures before it moves on to Goats)</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-77297260535642216682013-08-03T17:01:00.003-07:002013-08-03T17:01:53.120-07:00"the Victorians", you say it like it's a bad thingWhat is possibly the bane to many new, and old, costumers, food historians and just your run of the mill history enthusiast are the numerous sources of information out there that goes back to the Victorian period but is this a bad thing?<br />
<br />
I do not really think so, not if we look at things with an open mind and consider that it isn't all that bad and not probably worse than anything published or created in the 1970's or 2010's. It isn't evil or bad and can be quite valuable, not to mention that some of it is interesting and historical in it's own right... that is, say... the Gothic Revival period for instance. Medieval stuff galore, some of it more authentic in nature, some of it less... and some leaning more towards fantasy but I still appreciate it on it's various levels. Over all, these people did preserve a lot of what may have been lost forever.<br />
<br />
In recent history, I have come to find the opinion of someone who considered "the Victorians" taboo when it came to earlier history. This is something that I found perplexing, especially when we work backwards and upwards in trying to detect a source for a recipe being prepared or researched a particular way and find stops in the late 1800's or early 1900's or even in the 70's. This isn't bad, it's another interesting era of history just as it was interesting to see how the 15th and 16th century Italians viewed Roman history and artifacts. That is, it isn't bad when we can be open to see it how it is presented to us, for what it is and accept that while leaving the question still open.<br />
<br />
To note, I am an avid paper collector but I don't just collect the physical thing, I have been reading countless historic texts as found on line and continue to read these as they become available. This also includes "Victorian" (and pre-/post Victorian) research on things medieval, including medieval food, keeping in mind that even historians of the time did not always agree with each other.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-57735158732407727022013-05-19T12:03:00.000-07:002013-08-03T16:26:45.165-07:00measures are important...These measures are from the London Advisor, M, D, LXXXVI <strike>(1586)</strike><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
____</div>
<b><span style="color: #660000;">CORRECTION</span></b><-- 1686="" a="" about="" actually="" and="" apologies="" appears="" are="" at="" away="" be="" been="" book="" books="" but="" coffee="" compared="" comparisons="" consumption="" contemporary="" content="" correcting="" date="" do="" earliest="" era.="" fooled="" for="" from="" further="" give="" have="" history="" i="" information="" into="" is="" it="" known="" likely.="" likely="" listed="" looked="" looking="" many="" moment="" more="" nbsp="" not="" note="" notes="" of="" on="" p="" re-examined="" reading="" really="" shops="" should="" so="" sooner="" sure.="" that="" the="" there="" therein="" this.="" this="" to="" until="" wanted="" was="" we="" while="" with="" within="" wrong=""><div style="text-align: center;">
____</div>
<br />
<br />
On Bread (avdp system: 1 lb= 16 oz), weighed within 24 hours of being baked.<br />
A peck loaf - 17lbs 6oz<br />
half peck - 8lb 11oz<br />
quartern loaf - 4lb 5-1/2oz<br />
<br />
Ale and Beer Measure<br />
2 Pints = 1 Quart<br />
4 Quarts = 1 Gallon<br />
8 Gallons = 1 Firkin of Ale<br />
9 Gallons = 1 Firkin of Beer<br />
2 Firkins = 1 Kilderkin<br />
2 Kilderkins = 1 Barrel<br />
3 Kilderkins = 1 Hoghead (Hhd)<br />
3 Barrels = 1 Butt<br />
<br />
Wine Measure (als for brandies, spirits, mead, cyder, perry and oil)<br />
4 Gills = 1 Pint<br />
2 Pints = 1 Quart<br />
4 Quarts = 1 Gallon<br />
18 Gallons = 1 Rundlet<br />
1 1-3d Rundlet = 1 Barrel<br />
1 1-3d Barrel = 1 Tierce<br />
11-2 Tierce or 63 Gall (gallon) = 1 Hoghead<br />
1 -3d Hhd or 84 Gall = 1 Puncheon<br />
1 1-half Punch, or a Hhd = 1 Pipe or Butt<br />
2 Pipes = 1 Tun<br />
<br />
Corn Measure (corn being grains in general) (in Surry, and other counties, a bushel = 9 gallons)<br />
2 Quarts = 1 Pottle<br />
2 Pottles = 1 Gallon<br />
2 Gallons = 1 Peck<br />
4 Pecks or 8 Gall = 1 Bushel<br />
8 Bushels = 1 Quarter or Vat<br />
5 Quarters of Wheat, Beans, or Peas = 1 Load<br />
10 Quarters of Oats = 1 Load<br />
<br />
Dry Measure (to measure salt, lead-ore, oysters, corn and other dry goods)<br />
2 Pints = 1 Quart<br />
2 Quarts = 1 Pottle<br />
2 Pottles = 1 Gallon<br />
2 Gallons = 1 Peck<br />
4 Pecks = 1 Bushel<br />
8 Bushels = 1 Quarter<br />
5 Quarters = 1 Wey or Load<br />
5 Pecks = 1 Bushel of Water measure<br />
4 Bushels = 1 Coomb<br />
10 Coombs = 1 Wey<br />
2 Weys = 1 Last of corn (grain)<br />
<br />
Avdp/Avoirdupoize Weight (for measuring butter, cheese, grocery wares, and all goods that have waste)<br />
16 Drachms = 1 Ounce (oz)<br />
16 Ounces = 1 Pound (lb)<br />
28 Pounds = 1 Quarter of a Hundred (qr)<br />
4 Quarters = 1 Hundred or 112lb (cwt)<br />
20 Hundred Weight = 1 Ton (T)<br />
<br />
A stone of meat is 8lb<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-34944767499959939712013-05-06T13:19:00.003-07:002013-05-19T16:20:53.581-07:00On Chickens, from the 4 books of husbandy, 1586<br />
As keeping and breeding of Cattell, doth yeeld no final commoditie and gaines to the husbande, so the nourishing & maintenaunce of Poultry, foule, Bees, and Fish (if the countrey be for it) doth commonly arise to his great advauntage, wherby both the revenue is grearly encreased, and the table daily with dainty, and no chargeable dishes furnished. Cages, and houses for Birdes, wherein were kept al maner and sortes of foule, were first devised by M. Lelius Strabo at Brundisium, from which time is was first put in use, to pen uppe such creatures, as naturally were accustomed to flee at their libertie in the aire. At which time also began to be brought in strange & outlandish foules, the keeping and breeding whereof, yeeldeth to the husband both pleasure and profite. We have here brought in PVLLARIVS, CHENOBOSCVS, MELISSEVS, and PISCIN ARIVS, every one of them serverally entrating of such things as belongeth to his charge.<br />
<br />
MELISSEVS. I see you have here (PVLLARIVS) great store of foule, and Poultry, and I believe verily, the profite and commoditie of them, wil not quite hald the charges they put you to.<br />
PVLLARIVS. Yes verily they quite your cost, whether you sell them, or keepe them for the kitchin. It is saide that Auidius Lurco made yeerely of his Poultrie and foule five hundred pound.<br />
MELLISSEVS. But I do a great deale better like the common Poultrie, that we keepe about our houses.<br />
PVLLARIVS. We have also of the same here at home with us.<br />
MELLISSEVS. Then let me understand (I pray) in what order you keepe them, for herein you seeme to be most skilfull.<br />
PVLLARIVS. If is meete that every one be skilfull in that trade that he professeth. If you will I will not refuse to shew you that little cunning that I have: so you on the other side vouchsafe to shewe me the ordring of your Bees.<br />
PVLLARIVS. Well then with a good will I declare unto you my knowledge, beginning first with those kinds that are most in use: for amongst all other housholde Poultry, the cheefe place is due to the Cocke and the Henne, that are beside so common, as the poorest widdowe in the country is able to keepe them.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">[qualities of a good chicken]</span></b><br />
<br />
In this Birde there are three points of natural affection cheefely to be woondred at. The first, the great carefulness that they have during the time of their sitting, wherein for the desire of harching their yoong, they seeme to be carelesse of either meate or drinke. Secondly, that they beare such love to them, as they sticke not to hazard their owne lives in the defence of them. And thirdlie, that in the storme, great colde, or sicknesse, they preserve and nourish them under their winges, not making for the while any account of their owne selves. There is herof a most sweet comparison in the Gospell, where in our Saviour CHRIST compareth himselfe to the Henne that gethereth her Chickins under her winges. And therefore, since these are common for every man to have, and that they alwaies feede about the house, I thinke it best to beginne with them, and to tell you which are best to bee likes, which to bee brought up, and which to be fatted. First, the best to be brought for broode, are the dunne, the redde, the yellow, and the blacke, the white are not to be medled with, because they are commonly tender, and prosper not, neither are they besides fruitefull, and are alwaies the fairest marke in a Hawke, or a Bussardes eie. Let therefore your Henne be a good colour, having a large bodie and brest, a great head, with a straight redde and dubble comme, white eares & great, her tallons even. The best kind (as Columella saith) are such as have five clawes, so that they be free from spurres: for such as weare those Cockish weapons, are not good for broode, and disdaine the companie of the Cocke, and lay but seldome, and when they sitte, with their unruely spurres they breake their Egges.<br />
The little Pullets, or Hennes, though the old age, both for their unfruitfulness, and other causes disalowed them, yet in many places they prove to be good, and lay many Egges. In England at this day, they are used as a daintie dish at mens tables.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">[Choosing a good cock]</span></b><br />
<br />
In the choise of your Cockes, you must provide such as will treade lustily, of colours, as I tolde you for the Hennes, and the like number of talons, and like in many other pointes, but of stature they must be hier, carriyng their heads straight up, their Commes must be ruddy and hie, and hanging, nor falling downe, their eyes blacke and sharpe, their Billes short and crooked, their eares greate and white, their wattells oryent, having under them as it were a kind of grayish beard, the Necke feathers of colour divers, either a pale or grayish beard, the Necke feathers of colour divers, either a pale, golden, or a glittering greene, which must hang rufling from his Necke, to his shoulders, their Breastes must be large, their Tailes dubled and flagging, their rumpes and thyes full of feathers, their legges string, wel armed with sharp and deadly Spurres: Their disposition (for you shall not neede to have them great fighters) would be gentle, quicke, and lively, and specially good wakers, and crowers: for it is a Byrde that well aprorcioneth both the night and the day, and (as Prudentius withnesseth) echorteth to repentance. Neither must you on the otherside, habe hom a Craddon, for he must sometimes stand in the defence of his wife and his children, and have stomacke to kill or beate away a snake, or any such hurtful vermine: but if he be to quarrellous, you shave to no rule with him, for fightting and beating his fellowes, not suffering them to treade, though he have more then his handes full him selfe. This mischiefe you may easily prevent, with shackling him with a shooe sole: for although such lustie fighters are bredde up and cherished for the game, yet are they nor to serve the Husbands turne at home. A Cocke framed and proporcioned after this sort, shall have five or sixe Hennes going with him.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">[brooding hens]</span></b><br />
