exotic-meats-msg – 9/26/13

Period and SCA Exotic meats. Swans, ostrich, crawfish, dormice, cat, hedgehog, frog, turtle.

NOTE: See also these files: organ-meats-msg, food-sources-msg, horse-recipes-msg, eels-msg, snails-msg, goat-msg, peacocks-msg, frogs-msg, liver-msg, frogs-msg.

KEYWORDS: exotic meat swan peacock eel crawfish cat hedgehog dormice

************************************************************************
NOTICE -

This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that
I  have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some
messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.

This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium.
These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org

I  have done  a limited amount  of  editing. Messages having to do  with
separate topics  were sometimes split into different files and sometimes
extraneous information was removed. For instance, the  message IDs  were
removed to save space and remove clutter.

The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I
make  no claims  as  to the accuracy  of  the information  given  by the
individual authors.

Please  respect the time  and  efforts of  those who have written  these
messages. The  copyright status  of these messages  is  unclear  at this
time. If  information  is  published  from  these  messages, please give
credit to the originator(s).

Thank you,
    Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  THLord Stefan li Rous
                                          Stefan at florilegium.org
************************************************************************

From: Uduido at aol.com
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 09:39:24 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SC - Ostrich

<< Has anybody else seen the ostrich meat that is beginning to be for sale? 
 It is HIGH priced, or I'd have tried some.  It was all packed in cryovac,
 in a special refrigerated case, with posters all over the place telling
 about it.  I think I saw it in my son's fancy Giant Eagle in Pittsburgh,
 but it might have been here in Ohio.  I wondered if it would be as tough
 and gamey as the peacocks and swans are said to be. >>

Ostrich is farm-raised. It has the texture and flavor of beef and is cooked
in the same way as beef. It is NOT a game animal and bears no resemblance to
game, taste or otherwise. I have not come across any period recipes using
this wonderful new addition to the butcher's case. (Yet! :-))

Lord Ras

From: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 10:33:06 -0400
Subject: Re: SC - Ostrich

Uduido at aol.com wrote:
> Ostrich is farm-raised. It has the texture and flavor of beef and is cooked
> in the same way as beef. It is NOT a game animal and bears no resemblance to
> game, taste or otherwise. I have not come across any period recipes using
> this wonderful new addition to the butcher's case. (Yet! :-))
> 
> Lord Ras

I think Apicius has a sauce for boiled ostrich, if I'm not mistaken. You
could argue that the time of authorship isn't in period (although the
SCA really has no early cut-off, apparently) but the recipes were
apparently used well into period.

Adamantius, barely period himself

From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 23:43:53 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: SC - Various

At 10:38 PM -0500 4/24/97, Mark Harris wrote:
>PS: Someone mentioned a period crawfish recipe. That might be interesting, too.
>I saw a bag of frozen crawfish tails in the grocery the other day.

Elizabeth points out that there is a crayfish recipe in _Le Menagier de Paris_.

>And there is no lack of people
>around here who need someone to get those "damn" pidgeons out of the attic.

Elizabeth likes to say that you can tell that not many poor people in
American are literally starving by how tame the pigeons are.

Annejke lists, among her subtleties:
>1980 Peacock in full Pride (real bird)

Master Chiquart (1420) advises his readers to cheat by cooking a goose and
dressing it in a peacock's skin; he says peacock doesn't taste as good. Is
that consistent with your experience?

David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

From: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com>
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 1997 23:22:01 -0400
Subject: Re: SC - Crayfish

Uduido at aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 97-04-25 01:05:04 EDT, Stefan wrote:
> << Someone mentioned a period crawfish recipe. That might be interesting, too.
>  I saw a bag of frozen crawfish tails in the grocery the other day.>>
> 
> As far as I know the period recipes that I am aware of call for saltwater
> crayfish. If anyone has a reference intimating that freshwater crayfish were
> used would they be so kind as to e-mail me this information so I can fill
> another hole in my research? Thanks in advance.
> 
> Lord Ras

Taillevent mentions ecrevisses and ecrevisses de mer, which would
presumably be sea crayfish, a.k.a. squillfish, essentially a variant on
the slipper or the spiny lobster. I can't think of any reason why the
unqualified word "ecrevisses" would refer to anything else than what it
does today, which is your garden-variety mudbug. 