<br />
MELI. I pray you let me understand what time of the yere is best for bringing foorth of Chickins.<br />
PVLLA. In some places, spcially the hottest countries, the Hennes begin to lay in Januarie, in colder countries, either in February, or at the latter end of JanuaryL you must also further their laying, by giving them meates for the purpose, as Barly halfe foode, which maketh both the Egges the fayrer, and causeth them to lay the oftner. Some thinke it good to mingle therewith the leaves or the seedes of Cytisus, which both are thought to bee greatly of force in making them fruiteful. If this be not to be had, you may supply the want with Spery, or (as Cardanus saith) with Hempseede, which will cause them to lay all the Winter. When they lay, you must see that their nestes bee very cleane, and kept still with freshe cleane strawe: for otherwise they will be full of fleaes, and other vermine, which will not suffer the Henne to be quiet, whereby the Egges doe not hatch even together, or many times ware adle and rotten. The Egges that you sette under them, must be newe laide, ho wheit, so they not above tenne daies olde, it maketh no great matter: if you looke not to them, they will straightwaies sitte after their sift laying, which you must not suffer, for the yoong Pullet, are better for laying then sitting: the desire of sitting is restrained, by thrusting a fether through their nose. The old Hennes must rather be suffered to sit, then the yoonger, because of their experience. Herein must you have a speciall regarde to know which be best to sit, for some be better to bring uppe Chickins then to sitte. Others againe will either breake, or eate uppe both their owne Egges, and their fellowes Egges: such you must put aside, and if their Nayles and Billes be sharpe, rather employ them in brooding, then in fitting.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">[Egg incubation without a Hen]</span></b><br />
<br />
Democritus telleth, that Chickins may be brought foorth without setting under the Henne, if so bee the doung of Hennes, sifted verye fine, be put in little bagges, basted about with soft feathers, uppon which the Egges must be laid straight upright, with the sharpe ende upwarde: uppon these againe must the like quantitie of Henne doung be laide, so that they bee of every side closely covered. This done, you must suffer them to lie for the two or three first daies, and after, every daye turne them, taking good heede that you knocke them not one against the other in the turning. After twentie dayes, you shall finde the egges broken: and therefor the twentieth day, plucking away the shels: and taking out the Chickin, you may commit them to the Henne. It is written, that Chickins have been hatched by the continuall warmth of a womans bosome: beside it hath beene seene, that egges being laide in an Oven, or warme place, covered well with Strawe and Chaffe, having a little fire beside, and one turne them continually, have disclosed and broken at their accustomed time. Aristotle writeth, that Egges put in the warm vesselles, or covered with doung, will hatch of themselves.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">[# of eggs/times of year and timing for hatching other eggs under hens]</span></b><br />
<br />
The number of Egges that your Henne shall fitte uppon, some woulde have to be odde, and not alwaies alike, but in January and Fevruarie fifteene, and no more, in March nineteene, and no lesse: which number you shall continue all the Summer, till September, or October, after which time it is to no purpose to breede any longer: for the Chickins, by reason of the cold weather and diseases, never prosper. Yea some be of opinion, that after the tenth, or twelfth of June, you shall never have faire broode, and that the best season for sitting, beginneth at the tenth of March. And herein you must alwaies be sure to have Moone encreasing, from that she be tenne daies olde, till fifteene: for that is the best time to sitte in. And so must you againe dispose the time, as the hatching mall fall out in the encrease of the Moone: for the iust time of hatching, there are sundry opinions. Aristotle writeth, that they are hatched in nineteene daies, Varro (for Chickins) one and twentie daies, or twentie daies, for Peacockes and Geese, seaven and twentie daies, and sometimes more: Duckes in the like space to the Henne, specially if they sit night and day, allowing them one ly the Morning, and the Evening to feede: which times they must necessitie have. If so be you will set under your Henne Peacocks Egges with her owne, you must set her uppon the Peacocks Egges, ten daies before she have her own Egges, whereby they shall be hatched all at once, neither must you set above five Peacockes or Goose Egges under a Henne.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #660000;">[identifying good eggs]</span></b><br />
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If you have all Cocke Chickins, you must choose such Egges as be longest and sharpest, as again (for Hennes) the roundest, (as both Plinie and Columella write) though Aristotle seem not of that opinion. To understande which be good Egges, which not, you must (as Varro teacheth) put them in water, and such as be naught, will swim asloft, and the good goe straight to the bottome. Others do hold them up against a Candle, and if they see through them, they iudge them light and naught. You must in no wise shake them, or shogge them, least you breake the strings of life, that are but newly begunne: it hath been seene that by shaking of the Egges, the Chickins have been hatched lame. We may beside perveive whether the Egges will proove well or no, if foure daies after the Henne have sitten, you hold them up in the sunne, or other light, and if you see that they be cleere, cast them away, and put other in their places.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #660000;">[Brooding Hen]</span></b><br />
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Against thunder, that many times marreth the Egges, some doe sette about them the Leanes of Branches of Bayes, or Bentes, or Grasse, others (againe) the heades of Garlicke, and nailes of iron. In the great heat of the Sommer, you must nowe and then sprinkle the Egges a little with water, and wet them least by the extreame heate they ware drie and able, speicallie the Egges of Turkeies and Hennes. Whensoever you meane to make cleane their nestes, you must take up the Egges, and lay them tenderly in some little Basket, and so laye them speedily againe in the cleane nest: neere to the place where the Hen sittes, you must sette water, and meate, that they may beeter keepe their Nestes, and that by their long absence the Egges ware not colde. And although the Henne doth alwaies turne her Egges, yet it behooveth you when she is from the nest to turne them softlie with your handes, that by receaving a like warmth, they may the sooner bee readie. And if the have happenned to bruste any of them with her feete, you must presently remoove them. At the nineteenth day, you must look dilligently whether the Chickins doe iobbe the shell with their billes, hearken whether they peepe: for many times by reason of the hardeness of the shell they cannot come foorth, and therefore you must helpe them out with your handes, and put them to the Henne, and this you must doe no longer then three daies: for the egges that after one and twentie daies make no noise, have nothing in them, and therefore you must cast them away, that the Henne loose not her labour. Uppon the twentieth day, if you sturre the egges, you shall here the Chickin, from that time beginne the feathers, the Chicken lying so, as the read<br />
resteth uppon the right foote, and the right wing lieth uppon the head, the yolke vanishing by little and little away. You must not take the chickins away as they be hatcht, but suffer them to remain one whole day with the Henne in the Nest without meate or dinke, till such time as they all hatched. It is woonderfull, and yet the experience seene, that before they be suffered to eate they take no harme, though they fall from a great height.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #660000;">[Care of Chicks]</span></b><br />
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The next day, when all the flocke is come foorth, Columella would have you but them under a Sive, and to perfume them with the smoke of peniriall, or to hang them in a basket in the smoke, which preserveth them (as it is thought) from the pippe, which many times destroith the poore Chicken: then must you put them into Coope with the Henne, and feede them at the first with Barly meale, sodden in water, and sprinkled with a little Wine. afterwardes, when they goe abroad, you must feele everie one of them, whether there remaine any of the meate they recieved the day before: for if their croppes be not empty, it betokenth want of digestion, and therefor you must kepe them fasting till all be digested. You must not suffer them to go farre from the Henne, but to keepe them about the coope, and to feed them till they ware strong with brused Barly, and Barly Meale: you must also take good heede, that they be not breathed upon by either Toade, Snake, or Euet, for the aire of such is do pestilent, as it by & by destroieth them al: which mischiefe is avoided by burning of Harts horne, Galb anum, or Womans haire, the smoke of all which preveteth this pestilence. You must sie beside that they lie warme: for they neither can suffer colde, nor too much heat, the feathers about their tailes must be puttled away, least with the hardning of their doung, their passages be stopped, which if it be, you must open dotly with a little quil: you must keepe them with the Henne for a mothes space, and after suffer them to goe at libertie.<br />