Re lobster, while we're on this: Homardus Americanus would have been
unknown in medieval Europe. The lopisters referred to would have been
spiny lobsters or langoustes, native to the Mediterranean and the oceans
of the Southern Hemisphere (hence frozen South African lobster tails).

Adamantius

Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 02:13:26 -0500
From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter)
Subject: Re:  SC - Pears and Jalapenos

Hi, Katerine here.  Stefan li Rous asks:
>Are there any period recipe for squirrel? There are European squirrels,
>right?

The only one I'm aware of is that it is one of the alternatives for the
meat in Brewet Sarsyn (incorrectly rendered "Farsyn" in the Society of
Antiquaries edition, error reproduced in Warner) in B.L. MS Arundel 334.

It's a very nice brewet indeed, at least when made with chicken.

- -- Katerine/Terry

Date: Sun, 3 Aug 1997 02:17:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Sharon L. Harrett" <afn24101 at afn.org>
Subject: Re: SC - Squirrel

On Thu, 31 Jul 1997 Uduido at aol.com wrote:
> << There are European squirrels, right? >>
> 
> Yes, indeed. And , joy of joys, you can procure the European variety of
> squirrel right here in the US of A. :-)
> 
> The red squirrel was introduced from Europe. Even tho' it is smaller and
> kills and eats more birds (about 200 per year per squirrel) than our native
> grey squirrel, it is edible. And the more of them people kill...er, I mean
> eat the sooner this vicious little pest will be gone!
>> Lord Ras

Greetings from Ceridwen,
	May I quote from Le Menagier? "Squirrels are singed, gutted, trussed
like rabbits,roasted or put in pastry; eat with cameline sauce or in pastry
with wild duck sauce." Let's see what we can do with this one folks!
*grin*

Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 18:37:02 -0400
From: Aine of Wyvernwood <sybella at gte.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Is there a Turtle in the house?

Aldyth at aol.com wrote:
> I have been offered a 25 pound snapping turtle as a donated feast item for
> our December 6th Hunters feast.  The beast is on the hoof (flipper) at the 25
> pound weight.  Does anyone have an idea what to do with it? How much usable
> meat will it provide?
>
> Aldyth

Well to begin with, find out if it is legal to kill....some turtles are
endangered species.  Here in Trimaris I grew up eating Softshell turtle, now it
is illegal...

kill it by cutting off it's head, and hang upside down....to drain blood...
then you cut it out of its shell....and it is like any four legged critter....
tastes like chicken - sort of....you can boil or fry it...
if it is old I might be a tad bit gamy...

best bet is to ask around the old timers in the area, they will more than likely
be happy to show you how to dress it out and give you recipes to boot.

aine

Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 22:25:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: Uduido at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Is there a Turtle in the house?

<< I have been offered a 25 pound snapping turtle as a donated feast item for
 our December 6th Hunters feast.  The beast is on the hoof (flipper) at the 25
 pound weight.  Does anyone have an idea what to do with it? How much usable
 meat will it provide?
 
 Aldyth >>

You should be able to get enough meat off it to do a soup or stew. Be sure
and behead it and let it hang to bleed well for at least 48 hours in a very
cool place before dressing it..

Lord Ras

Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 07:42:25 -0500
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - honey dormice recipe

>Back on Thursday, Sept. 25, Aine said:
>>not to mention taste testing all those honey dormice.....
>
>Recipe, please!  And where did you get the dormice?
>
>Stefan li Rous

Stuffed Dormice

Recipe By     : Apicius
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

NOTES : Glires:  Isicio pocino, item pulpis ex omin membro glirium
trito, cum pipere, nucleis, lasere, liquamine farcies glires et sutos in
tegula positos mittes in furnum aut farsos in cilbano coques.