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<i>[skipped a small section on treating the pip and getting chickens not to eat your grapes]</i><br />
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choice of poultry<br />
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As in all other cattell of the Countrey, so in these kindes the best are to be kepte, and the woorst either to bee solde, or to bee killed in the house, And therefore every yeere about the fall of the leade, when they cease to breede, you shall lessen their number, and put away the olde ones. Such as are above three yeeres, and such as are either unfruitfull, or not good bringers up of Chickins, but specially those that eate up either their owne Egges or their fellowes, or such after the Cockishe maner either crowe, or treade: to which number you shall also adde, such as were hatched after the tenth of June, which never proove to bee faire, but the Cocke as long as he is able to treade you may keepe: for you shall seldome meete with a good Cocke.<br />
For fatting, the best those that have the skinnes of their neckes thicke and fattishe. The place where you meane to fat them, must be very warm, and of little light, because as both Varro, and other owne experience sheweth, the light, and their often stirring, keepeth them from being fatte: this must they be kept for five tha twentie daies, wherin they will bee fatte. Let them hand every one in his Basket or Cage by himself, which must have in it two holes, one to thrust out his necke at, the other to cast out his doung, that he may discharge himself, and let them strawed either with straw, or course hay: for the harder they lie, the sooner they fatte. Pull awaye besides their feathers from their heads, their wings, and their tailes, the one for avoiding of lice the other for binding their bodies. Teh meate that you give them, must be Barley meale, which mingled with water, be made in little pellettes, wherewith they will bee fat (as some thinke) in fourteene daies: but see that you give it them but moderately at the first, till they well digest it, after give it them in qualtitie, according as they digest it: and in any wise give them no newe, till you perceive, by feeling of their croppes that was (I think) the cause that old people make choise in their quitrentes of smoke Hennes, as of the best, as it appeereth by old Rentalles.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #660000;">[housing]</span></b><br />
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Let the front of your Henne house stande allwaies towardes the East, and to that coast let the doore open. Let the inner roomes bee well<br />
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furnished with Loftes and Lathers, and small windowes opening Eastward, at which your Poultry may flee out in the morning, and come into the roust at night. Looke that you make them close at night, and let the windows be well lettiesed for feare of vermine. Let you nestes and lodgings, both for laiyin and brooding, be orderly cast, and against every neste and rousting place, place steppes and boordes to come up by, makeing them as rough as may be, that the Hennes may take good holde when they fell uppe to them, and not by their over smoothnesse, bee forced to flutter and burte their Egges. It shall not bee amisse, if you pargette the house both within and without with good Plaster, whereby neither Weefell, or other hurtfull Vermine may enter in. Boorded floore are not for foule to rouste uppon, which almost all kinde of birdes refuse, because of the hurt that they receive by their doung, which if it cleave to their feete, breedeth the Goute, And therefore to roust upon, you must make them perches, which Columella would, should be make fowersquare: but it is better to have them round, so that they be not too smoothe for them to take hold by. Let the Perches reach from one side of the wall to the other, so as they stand from the floore at a foote in height, and two foote in distance one from the other: and thus have you the fashion of your Henne house.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #660000;">[the yard]</span></b><br />
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The Court where they go, must be cleane from doung and durtinesse, not having water in it, saving in one place, and that must be very faire and cleane: for it be pudled, or durtie, it breedeth (as I saide before) the Pippe. To keep their water cleane, you make have faire earthen, or stone vessell, or Troughes of wood, covered in the toppe, in the which there must be several holes so bigge, as the head of the houle may easely enter: for if you should not keepe them thus covered, the Poultry would in their drinking defile and poison it with their doung. Their meat must be given them betimes in the morning for straying abroad, and a little before night, that they may come the timelier to they rest. Those that bee in the Coope, must (as Columella saieth) be fed thrise in the day: the others must be used to an acquantted voice, that they may come at the calling. The number must be well marked: for they soon dereive their keeper. Beside, you must have rounde about by the walles, good plentie of dust, wherein they may bathe and proyne themselves: for as the Swine delighteth to wallowe in durte, so doth this kinde to bathe and tumble in the duste. And this is (I thinke) almost all that is to be saide of Pullein.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">notes: The section and added txt in the [ ] is my own</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">any edits are just to correct typing errors</span></i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-92100901690490869912013-05-02T19:29:00.003-07:002013-05-19T16:21:10.881-07:00Turkie Cockes, from the 4 books of husbandry, 1586<br />
Mellissevs. I would faine learne the right ordering of their outlandish Birds, called Ginny Cocks, & Turky Cockes.<br />
Chenoboscvs. This kind of Poultry we have not long had amongst us: for before the yeere of our Lorde. 1530. the were not seene with us, nor I beleeve knowne to the olde wryters. Some have supposed them to be a kinde of the Birdes called in the olde times Meleagrides, because of their ble with coames: but these kindes have no coames, but only wattles. Others againe reckon them for a kind of Peacockes, because they doe in freading time after the same sort, spread and set up their tailes, bragging and vanting them selves: ho wheit they neither resemble these in all points. But because this kind of foule, both for their rarenesse, and also the greatness of their body, is at this daie kept in great flockes, it shall not be much amisse to speake of the: for in daintinesse and goodnesse of meat, the Hennes may compare with either the goose, or the Pehen, and the Cocke farre excell them. The colour of their feathers is for the most parte white, blacke, or pied white and blacke, some blewe and blacke, Their feete are like unto the Peacocks, their tails short, but spread, and borne up after the Peacocked guise, specially when they tread. The heads and the necks of them, are naked without feathers, covered with a wrinckled skinne, in maner of a Cowle, or a Hoode, which hanging over their billes, they draw uppe, or let fall at their pleasures. The Cocke hath the greater wattles under his chinne, and on his breast a tuffe of haire. The colour of that wrinckled skinne about his heade (which hangeth over his bil, and about his neck, all swelling as it were with little blathers) hee changeth from time to time like the Chamalion, to al colours of the Rainbow, sometimes white, sometimes redde, sometimes blewe, sometimes yellow, which colours ever altering, the bird appeereth as it were a myracle of Nature.<br />
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The dieting and keeping of them, is almost al one with the Peacocke, saving that this bird ran woorse away with colde, and wet. It is a birde woonderfully given to breeding, every Cocke must as the Peacocke, have foure or five Hennes with him: they are more forward in breeding then the Peacocke, beginning either the first yeere, or at the farthest at two yeere olde: they begin to lay in March, or soner. In hotte countries they lay greate numbers of Egges, if they be continually taken from them, and set under henns, and if so be you take them not away, the begin to sit at the first: for they be of all others most given to sitting, and so much, that if you take away all thier Egges, they will sitte upon a stone, or many times the bare nest. You must therefore restaine them of the device, either by thrusting a fether through their nose (as I before told you) or by wetting their bellies with cold water. You must sette under their Eggs (as I taught you before) in the Peacock: for they have both one time of batching. The keeper must marke the one side of the Egges, and alwaies tourne them, sprinkling them now and then gently with faire water, and take heede the Cocke come not at them, for he will breake them as well as the Peacock: for the Cocke of the kinde, is a frowarde and mischievous Bird. The Chickens being hatched under a Henne, may be kept with the Hennes Chickins, or els verie well alone with the Henne, growing aster a great deale then the Peachicke. You shall feede them in a like sort as you doe the Peacocke, or other Poultry: for they wil eate anything, and delight in Grasse, Weedes, Graveil, and Sande. And because they cannot away with colde, nor wette, you must keep them in Winter, in the warmest and driest places you have. The Pearches whereon they use to sit, must bee hie, but an eight or tenne foot from the ground, neither be they able to flee any great height, and therefore must bee holpen with Lathers, or steppes.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-20364802682382397182013-04-20T20:44:00.000-07:002013-04-20T20:44:16.583-07:00Been busy... and distractedOf course, my boring everyday life keeps me busy and away from my food blogs and website but I have been able to take a bit of time back lately and post a few things. Aside from here, I've been translating a boke of kervynge into modern English in my old "<a href="http://midenglishrecipes.blogspot.ca/">recipe a day blog</a>" (which isn't exactly that anymore) and I've been re-loading my <a href="http://oldfoodways.info/">old foodways site</a>, though updates will likely come in slowly as time allows. <br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-76663249937061282882013-04-20T20:35:00.001-07:002013-05-19T16:21:30.438-07:00Cattle, from the "Foure Bookes of Husbandry"The Foure Bookes of Husbandry, by Conrad Heresbach and Barnabe Googe, was published in 1578 (though I also used a later print in an attempt to get better images to work from)<br />