Dormice:  Stuffed dormice with pork filling, and with the meat of whole
dormice ground with pepper, pine nuts, silphium, and garum.  Sew up and
place on a baking tile, and put them in the oven; or cook the stuffed
[dormice] in a pan.

Translation from Giacosa, Ilaria Gozzini; A Taste of Ancient Rome,
University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Stuffed Dormouse:  Is stuffed with forcemeat of pork and small pieces of
dormouse meat trimmings, all pounded with pepper, nuts, laser, broth.
Put the dormouse thus stuffed in an earthen casserole, roast it in the
oven, or boil it in the stock pot.

Translation from Vehling, Joseph Dommers; APICIUS Cookery and Dining in
Imperial Rome,dover Publications, 1977. 

Vehling notes that the Soouther European dormouse is an arboreal rodent
the size of a rat (one of my six new things before breakfast).
He goes on to state "Dormouse, as an article of diet, should not
astonish Americans who relish squirrel, opossum, muskrat, "coon," etc."

Giacosa shows this recipe as Apicius 397.  Vehling shows it as Apicius
396.

Bear

Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 09:49:58 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - honey dormice recipe

Decker, Terry D. wrote:

<snip>

> Recipe By     : Apicius
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> 
> NOTES : Glires:  Isicio pocino, item pulpis ex omin membro glirium
> trito, cum pipere, nucleis, lasere, liquamine farcies glires et sutos in
> tegula positos mittes in furnum aut farsos in cilbano coques.
> 
> Dormice:  Stuffed dormice with pork filling, and with the meat of whole
> dormice ground with pepper, pine nuts, silphium, and garum.  Sew up and
> place on a baking tile, and put them in the oven; or cook the stuffed
> [dormice] in a pan.
> 
> Translation from Giacosa, Ilaria Gozzini; A Taste of Ancient Rome,
> University of Chicago Press, 1992.
> 
> Stuffed Dormouse:  Is stuffed with forcemeat of pork and small pieces of
> dormouse meat trimmings, all pounded with pepper, nuts, laser, broth.
> Put the dormouse thus stuffed in an earthen casserole, roast it in the
> oven, or boil it in the stock pot.

Just thought I'd throw a small note in here: laser and silphium are not
the same thing. IIRC (which is as close as you're going to get on a
Sunday morning before I've had my tea) silphium was a more or less
unidentified (at least to us) plant resin which appears to have gone
extinct or otherwise unavailable between the lifetime of Marcus Gavinus
Apicius, and the time at which the earliest Apicius manuscript (7th
century?) is dated. Laser appears to be the more readily available
substitute for silphium, and is believed to be asafeotida gum,
presumably ground to a powder. This is available as an extract in some
herb or health-food stores, and as the genuine article, powdered resin,
in Indian markets under the name "hing powder".

G. Tacitus Adamantius, always interested in Soul Food ;  ) 

Date: Sun, 12 Oct 1997 16:59:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: SC - Roc recipe-sort of

<< what is your recipe for Roast of Roc >>

Well.....I didn't really write it down. Basically, I thought I could serve
ostrich (period for my persona almost) instead of emu but the ostriches
weren't ready for slaughter. :-)

So I bought 2 emus instead (Serves 150) and borrowed a pig roaster. I cut off
the hind quarters leaving them whole and attached together. The rib cage and
neck were reserved for stock.

The emu's have several lbs. of fat internally between the  legs so I trimmed
the fat from the carcass and rendered it. The resulting grease was used in
making pasrtry dough for another feast dish. The emu farmer slaughtered the
birds and skinned them for me. He thew in the livers and the fat for free 

The liver was reserved for the Guild cooks and a few hand-picked liver
gourmands that were known to be on site, as well as a couple of event goers
who had expressed interest in this rare and delightful gourmet treat. It was
lightly sauted in butter and shallots and sliced for serving.