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One way to get to know your food, is to know how your food was raised. Well, today I was inspired (it does not take much really) to transcribe a little section on Cattle Husbandry.<br />
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(there might be errors as I did not proofread, however the spelling was kept in tact apart from using standard "s" and using "v" instead of "u" where appropriate in most cases... )<br />
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Section on Bullocks:<br />
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HIP. Go to EVPHORBUS, let us now see you discharge your part, according to your promise, and tell us some parte of your cunning in keeping your cattell: for next to the horse in worthinesse, commeth the Oxe.<br />
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EVPHOR Since it is so appointed, I am contented to shewe you what I can say touching my poore skill: and first, you may not suffer the horse to chalenge the cheefe place, when the olde writers and auncient people did alwaies give the garland and chiefe praise to the Oxe, as to a good plowman and faithfull servant: for Hesiodus, a most ancient writer, and the gravest author of our profession affirmeth, that the famely doth consist of the husbande, the wife, an the Oxe. The selfe same by his authoritie both Aristotle seeme to alleage in his Politickes, and in his Economickes, which beast was alwaies of that honor and estimation, that he was condemned in a great penalty, whosoever did kill him, being a fellow, and cheefe helper in our husbandry. By the woorthines of this beast, many great things received thier names of them: for the number, beautie, and fertilitie of Heyfars, did Italy (as they saye) first take hys name, because Hercules pursued the noble Bull called Italus. This is the cheefe companion of man in his labours, and the trustie servant of the goddesse Ceres: in many great things for the roialtie of the Oxe, they derives their names from the oxe, as in calling also the Grape Buneammam: in fine, Jupiter himself thought good to convert into this shape his sweete darling Eurpoa. Moreover, of a rotten Steere are engendered the sweete Bees, the mothers of honey, wherefore they were called of the Greekes (as Varro saith) The same Varro makes foure degrees in their age: the first of Calves, the second of Yeereings, the third Steeres, the fourth Oxen, the Seres: in the first, the Bulcalfe, and the Cowcalfe: the seconde, the Heyfar, and the Steere: in the third and fourth, the Bull, and the Cowe: the barraine Cow he calleth Tauram, the melch Cowe Hordam, from whence came the feasts called Hordicafesta, because the mitchkine were then sacrificed. The goodness of this beast is divers, according to the diversitie of the country: the best were counted in the olde time to be of the breeede of Albania, Campania, and Toseam: at this day we take the best kind to be in Hungary, Burgundy, Frisland, Denmarke, and in England. Of bullocks, some are for the drawght, some for the staul, and some for the payle: to what purpose soever they serve, whether it be for labout, for milcking, or for feeding, it is best alwaies to choose such as are young, of lusty age, rather than those that are olde and barraine, the woordes of couenant in the olde time (as Varro saith) in selling of Bullocks, were these: doo you warrant these Bullockes, or Steeres, that you sell to be sound, of a sound heard, and without fault. The Butchers that bie for slaughter, and such as bie for sacrifices, use no worde of warrantise: and though some bullocks are chosen by their strength, some by the greatness of their body, yet the best commonly have these properties: large, well knit, and sound limmes, a long, a large, and deep sided body, blacke horned, through in the colour there be no great matter, yet some mislike the white for their tendernesse, which when Varro consenteth, who would have them broade forheaded, great eyed and blacke, his eares rough and heary, his chawes to be large and wide, his lippes blackish, his necke well brauned, and thicke, his oe wlappes large, handing downe from his necke to his knees, his shoulders broade, his hide not hard, or stubborne in feeling, his belly deape, his legges well sette, ful of synowes, and straight, rather short then long, the better to sustaine the weight of his body, his knees streight and great, his feete one farre from the other, not broad nor turning in, but easely spreading, the heare of all his bodie thicke and short, his tayle long, and bigge heared. Palladins thinketh the best time for bying of drawght Oxen, to bee in March, when being bare, they cannot easely hide their faults, by the fraude of the Seller, nor by the reason of their weakenesse bee too stubborne to bee handled, It is best to bie them of your neighbour, least the change of the ayre and soile hur them: for the Bullock that is brought up neere home, is better then the stranger, because he is neither troubled with change of the ayre, water, nor pasture: if you can not have them neare you, bye them from some like country, or rather from a harder, and be well assured that you bye them even matches, left in their labor, the stronger spoyle the weaker. Looke besides that they be gentill, skilfull in their labour, fearefull of the goade, and the driver, not breading any water, or bridge: great feeders, but softly, and not overhastily: for such doo best digest their meate.<br />
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<i><b><span style="color: #660000;">(Choosing Breeding stock and Breeding)</span></b></i><br />
In choosinf of Bulles, or kine, the very like signes are to be required, that the Bull differeth from the Oxe, in that he hath a more frowning and fierce looke, shorter hornes, greater, and thicker neck so bigge, as it seemes the greatest part of his bodie, his belly something gaunter, and meeter for Bulling of kine. The Bull before he be suffered to goe with the kine, must be well fedde with graffe, chaffe, or hay, and kept severally by himselfe, neyther must he goe to the Cowe, till tenth of June. Varre woulde not suffer him before the rising fo the Lira: but Aristotle woulde have him all the redding time, to go in pasture with the kine. The cowe likewise would be hie of stature, and long bodied, having great udders, broade foreheade, faire hornes, aqnd smooth, and all the other tokens almost that is required in the Bull, specially to be yeong: for when they passe twelve yeeres old, they are not good for breede, but they live many times farre longer if their pasture be good, if they kept from diseases. The olde Cowe giveth more milk then the yoong, according to the countrey people proverbes, old kine, more milk, yoong Hennes more egges. Againe, under three yeeres old, you may not suffer them to go to Bull: if they chaunce to be with Calfe before, you must put the Calfe from them, and milke them for three daies after, least their udders be sore, afterwardes for beare milking. Plinie writeth, that at a yeere old they bee fruitfull, but the breede will be little, as it happeneth in all too timely ingendringes. You must everie yeere in these beastes (as in all other) sort your stocke, that the olde that be barraine, or unmeete for breeding, may be put away, sold, or remouved to the Plowe: for when they be harraine (as Columella saith) they will labour as well as Oxen, by reason they are dried up, but we use commonly to fatte them: their age is known by the knottes and circles of their hornes, which Plinie marketh likewise in Goates, The time for going to Bull, some take to be best in the midst of the spring: Palladius would have it in July, for so in the twelfth month the shal Calve, for so long the goeth with Calfe (as the common people say) a Cowe and a Quene have both one time. In many places they desire to have their Cowes goe to Bull a thirtie or fortie daies after the tenth of June, that they may calve in March, or Aprill: that they would have much milke, so order the matter, as their kine goe to Bull from the spring to winter, whereby they alwaies milke some: at once bulling the conceaveth, if the chaunce to faile, the goeth to Bull again with twentie daies after: some say, if to be the Bull come downe on the left side of the cowe, it will be a Cowe Calfe, if on the right side, a Bull Calfe. The Greekes affirme, that if you will have a bull calfe, you must knitte the right stone of the Bull, and for a Cowe Calfe, the left: Varro saith, that if you put the Cowe to the Bull immediatly after gelding, the conceaveth: Columella affirmeth fiftene kind to be yenough for on Bull. I think he will well yenough serve twentie kine, if he be such a Bull as I described: if you haus good store of pasture, you may let them goe to Bull every yeere, but you must beware your kine be not to fattte, for that will hinder their being with Calfe. The Cowe should when she is reddying, have but shirt pasture, and the Bull his belly full: so shall neither she be too farr, nor he be unlusty. If the cowe will not take the Bull, you must stampe sea Onyons in water, and rubbe her under the taile with it: if the Bull not lusty enough about his businesse, take the peezel of a Stagge, burne it, and make it in pouder, and with a little wine and pouder, bathe his stones, and his peezell withall, which will serve for the like purpose in all other beastes (as Quintillian saith) his courage is also stirred up by the like odours that you speake of for your horse. A Bull ought not to leap the Cowe above twise in a day as some thinke, but we finde by experience, that he may oftner. In some places they name common bulles, and common Boares to every towne: a Bull will ware furious at the sight of any redde thing, as the Elephant, and the Lyon, which cannot in no wyse abide the sight of any white thing. A Cowe will gyve sucke to a straunge Calfe, but let not the calves lie wyth them in the night, for feare of overlaying them. Some weane them at the first, and suckleth them wyth Mylke, or Whay, having a little Branne in it, or flowre, wherewith they bring them uppe, till they bee able to feede. Whether you meane to reare them for breede, labour, or feeding, you must let them want to store of good pasture: for though they bee of never so great a breede, yet if their pasture bee scantie, they will never come to their full growth: for pasture makes the beast (as the Countrey people saye.)<br />
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<b><i><span style="color: #660000;">(this section on castration and steers)</span></i></b><br />