Four strips of meat located inside underneath the was also reserved
specifically for the 4 volunteers who spent there entire day doing grunt work
and maintaining the sanity of the kitchen. These were carefully removed after
the rosted birds went to be carved.

The birds were placed in the roaster at 10:30 am and basted every half hour
until feast began. The basting sauce consisted of 1/2 gallon Italian
dressing; 1 quart of raspberry syrup; 3 tblsp each of ground cubebs, galengal
and grains of paradise; 1 cup Dijon style mustard and 1 cup honey.

When tender at around 8 pm at the last course of the feast , each was
carefully removed to a 2 man platter which were paraded through the feast
hall and into the kitchen where they were immediately carved and served.

There you have. :-)

Ras

Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 11:15:51 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - mustard and hiney saulce

Robert Beaulieu wrote:
> Does any one have a period recipe for a honey and mustard sauce to go
> with a roasted faisan?

While I don't have a period recipe for honey mustard, I can tell you a
couple of things that may interest you. The first is that Taillevent
recommends serving roast pheasant with fine salt only, and the second is
that the addition of honey to mustard in the Middle Ages was a signature
of Lombardy. Lombardy mustard appears to have been fairly coarse, almost
like whole grain mustard, and slightly sweet from the added honey.

I suspect that the coarse variety of Grey Poupon, with a little honey
added to taste, and some white wine and/or white wine vinegar added to
thin it down to a sauce, rather than a spreadable consistency, would be
a good approximation of Lombard mustard sauce.

You could, of course, make your own in more or less the same way.

Adamantius

Date: Thu, 4 Dec 1997 00:06:08 +0000
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
Subject: Re: SC - AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And it came to pass on  3 Dec 97, that margali wrote:
> Philip & Susan Troy wrote:
> > Aaaah, you must have the 1956 English edition with the recipe for rat
> > bordelaise, I see.
> >
> > Adamantius
>
> the 30's paris edition, cat anyone?
> margali

The "Libro de Cozina" has a recipe for roast cat.

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain of Tethba
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
mka Robin Carroll-Mann *** harper  at  idt.net

Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 08:04:33 -0600 (CST)
From: alysk at ix.netcom.com (Elise Fleming)
Subject: SC - Re: Worm Recipe (plus a "new" book)

In response to my comment that I had submitted a recipe using worms to
Petit Propos Culinaires, Stefan wrote:

>Was this worm recipe medieval?

Medieval, no.  Extremely late period, depending on one's view of
"period".  It was from either _The Complete Cook_ or _The Queen's
Delight_ by "W.M." from 1655.  I don't recall the source now, but I
found one for pregnant women which included horse dung.

Alys Katharine

Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 10:00:31 -0500
From: Christi Redeker <Christi.Redeker at digital.com>
Subject: SC - Specialty meats

I didn't find an answer to the "What exactly is a game hen" question, but remember goay?  I found a place to buy them and any other speciatly meats... Including musk ox.  They mention game hens, but I haven't found the exact reference as of yet.

http://www.hillsfoods.com/recipes.html

You guys will love this site!!!

Murkial

Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 18:20:23 -0500
From: dangilsp at intrepid.net (Dan Gillespie)
Subject: SC - bustard

Hello from Sylvan Glen:
        There is a recipe in the 1607 Arte de Cozina cookbook that I've been
looking at for a while.  It is for a roasted bustard with a sauce.  Bustards
are large ground dwelling birds that are omnivorous & live in the Old World.
I've been trying to figure out what sort of fowl might make a decent
substitute for  what I've found to be an endangered species.  Does anyone
know if you can get free-range turkeys from a health food store or specialty
butcher?  Perhaps guinea fowl?  Wild turkey seems like a decent match, but
I'm not much of a hunter.  Any other ideas would be muchly appreciated.
                        Off to go redact some recipes,
                                                Antoine
Dan Gillespie
dangilsp at intrepid.net
Dan_Gillespie at usgs.gov
Martinsburg, West Virginia, USA

Date: 6 FEB 98 13:56:03 AES
From: RMcGrath at dca.gov.au
Subject: SC - hedgehogs

I have read that the English peasantry and gypsies would eat hedgehogs,
preferably baked in a casing of mud which would allow the prickles [quills -
editor] to peel off after cooking...