Mago, and the olde husbandes, would have you to gelde them while they be verye yoong, which order wee likewise observe in cutting of them: and in the Spring, or at the fall of the leafe, when they be three moneths olde, or threre about, we use to gelde the Bull Calves, and spay the Cowe calves, sowing uppe the wounde, and annoiting it with fresh butter. Columella would not have them cur, but their stones broken by little and little with an instrument, which kinde of gelding he best liketh, because in the little yoong ones, it is done without bleeding: for when they be something growen up, it is better to cut them at two yeere old, then ar a yeere olde, which must be done in the spring, or at the fall of the leafe, the Moon being in the wane: you must tie up the Calfe to a frame, and before you cut him, you must fasten about the synows, whereby the stones bang, a couple of small stickes like a paire of tonges, and taking holde therwith, cut away the stones, so as a little of the upper parts of the may remaine with the foresaid synows: for by this meanes you shall not hazard the beast by overmuch bleeding, neither is his stomacke quite taken away, but hath something of the fatherremaining, and yet looseth his abilities of ingendring. Notwithstanding, if you suffer him immediately uppon thys newe cutting to go to the Cowe, it is certyne hee may get a Calfe, but let him not so doe, for feare of bleeding to death. The wounde must be annoynted with the Ashes of Vines, the Lytharge, and he must not be suffered the first day to drinke, but nourished with a little meat; three daies after he must be dieted, according to his feeblenes, with greene bowes, and sweete grasse cut for him, and looked to, that he drinke not too much: and if you will, you may annoint the sore for three daies with Tarre, and a little Ashes, and Oile, to heale him the sooner, and to keepe the place from flyes. You must use them while they be yet young, to suffer to be handled, and stroked, and tied up to the Manger, that when they should come to be broken, they may be handled with more ease, and lesse danger: but Columella forbiddes you to meddle with the breaking, or labouring of them, before three yeere old, and after fine: for the one is to soone, the other to late. Those that you have taken up wilde, and be well frames, and proporcioned, according to my paterne, you shall handle and breake in this sort. First of all, see that you have a large roome, where the breaker may easely goe up and downe, and out at his pleasure, without any danger. Before the stable, you must have a faire feelde, that the Steeres may have libertie enough, and not be feared, or heltred, with trees, or busshes. In the stable, you must have certaine stalles, or boordes, yoke wise set up, a seven foote from the ground, to which the Steeres may be tied: this done, choose you a faire day for the purpose, and takeing them up, bring them into the stable: and if they be unreasonable wild and curst, let them stand tied a day and a night without any meate, to tame them withall: afterwardes let him that keeps them, offer them a little meate, not sidewaies, or behinde, but before coying them al the while, and speaking gently to them, stroking their backes, and their moosels, sprinckling them with a little sweete wine, taking good heede, that they strike him neither with head, nor with heele: for if he once get that tricke, he will never leave it. This being a little aquainted with him, you shall bubbe his mouth with Salt, and let downe into his throte certaine lumpes of salt tallowe, and powring after a quart of good wine, which will make him in three daies, as good a fellowe as you would withe him to bee. Some use to yoke them together, I let them drawe some light thing, or plowe in a light plowed ground, that their labor hurte not their neckes. The redier may be breaking them, is to yoke them with an olde Oxe, that may easely instruct them: if hee happen to lie downe in the furrow, doe neither beate him, nor feare him, but binde his feete together, and let him lie, that hee may neither sturre, nor feede: which being well punished with hunger, and thirste, will teach him to leave that sullen tricke.<br />
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<span style="color: #660000;"><b><i>(This section on feeding cattle) </i></b></span><br />
The feeding of this kinde of cattel is divers, according to the diversitie of Countries: if there bee store of good pasture in the Country, there is not foode to that: in Countries where wanteth pasture, and specially in Winter, hee must bee kept in the Stal, and fed with such fodder as the country yeeldes. Where there are Tares to bee had, it is the best feeding for them: and hay is very good, Chaffe, and Coolestalkes with Chaffe and Hay, and chopt straw sodde together in water, is very good feeding for Winter. In some places, they feede altogether with newe thrashed strawe: in many places they give them Lupines steeped in water, or Chiches, or Peson, mingled with Chaffe: besides the branches and leaves of Vines, the greene branches of Elme, Ashe, Poplar, and Holme, in winter, when other green bowes faile, the Figge Tree will serve, or the brousing of Oakes, and Holly. Oxen are soon fatte in good pasture, and with Wheate, Rapes, Apples, and Radishe: Oxen, or kine, will be passing fatte, where there wanteth pasture, by giving them Meale mixt with Wheate, Chaffe, and Rapes, or Graines. They will mare the sooner fatte, in washing them with warme water, or (as Plinie saith) by cutting their skinnes, and blowing in winde to their bellies with a reede. Sorion seacheth that they will be fatte, if when they are taken from pasture, you give them the first day Colwoortes chopt and steeped in sharpe Vinegar, and afterwardes Chaffe, being well cleaned, and mingled with Wheat branne, for the space of five or six daies, feeding them after with good store of fodder: in Winter you must feede them at the first Cockcrowing, and againe when the daye begins to breake: In Sommer first at the breaking of the daye, then at noone, and at night, in Sommer you must water them twise a day, three houres afore noone, and three houres after: in winter, once a day with warme waster, which is also throught to be good for fruitfulnesse: and therefore the Lakes that are filled with Raine water, are good for them. This kind of cattell desireth not cleane, or faire water, but foule and pudled: yet it were better to give them faire water. Also, you must provide them of warme pastures for the winter, and in sommer, very coole: chiefly Mountaines where they may browse upon the bushes, and picke up a good living among the Weeds: but in lowe groundes and neare the River, Oxen are sooner fatted, and kine give a greater quantitie of Milke.<br />
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<i><span style="color: #660000;"><b>(this section on housing, leading into medicine)</b></span></i><br />
In Sommer, they lie abroade all the nightes in many places: yea, in England you shall have them fodred abroad all the Winter. Though they be able to abide colde, yet must you provide them of large stalles, for the succouring of such as be great with Calfe, Your stables, or Oxstals, must stand dry, and be well floored, either with stone, gravell, or sand: the stone will suffer no water to abide upon it, the other wil soone drinke it up and dry it: both sortes must be laied slope, that the water may run away, for rotting the groundsels, and marring their houses. Let them open toward the South, so shall they be the drier, and the warmer: notwithstanding, let your windowes open North and Cast, which being shutte in Winter, and open in Sommer, may give a healthful aire. In fine, as neare as ran be, let the houses be neither too hotte, nor too cold, and as day as may be: columella would have two orehouses, one for the winter, the other for the sommer both uncovered, but well and high walled, for keeping out of wilde beastes. The stals would be eight foot wide, that they may have roome enough to lye in, that the kine great with Calfe hurt not one the other, nor the stronger orewrong the weaker: and that there may be room for their keepers to come about them, and for yoking them Vitruuius would have the Orehouse open towardes the East, and to be neare the fire: for fire is naturally beneficiall to rattell, both for the drying up of the infective dampes, and the keeping of the cattell warme. Besides, by seeing of the fire, they are made gentler, and by the heate thereof, what cold they have taken in the pastures, is expelled, and divers inward diseases rured, The houses must be severed with divers rooms, enclosed and racked, the racke must stand no higher then the Oxe may easily reach, and must have such pertitions, as one beast beguile not the other, whereto they must be well haltred and tied, for hurting one the other: Cato would have the pertitions lettised. Moreover, it is to no purpose to feede them Wel, except you also looke to keeping of them in health, and sound, and therefore whether they be in house, or abroade, you must alwaies have a special regard unto them, and to overlooke them in the night, specially, if there be any kine amongst them with Calfe. And though it be needefull at all times to oversee them, both morening and evening, yet most needefull is it of all other times, to see to them in the spring, when you first put them to pasture: for at that time, by reason of their change of diet, both Oxen, kine, and Nayfarres, are most in danger of sickness: in Winter againe to looke to them, that they be not, for sparing of charges, kept of poore, as they be utterly spoiled. And therefor you must spare no litter, specially when they come from labout, to rubbe them, and fry them, stoking them with your handes, and raising the hide from the fleshe, which will do them great good. In comming from worke, or out of the pasture, you must wash their feete wel with water, before you bring them into the house, that the durt and filth cleaving to them, breede no diseases, nor soften their hoofes. Beware of too much cold, or heat, for too much of either, filleth them with diseases. You must take heede they be not chaste, nor chafed up and downe, specially in hotte weather, for that bringeth them to a feaver, or causeth them to have a flixe. Take heede also, that there come neither Swine, nor Poultry neare their stalles, for both of them with their dounging poisoneth the beast. The dounging of a sicke Swine doth breede the pestilence, or murraine amonst cattell. You must away with all manner of carrions, and bury them well for infecting your cattell.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-71949716643512482852012-12-11T21:58:00.002-08:002012-12-11T21:58:47.572-08:00Vegetable or Fruit, why have this distinction? <br />
What I blame for our obsession to give distinction between the two is the food guide, though I'm sure there has been a desire for some distinction prior to the 1940's<br />