Rakhel Petrovna
Lochac

Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 19:03:28 +0000
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Hedgehogs

I haven't followed all of this thread, so pardon me if this has been
already covered.  As to the consumption of real hedgehogs, the "Arte
Cisoria", a 1423 Spanish carving manual, mentions hedgehogs in its
list of edible quadrupeds.  No details are given on how the critter
is to be prepared.

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain of Tethba
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
mka Robin Carroll-Mann *** harper  at  idt.net

Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 11:09:51 -0500 (EST)
From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu>
Subject: Re: SC - How to cook ahead...

Dragonfyr wrote:
> > but...but Lord Adamantius.....pray tell how exactly is it you cook a head?

To which Adamantius courteously responded:
> Well, the usual thing to do is make sure you have enough room in your
> freezer, about three weeks before the event. Then you invite a bunch of
> friends over, and cook ahead.
>
> Or, you could take a head, singe or scald it, scrape off all the hair,
> split it with an axe or cleaver, and remove the brain, reserving it for
> another purpose....

I have two responses.
1) At a feast in Calafia, probably eight years ago, the chef roasted a
whole ram in the kitchen.  At some point in the feast, he came out with
the roasted head on a platter and paraded it around the room to much
applause.  He returned to the kitchen, we heard a loud CHUNK, and a
minute later High Table had a dish of brains in lemon-butter sauce.
The Baroness looked a little queasy, IIRC, but the Baron made a point of
eating some and offering it around the room.  IIRC again, the dish GOT
all the way around the room (a smallish feast of 75 or so): many people
were grossed out, and the rest of us found it delicious but too rich to
eat more than a few morsels.

2) There is a recipe in the Arabo-Andalusian _Manuscrito Anonimo_
entitled "The making of monkey's head".  It's not a real monkey's head
(sorry, folks), but rather a sort of pudding, cooked in a round-bottomed
pot which is then broken and removed to leave a head-shaped thing.  I've
never tried actually making it; has anyone else?

                                        mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib
                                                 Stephen Bloch
                                           sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu

Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 15:30:46 -0700
From: "Balldrich BallBarian BoulderBain" <msca at c2i2.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Rice, Pasta, and walking on eggs...

Speaking of walking on eggs, I just made a 24 egg/cheese omlette with an
Ostrich egg.  When I bought the egg for this experiment, the rancher? that
sold it to me showed me that the egg has the ability to handle 300 pounds
pressure, he stood on the egg!
        It tastes exactly like a chicken egg, measures with a ladle, works well
for BIG expanded recipes.  I was able to make omelettes for ten cub scouts
with 1 egg and a lot of giggles from the cub's.
        Ostrich eggs are in period, even if a bit exotic.  Thing is if you are
making a big feast and need to use a lot of eggs this might be a solution,
and you can sell the egg shell to articians after you empty it!

        Balldrich in the wilds of Atenveldt

Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 18:48:55 EDT
From: Mordonna22 at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Apicius and Fried Chicken

>  Any ideas/methods to try to cook about 75-90 pounds
> of bird [ostrich] in one sitting.

Well, we used to cook whole turkeys in big cast iron caldrons out of doors.
Don't know where you might get your hands on one, though.  Ours had been made
in the nineteenth century and handed down in the family.
Vehling's Apicius does have two recipes for cooking a whole Ostrich.

"[210] BOILED OSTRICH                   IN STRUTHIONE
                                                                                IN STRUTHIONE ELIXO

[A stock in which to cook ostrich] PEPPER, MINT, CUMIN, LEEKS, CELERY SEED,
DATES, HONEY, VINEGAR, RAISIN WINE, BROTH, A LITTLE OIL.  BOIL THIS IN THE
STOCK KETTLE.  REMOVE THE BIRD WHEN DONE, STRAIN THE LIQUID, THICKEN WITH
ROUX.  TO THIS SAUCE ADD THE OSTRICH.  SPRINKLE WITH PEPPER.  IF YOU WISH IT
MORE SEASONED  OR TASTY ADD GARLIC [DURING COCTION]"

if you don't mind, I think I will skip the redaction on this one.  Those
babies are HUGE!

Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 20:56:42 EDT
From: Mordonna22 at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Ostrich-2 recipes?

In a message dated 9/1/98 4:45:15 PM US Mountain Standard Time, LrdRas at aol.com
writes:
>  You mentioned two recipes? I only recieved one. :-(

oops, I only sent one.  Sorry.  I agree, I think Vehling is not as great a
scholar as his press says he is.

Here's the other recipe.  Remember this is Vehling we are talking about:

[211] ANOTHER OSTRICH STEW
                ALITER [IN] STRUTHIONE ELIXO

PEPPER, LOVAGE, THYME, ALSO SATURY, HONEY, MUSTARD, VINEGAR, BROTH, AND OIL.

So help me that's all there is to it.  Vehling doesn't even comment.

Mordonna

Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 02:02:08 EDT
From: Gerekr at aol.com
Subject: SC - Apician Teriyaki Chicken 8-); and ostrich sauces

<snip of chicken recipe>

Here is Apicius 151 from the Flower & Rosenbaum
text and their translation.

F&B, (Vehling)

The two sauces for ostrich:
p. 151 #1 In struthione elixo: piper, mentam, cuminum assum, apii semen,
dactylos vel caryotas, mel, acetum, passum, liquamen et oleum modice, et
in caccabo facies ut bulliat. amulo obligas, et sic partes struthionis in
lance perfundis, et desuper piper aspargis. si autem in condituram
coquere volueris, alicam addis.

Sauce for boiled ostrich.  Take pepper, mint, grilled cumin, celery-seed,
dates or Jericho dates, honey, vinegar, passum, liquamen, and a little
oil, and bring to the boil in a saucepan.  Thicken with cornflour and
pour this sauce over the pieces of ostrich in the serving-dish, and
sprinkle with pepper.  But if you wish to cook the ostrich in the sauce
add spelt-grits.

p. 151 #2 Aliter <in> struthione elixo: piper, ligusticum, thymum aut
satureiam, mel, sinape, acetum, liquamen et oleum.

Another sauce for boiled ostrich.  Pepper, lovage, thyme or savory,
honey, mustard, vinegar, liquamen and oil.

"Passum" is another cooking-wine preparation, used to sweeten (p. 25-26).
 Very sweet, apparently.  Their make-do is "a very sweet Spanish wine"
which is sweet enough, but not really the right/original flavor.

Chimene & Gerek (who was right!, 8-))

Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 22:18:05 EDT
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Swans

alasdair.maciain at snet.net writes:
<< Has anyone (Ras?) actually cooked or eaten swan?

 Alasdair mac Iain >>

Swans are tough! Did I mention that swans are tough? Seriously though, yes
I've tried swan and found that swan is tough. It also has a vaguely fishy
taste that i did not find particularly agreeable.

Ras

Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 23:29:08 -0400
From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)
Subject: Re: SC - Swans

>Whilst standing watch on the pier yesterday, I was watching the swans
>swimming around the boats.  Not that I'd be willing to eat these particular
>birds (not after all the time they've been swimming around RCs!), but does
>anyone have any period recipes for swan?  Has anyone (Ras?) actually cooked
>or eaten swan?
>
>Laird Alasdair mac Iain of Elderslie
>Dun an Leomhain Bhig
>Canton of Dragon's Aerie, Barony Beyond the Mountain

Harleian 4016 (c. 1450) has 2 recipes for swan.  One is simply a whole swan
roasted, the other is a dish of entrails. There is also an allusion to
pudding of swan's neck in the feast menus.