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Canada's Food Guide separates food into 4 categories: Fruit and Vegetables, Milk and alternatives, Grains and Meat and Alternatives. When I was a child I recall it was worded somewhat differently but was essentially the same guide and the Fruits and Vegetables was still under that label.<br />
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Of course, being considered the same, it should not matter what the difference is between a fruit and a vegetable, which again is a foolish argument to start with.<br />
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Essentially, the group we are looking at is the: Herb (which includes all leaf and stalk), Root (which covers bulbs, tubers and so on) and Fruit (which covers fruiting bodies) section. One could also include fungus, but due to it's lower nutritional value, I'm not sure how to include it, though I would stick it in this section under a cookery point of view. Legumes and other seeds are sectioned under Meat and Alternatives, but could also be included here when defining cookery as well as some nutritional values.<br />
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Simply put, what I'm getting at is how "Fruit" is really not distinctive from "Vegetable". Furthermore, the age old "is a tomato a fruit or vegetable" argument is equally as ludicrous. It is a fruit, so are squash, cucumbers, gourds, eggplant, tomatillo... and maize (corn) is a grain, hence the name "corn". Even the distinction of a fruit being cooked as a vegetable looses ground as I've seen various tree fruit and berries regularly cooked as vegetables in both historic and modern cookery. It would just be nice to let the distinction go.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-24351224125514742462012-11-14T00:17:00.001-08:002012-11-14T00:17:09.588-08:00Is this food item period?<br />
A question I recently noticed, and one that seems to pop up every so often, is a question in regards to a specific food item being period. Sometimes it isn't a question so much as a statement "This is period" and "This isn't period". Common items I seen propped up, in the SCA who's time period ends at 1600, as either/or: Peppers (Capsicum), Potatoes (of various varieties) and Tomatoes, though I'm sure many people could add significantly to this small list.<br />
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The answer, of course, is yes... they were known and consumed (though I can not, off hand, draw to memory of peppers used beyond medicine as I'm writing this). I have even stumbled upon food preparations for both Potatoes and Tomatoes, as have others, within the SCA's time period. But...<br />
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Yes, But... there is always a But....<br />
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While it is nice to have a knowledge of period food items for whichever period we are cooking for, that list is virtually useless in the realm of authenticity without a somewhat decent understanding of how these foods were prepared, or otherwise used, within the time-period we are striving to emulate.<br />
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In other words, just because I avoid food said to be not of the time period and only stick to those that were known, does not mean that my preparation or my end product are going to necessarily be of that period, or remotely so. One could say that if I were poor that I would just grab what is on hand and cooked it however, but I'm not convinced it is as easy as that when we must consider their cooking requirements, exactly what ingredients they would have been given access, how they are likely to want it prepared and so on. It might not be in their best interest just to toss it all in a pot and call it dinner, of course we can deduct much from various records and other contemporary writings as to give us some small clues.<br />
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Happily, we have been gifted with a large treasury of recipe books and other period sources containing various instruction and descriptions and these should be our "go to" place for ideas on what foods to create. Right now, I think it's pretty much the best we have!<br />
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Of course, there are those who say they don't have the time or access to books or that they need "modern" recipes (I kinda like to refer to them as scientific as they are designed to churn out the same constant results over, and over, and over...)... Good luck for them, there are people who have published both websites and books with recipes written exactly this way. I consider these second best for sources, but that does not mean they are bad, I believe they are quite wonderful for the modern cook and would rather direct people to these than to period/not period ingredient lists.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-46974847382481148802012-10-28T03:28:00.000-07:002012-10-28T13:00:13.947-07:00Using post period sources for period research<br />
The use of post period sources for period research has been something on my mind, off and on, for years. The thing about it, is that there can be no real stead-fast rule, there is no exact science and you can't just learn about what's best by reading a book.<br />
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Even the latest exercise, I went through... and by no means is it even anywhere near complete, was to take somewhere around 20+ (and more) recipe books written between 1400 and 1660 and try to determine by quick reading and recipe name where foods trended from one era to another in English cookery. Sadly, too much information was missing to follow the trends properly from 1400 to 1560 so I concentrated my efforts to following the trends from 1570 to 1590 and then from 1590 to where-ever the next major trend seemed to have begun, but it wasn't easy and I was left with no definitive answer.<br />
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What I did find is a really markable change around 1650 from the late 16th century with a heavier emphasis/variety of things such as cakes, puddings, cheese dishes and creams, not that these were not known earlier, just that the emphasis moved towards adding more dishes/variety in these areas than I noticed before. Sometimes they would be made with already known and widely used foods while some new dishes also came from newer items. Pies, as much as any other food, had some new trends and new introductions. Potato pie is an obvious newcomer due to a new food source while other dishes were mostly new names on the block, such as Lumber Pie and Taffety Tart, which show up fairly regularly through, and after, the 1650's. Obviously, those are items I would not choose to re-create for use in a 16th century context. On the other hand, there are 1650's publications and manuscripts that do carry a lot of known dishes from the late 16th century and earlier, in those cases, I would use them to compare and draw from if the comparison is close, otherwise I would draw from the earlier version. Rastons make a good example, as well as comparisons to various other buttered loaves where earlier versions do not seem to add up to the later ones.<br />
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Going back a bit earlier to 1609 ("Delightes for Ladies", that is) and we find some new recipes that are new in the context of the middle 16th century, but not for the very late 16th century such as "puff paste" which is very comparable to the "Housewife's Jewell, 1596 "butter paste" and other knowns such as White Broth and Bisket Bread, but to this we also see some newcomers such as Jumbols which remain a known from then. Given this, I would actually hazard to guess that Jumbols were actually known before 1600 even though there would be a whole decade of time past. But, that is not enough, so looking forward, we find books such as John Murrel's 1615 book showing a large number of recipes we become familiar with, more or less, pre-1600. the new comer terms that I did notice sticking out were "smoore" and "hash" but I hadn't spent a lot of time looking into it at this point. Another newcomer on the block were "Kickshaws". At this later date, I would hesitate on saying the names/terms were used before 1600, but the essence of the book itself is not far removed, nor is there a highly notable different trend taking place with the recipes. A Manuscript even further into the 17th century, written in the 20's by Grace Acton, has only a few recipes but ones that reflect some older trends in cooking such as Browet of Almayne, Rose, Leche Lumbarde... Egredouce! and yet drops in a bit of a shocker early in the list of recipes: Syllabub! Does this possibly mean that Syllabub may have been known before 1600? Possibly, if anything, it makes it likely for the early 17th century and at the very least, it does draw into question how much earlier than this date was it known and that term used? I can't see it being a mistake for the name "Posset" though the idea had crossed my mind as the recipes seem to be decidedly more antiquated for the date (old family recipes? something re-written from an older source?, I would not regard this as a trend).<br />
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This drives home that there can't be a steadfast cut-off date for books post 1600 when considering the reality of food trends but all we know for sure is what was published within the date we wish to research while using other sources for additional help with familiar recipes.<br />
When moving beyond stricter guidelines, I would probably use 1620 as an easy cut off date where it comes to newer recipes. I wouldn't be able to realistically document them but given the relatively small number of publications to draw from, it is somewhat plausible that some later recorded recipes in a book full of otherwise familiar recipes, could have occurred earlier... but only plausible and certainly not a given, nor should it be treated as such.<br />
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<i>Update:</i><br />
<i>It has since come to my attention that "Smoore" may be an ill transcribed word, while the meaning and process were indeed known pre-1600, the word itself seems new and unique in the context. It was suggested to me that a possible, more correct translation would be "smother" to which I would agree. Regardless, it is still a word in the Gloning transcription that does stand out as a word used to describe the dish/process not used before that date as is transcribed. </i><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-67984470309228758122012-10-11T17:59:00.003-07:002012-10-11T17:59:44.170-07:00Bread Crumbs <br />
Today I did something rather our of the ordinary, which was to mash up left-over bits of stuff with other items that were too scant to have on their own, nothing surprising, I simply dislike waste. The item today was a bread pudding... a few spoons of apple sauce, some eggs, raisins, remaining dollop of cream, scrapings of butter, spices, syrup and the heals and dried up chunks from last week's bread.<br />
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But it left me thinking...<br />
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Why did I use bread to make a thickened pudding? Well, the obvious answer was because I did not want to waste it. This, then, seems like logical reasoning for why bread is such a common thickener in medieval cookery over something like flour. When you think of it, flour is readily available to any cook who has access to a kitchen that makes pastry or bread, yet books written for such cooks resort to other thickening agents. Of course raw flour is far inferior to that of bread properly grated, soaked and strained where flavour is concerned, but the starch if superior as a thickener. So why bread? Because they had it, and most probably it might otherwise go to waste. Old bread is what you will find easier to grate, though I have seen new bread called for in recipes as well, and incorporating it into new dishes is certainly a good way to continue getting nourishment from it. Bread is something that takes enough work and fuel to accomplish that it would certainly be something worth stretching.<br />
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Somewhere along the long stretch of time, technology and tastes change. Bread becomes valued in a different light just as ones pallet for sauces will change. Bread then becomes less of a key ingredient when other things will do better, and perhaps be easier, and it then finds itself in other dishes in the name of household economy and family nourishment and in continued dishes where the texture of the bread has remained superior (such as what we now call "bread stuffing"). Bread pudding is like this and it's origins are far reaching.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-79605998741759917482012-09-17T12:08:00.001-07:002012-09-17T16:15:30.152-07:00a little bit of SCA food stuff<div>
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Most of the stuff I ramble on about is usually just something that involves some sort of food related thing of any given time period that interests me at the moment... but, now and then I actually think of something that has more to do with one of my other hobbies, the Society for Creative Anachronism. </div>
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That said, I did write a little on feasts costs but given it really isn't about food history, I stuck it here for anyone interested in such things: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/eikenzwijn/sca-helps/feast-economics">https://sites.google.com/site/eikenzwijn/sca-helps/feast-economics</a><br />
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editing this post to also add another link to something I wrote about dayboards in the SCA. It really wasn't about history or authenticity, or lack thereof, but more on practicality: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/eikenzwijn/sca-helps/dayboards-in-the-sca">https://sites.google.com/site/eikenzwijn/sca-helps/dayboards-in-the-sca</a></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-52529648682562510072012-09-16T00:20:00.001-07:002012-09-16T10:48:45.543-07:00Order of foods, 16th and 17th century Dining in Northern Europe <br />
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I thought it would be interesting to discuss, or at least in this case... ramble on, about some of the origins of our present day dining habits. Much of which has a setting back 500 years or so. Here we see an increased interest in breakfast in a somewhat similar way to what we partake in today as well as Dinner and Supper, though many people now prefer a heartier Dinner in the evening with only a small lunch earlier in the day which is most likely reflective of our tendency to work far away from the home. On the other hand, it was not uncommon for labouring folk to partake in a similar style meal, though their late night meal might not be overly hearty either... and then again, sometimes the same can be said true of us.<br />
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But... This is not where all the similarity doth lay.<br />
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Looking back at a German styled feast I created for the SCA some years back, I chose to read up on Meisters Eberhard to better arrange, and decide, on my menu. Of course there were outside influence where I let others add dishes to my initial menu, but I still tried to keep it in period order and not too much catering to too many individuals as some period feasts would allow but my budget would not. Anyhow, comparing his reflections on various ancient schools concerning the humours and use of food and comparing that to menus of the time, I could assemble a feast that was both seasonal and ordered. The results was a meal that commenced with salads and soups (one that superficially included an early course fruit) which increasingly moved onto coarser meats and then ended with fruit, dairy and nuts with some spicy sweets.<br />
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This was not an unusual ordering for English cuisine as well and rang true from medieval to modern however it did not happen overnight. When regarding the humours, we have to consider meals cooked with this in mind is going to only really benefit the individual rather than the mass when food choices become too refined.<br />
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Jumping ahead almost 100 years in the same country (England), I can see the same sort of ordering of foods kept quite in-tact. We have bread, wine, salad, some meat, followed by stewed-like meat dishes followed by pies, the roast meats and later sweets and dairy. These are, no doubt, from larger feasts, but the order remains similar, and as mentioned earlier, there is some reasoning to this.<br />
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Going back to Eberhard, and his reflections on food, we can find out that:<br />
(digging out old notes that I managed to keep from the above mentioned feast)<br />
-bread should be 1-2 days old, butter could lead to loss of appetite if too much is eaten, this suggests to me that it may be okay to serve early (with caution) but cheese, which raises the appetite may be less harmful but it should not be too old or new. This makes sense, especially as very new cheese would not be so distanced from milk which should always be taken in last.<br />
-Some fruit are actually fine to eat early on, these being things like peaches or apricots, pears (also advisable at the end of meals) or mulberries while some others have use throughout a dinner such as grapes (which I notice shows up with poultry and still does today) and pomegranate (also often showing up in such dishes) while some are to be eaten at the end of a meal such a figs (also considered best with nuts against poisons that harm the body), cherries, plums and quince.<br />
-Nuts are also best eaten at the end of meals, as well as dairy<br />
-Roasts and Fried meats are more difficult to digest while, younger and smaller animals seem to provide the best meat (being easier to digest and be used by the body) and he actually suggests that both should not be eaten at the same meal... of course, we know this advice was either ignored or, at the least, the choices were there at large feasts. Meat and fish, in general, are very nourishing.<br />
-Apparently many grains seem to give gas while vegetables helped with bowel movements (I dare say they may have been onto something with much of this).<br />
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and I haven't even touched on the basic hot, dry, moist, chill aspects, just the symptoms and orders which are not tied in the same way. The specific use of these qualities, however, can explain some food combinations in various dishes, some of which we may still be familiar with in their modern concept.<br />
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But looking at those few notes, we can see how some items may be limited while other enjoyed more at our re-created feasts. We can also see how our own modern eating habits may have developed if we come from a country that was influenced by this style of eating.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-41793702389292867672012-09-15T22:30:00.000-07:002012-09-15T22:30:02.071-07:00Plum Pies part 3, pictures<div>
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Well the combination of the filling and the simple pastry worked out an almost perfect combination. With these I opted for a dense pastry just because I wanted to practice hand building pastries, as opposed to using a pan to create it's shape and would say that the last ratios I used worked out very well for a nice dense pastry (a short, that is a very soft pastry full of butter, will not hold it's shape well and collapse while baking, especially if baked empty). Of course, if I was willing to fuss more, I could have made it neater.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMb8Uyi4LbH-8cgC-Y6s_DxXDk1hnJBeIGILIA4JrjJE0agmQdKVQIhIchQdKrRr-pPnoREAIKKqk9rlK0-YtIGbsxfglWR9qnoUHtEAumVbWA5OVEF7Mzieg-7cDILlBXlH_nAgwFY9HC/s1600/plumpies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMb8Uyi4LbH-8cgC-Y6s_DxXDk1hnJBeIGILIA4JrjJE0agmQdKVQIhIchQdKrRr-pPnoREAIKKqk9rlK0-YtIGbsxfglWR9qnoUHtEAumVbWA5OVEF7Mzieg-7cDILlBXlH_nAgwFY9HC/s400/plumpies.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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two small pies made from 28 plums</div>