Cindy/Sincgiefu

Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1998 12:16:33 -0400
From: "Philippa Alderton" <phlip at bright.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Thoughts on Food- reply, long.

Lady Elisabeth asked :
>I especially would like to hear of some of the more unique recipes that
everyone has found, especially period ones, containing unique
ingrediants or animals.  I would also like to hear if you have cooked
said recipe, or said unique animal, and your comments.<

We've also discussed long pig, and I'll refer to a passage from a book I
just read, "Aztec Autumn", where in the hero is talking to a friend who is
telling him about the animals the Spaniards brought to the New World,
including "porcus", which tastes just like the thigh meat of a healthy
young man.

As far as period oddities, Anthimus refers to organ meats such as kidneys,
stomach (tripe), matrix (sow belly), udder, liver, and many birds and
fishes, including lamphreys. Apicius refers to rose and violet wine, brain
sausages among many others, intestinal fat and intestines as casings,
nettles, smelt pie or sprat custard, ostrich, grane, thrush, figpeckers,
pheasant, and many other birds, sow's womb, tails and feet, lungs,chamois,
gazelle, wild sheep and dormouse, rays, squid, octopus and sea urchins, and
eels, including conger. Platina includes omentum,  maidenhair fern, heads
and giblets of capons and chickens, tounge, chicken and other animals
testicles testicles, porcupines and hedgehogs, brains and heads of all
species, eyes, hearts and lungs, liver, udders, spleens, kidneys, stomach,
fish eggs, several for hemp (cannabis), turtles, murex, and eels including
moray and conger.

Phlip

Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 10:18:41 +1000 (EST)
From: The Cheshire Cat <sianan at geocities.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Swans

>Whilst standing watch on the pier yesterday, I was watching the swans
>swimming around the boats.  Not that I'd be willing to eat these particular
>birds (not after all the time they've been swimming around RCs!), but does
>anyone have any period recipes for swan?  Has anyone (Ras?) actually cooked
>or eaten swan?
>
>Alasdair mac Iain

At coronet in 1996, when Ynys Fawr hosted the event, we served swan to the
high table.  We just roasted it.  I wasn't in the kitchen for that evening,
so I don't know much about how they prepared it other than what the
finished product was like.  IIRC the meat had a silvery sort of sheen and
was not very tasty.  Besides, the paperwork involved in getting permission
to kill a couple was long and tiresome, despite the fact that we have them
in plague proportions here in the South of Tasmania.
   It was a good experiment, but not one that we would care to repeat in a
hurry.  IMO Swans are certainly not worth the effort involved in the legal
work.  Stick with other game birds instead.

- -Sianan
**************************************************************************
Marina Denton
sianan at geocities.com

Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1998 12:50:07 EDT
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: SC - Cat-recipe

a14h at zebra.net writes:
<< Ok, enough of this.  I ate cat when I was working for our oh so dear Uncle
 Sammy.  It tasted like crap, and was tough and stringy to boot.  I want to
see a recipe. >>

Here is the info that was posted to the list a few months ago by Lady Lady
Brighid ni Chiarain of Tethba. Unfortunately the reference she mentions is not
in my collection and she failed to send the entire recipe  excerpt from the
maunuscript. Until someione deigns to post the actual transcription from this
manuscript and it's translation in ENTIRETY we only have this passing
reference. :-(

""In the "Libro de Guisados" the recipe for roast cat specifies that the cat
is to be wrapped in a linen napkin and buried for a day and a night before
cooking."

Ras

Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 05:16:40 -0500 (CDT)
From: alysk at ix.netcom.com (Elise Fleming)
Subject: SC - My Translation - Roast Cat Recipe

Greetings from Alys Katharine.  Here is something I did a number of 
years ago...