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As you can see, they are not very big, it all came down to only having 28 plums. Of course I could have made a slightly larger squared pie or round one... maybe 8 inches or so with the amount of filling I had. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU2Z3bJHVJNo-a-K_FwRc3s-b0yMNgaao5AjqKgIsp1mfwoxxWnrjNwdMtzoWP8Umy6IrH9u44maiFsxVYTqZN70lNNO456krPkRS9ZwMdp78JryqQp2OP0elXzV6-cDyz_aFCZ4ewDYgh/s1600/IMG_8132.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU2Z3bJHVJNo-a-K_FwRc3s-b0yMNgaao5AjqKgIsp1mfwoxxWnrjNwdMtzoWP8Umy6IrH9u44maiFsxVYTqZN70lNNO456krPkRS9ZwMdp78JryqQp2OP0elXzV6-cDyz_aFCZ4ewDYgh/s320/IMG_8132.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Here you can see just how well the paste holds once cooked, you can also see just how rough a job I did on forming it... I'll admit that it was done somewhat hastily. The kitchen was also somewhat cold which will shorten the usable time to play with the stuff before it gets too hard. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBOBkYsWIijW-PsNnp9-_k4eXFVAfFtqDOso-RZBcP652upedWY4cezrqFItu4X-aUs4gnAsr77vTqaj6yp2HeJlgZT1Hljw4bNFlL3l1xvfCGfY277tTYIiOZD541R9dnjI56t7yIr5JC/s1600/IMG_8134.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBOBkYsWIijW-PsNnp9-_k4eXFVAfFtqDOso-RZBcP652upedWY4cezrqFItu4X-aUs4gnAsr77vTqaj6yp2HeJlgZT1Hljw4bNFlL3l1xvfCGfY277tTYIiOZD541R9dnjI56t7yIr5JC/s320/IMG_8134.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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In this last picture, you can see what it would look like with a chunk sliced out of it. I would say the paste was twice as thick here as it was in the round pie and the round one held up just as well. The major reason why this one was bigger is that I found it harder to roll out the paste so stopped a bit earlier than I probably could have. Even with the thick, dense, paste, I found it still enjoyable to consume along with the filling. Yes, it is most certainly edible.</div>
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The filling also set quite nicely as well, as you can see... only changes I would probably make is to maybe add yet another full teaspoon of each spice to it, but, even still, it was quite tasty... if I had my own plum trees, I'd certainly make a large batch of these for any feast. Without that, they are probably not so economical but fine for a smaller dinner. </div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-32710278034237465012012-09-13T23:29:00.001-07:002012-09-13T23:29:12.290-07:00Adventures with Plums pt.2<br />
Well it seems, in the end and after much reading, I decided that following the 1590's route was the best way to go. So, after hours of cooking the plums down they eventually got thicker though sadly also lost much of their beautiful jewel tone. The flavour also became more prune-like than plum-like but that was to be expected considering the method of thickening them.<br />
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This also adds to the reason why the recipes specify sweetening and spicing them after you got your plum purée to their desired thickness. Now when initially I tasted them, the flavour was decidedly acid but this mellowed and later even took on some tannin like notes which would greatly effect how one would wish to sweeten and spice them. Even with the 1/2 cup of sugar with the teaspoon each of cinnamon and ginger I added when I figured on no longer boiling them down (and obviously changing my mind afterwards), I still had to add a 1/2 cup of sugar once thick and then another 1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon and ginger to taste it well enough (but being careful not to overpower the plums).<br />
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For the pastry, and because I wanted to play with shaping it a bit, I chose not to make it very short... that is, to approx. 2 generous cups of flour, I only used a scant 1/3 cup butter, 1 egg yolk and enough water just to make it into a workable paste. Unlike a very short paste, this doesn't stick all over the place and you can roll it as thin or as thick as you like and it holds shape fairly well... with this I built up a small round, shallow, tart shell by hand and another larger one in a squared shape. It is kind of like playing with a very stiff play-dough. Note, it has to be fairly stiff and well worked for it to hold together well and not break apart. I also find it necessary to keep my fingers just wet enough that they don't tug at the pastry too much and this allows me to manipulate it better while I shape up the walls.<br />
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-Sadly my camera ran out of juice in time for me not to take pictures of the process, however I have held the family off from eating the end product so I should be able to take pictures before it vanishes all together.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-70352982543370803172012-09-13T16:31:00.004-07:002012-09-13T16:31:59.279-07:00Adventures with Plums PART 1<br />
So, I had all these plums left from several weeks of eating them and they were not going to get any fresher so figured on taking the opportunity to try out a new recipe... or should I say, try out a recipe I have not played with before.<br />
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However... things do not always go as planned and today I figured on using a mess of recipes to create a damson pie.<br />
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My sources for this mostly came from the 1590's with: The Good Housewife's Jewell, A Book of Cookrye and the Good Housewife Handmaide.<br />
All the recipes have:<br />
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<ul>
<li> Plums</li>
<li>Sugar</li>
<li>Cinnamon</li>
<li>Ginger</li>
</ul>
And the include directions telling us to:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Cook the plums</li>
<li>strain the plums</li>
<li>season the strain plums</li>
<li>Bake them in a an open tart</li>
</ul>
The differences were:<br />
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<ul>
<li>to cook the plums first by either boiling or scalding</li>
<li>To first cook the plums in either wine or rose water</li>
<li>some make sure to have the paste baked before, one does not specify</li>
<li>two suggest that cream should be added before being boiled to thicken it</li>
<li>one does not suggest boiling the strain plums afterwards</li>
</ul>
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What I ended up doing was to take about 28 plums and fill up a pot with them, in this I added enough wine to almost come up to half and then I set it to boil until the plums looked puffed and translucent. Then I took them out and strained it all through a sieve. (Out of all the plums, I ended up with a bit over a 1/2 pound in waste.)</div>
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I then set the strained plums to boil till thick, however they have been cooking for some time and they are still more a sauce than something I would imagine being in a pie. Once I did manage to get them somewhat like a soft apple sauce consistency, I added 1/2 cup of sugar with 1tsp of cinnamon and ginger each... however I may increase the spices yet. </div>
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It is still very much not like I would expect, however... so am now including the possibility of another recipe from a somewhat earlier date a few decades earlier. The source for this coming from "A Proper newe Booke of Cokerye" which proceeds as thus:</div>
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<ul>
<li>boil the plums in either red wine (or claret)</li>
<li>thicken with half a dozen pears (am guessing cooked and strained as well) or use white bread (guessing this is to be grated and strained with the plums)</li>
<li>this is strained together with six egg yolks and butter</li>
</ul>
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To me, this last recipe sounds far superior as a pie filling but is quite different than the ones above and I am now considering creating a completely new recipe from the two where I could have an additional thickening agent but also have the sugar and spices, which could have just as easily been added to the earlier one. </div>
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It does seem somewhat reasonable to look at some other suggestions for pies in general for a comparison that could possibly draw the two recipes together. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4417930518892044476.post-231581206186153242012-09-12T00:12:00.000-07:002012-09-12T00:12:04.489-07:00Salty Pastry before 1600? a late night ramble<br />
Considering English and various other European cookery, I have heard of a few accounts of people talking about salt preserved pastry and have seen over dozens (I actually lost count) of period pastry recipes redacted from the originals with an addition of salt. What I have not noticed is any overwhelming amount of recipes with any salt in them before 1600, actually I can not even think of any off hand but won't discount there being any... in fact there may be some present in some earlier rye pastry recipes (I would have to dig through my notes to be sure).<br />
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The things is, however, I really haven't noticed salt as, at least, a stand-by ingredient in pastry recipes until the later 17th century. That said, I have played with period recipes as is and found they were not lacking in flavour without the salt. Indeed, when using butter as your main fat, which continued to be common through the 17th century as well, there is flavour enough and sometimes I even add sugar as a seasoning, but this does appear commonly enough before 1600.<br />
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Now have I always avoided adding salt? No, I shall admit that I very often fell on my common, though modern, cooking knowledge to fill in the gaps of early recipes... or should I describe them as assumed gaps. I have also referred to somewhat later recipes to try and understand earlier recipes, however this is a difficult task without better understanding changing trends in cookery of the area and there are similarities between say 1570 and 1670 but there are most definitely serious changes as well.<br />
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Using the pastry as an example, which is all it is meant to be in this post, is the noted change towards using salt but it maintains general uses for different pastes (fine paste, puff paste and rye paste) all known in the 16th century. They knew the issues with high butter content in the hotter months but also the need to keep the pastry warm enough as well and also the issues with trying to make an oil paste as opposed to butter. Take this up to even later years where lard becomes popular, and even more recent with shortening, and then the make-up of the pastry changes, though subtle over time. Familiar to us (we all know what pastry is), yet different in it's making (method and use). Of course we should not assume it is too foreign either, people ate pastry maybe with the exception of rye pastry, many pastry recipes also were a bit dense but not more so than an overworked modern pastry which is no less inedible.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377941358398702757noreply@blogger.com0