Two Recipes from Ruperto Nola's _Libro de Guisados_

Translated by Alys Katharine (Elise Fleming)

In 1929 Dionisio Perez, also known as "Post-Thebussem", put into modern 
print the 1529 edition of Ruperto Nola's _Libro de Guisados_ with 
copius footnotes and commentary on vocabulary.  It was published under 
Pedro Sainz y Rodrigues, Catedratico of the University of Madrid, Vol. 
IX, Los Clasicos Olvidados, Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles. 

At the beginning of the Glossary, Dionisio Perez comments briefly on 
his work.  This is a rough translation.  Except where noted, all 
footnotes are mine.

"I have preferred to become familiar with the second Spanish edition 
made in Logrono in 1529 by Miguel de Eguia at the request (paid by) 
Diego Perez Davila, mayor of that city, since it is a more perfect and 
cleaner copy than the first, printed in Toledo in 1525.  In 1538  and 
1543 Nola's work was reprinted, without an indication as to place.  In 
1577 another edition was done in Toledo.  I am not familiar with any 
later editions.  In the _Encyclopedia Espasa_ a 1568 edition is noted 
to which the title page of the second edition is attributed, which 
appears here. (1)  Torres Amat notes an edition done in Toledo in 1477. 
 In the 'Prologue" I give a history detailing these editions.

"The few biographical references that remain about Nola come from the 
'Memoria para ayudar a formar un diccionario critico de los escritores 
catalanes' (Barcelona, 1836), edited by Torres Amat, and doesn't 
specify which of the three Hernandos or Fernandos of Naples had Nola as 
a cook.  In the 'Prologue' some facts and dates are set forth on this 
matter."

The first recipe on page 124 caught my eye.  It is offered for 
historical interest only.  I don't intend to try it!

(1)  I am uncertain about the translation of this sentence.

Roast Cat as One Likes to Eat It (p. 124)

You will take the cat that is fat.  You have to slit its throat.  After 
it has died, cut off the head and throw it away because it isn't 
edible.  They say that by eating its brains one can lose one's own 
brains, sense of judgment and reason.  After skinning it very cleanly, 
open it up and clean it out well.  Then wrap it in a clean linen cloth 
and bury it in the ground where it has to lie for a day and a night.  
Then remove it from there and put it to roast in a roaster and roast it 
on the fire.  When beginning to roast, rub it with good garlic and oil. 
 When you have finished greasing it beat it well with a switch (bundle 
of twigs?) (2)  This you have to do until it is well roasted, oiling it 
and beating it.  And when it is roasted, cut it up as if it were a 
rabbit or kid and put it on a large platter.  Take garlic and oil 
(?liquified?) with a good broth so that it is (?quite thin?) and cast 
it over the cat.  You can eat it because it is good table fare.

Note:  According to a note by Dionisio Perez, cat was served disguised 
as rabbit in taverns in the poorer sections of towns, but it was also 
eaten and known to be cat in homes of decided taste.  Cat meat is firm 
and flexible.  Interring it isn't enough to tenderize it.  It needs 
beating during cooking, according to Perez's notes.

(2)  After I did my translation I found one that Nige of the Cleftlands 
had done.  She noted that the "switch" was probably a bundle of 
rosemary used to impart a flavor and sort of tenderize the meat when 
cooking.  She cited another source where rosemary twigs were used to 
beat a piece of meat while cooking.

Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 22:57:26 -0500
From: snowfire at mail.snet.net
Subject: Re: SC - Hedgehogs

I missed the original posting on the hedgehog recipe.  Not that I'd like to
eat them, but I do know that Romany Gypsies cooked them in clay and ate them
often.  Was the recipe Romany or not? and if so does the poster (or anyone
else) have any more Romany recipes?

Elysant

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 10:07:11 -0500
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Hedgehogs

The "Arte Cisoria", a Spanish carving manual written in 1423,
mentions hedgehogs in its list of edible animals, but does not
describe how they were cooked.

Brighid

Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 17:57:17 EST
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Recipe request for Ras

Groundhog can be prepared using any recipe suitable for rabbit. Young hogs are
best because they are more tender. The addition of a stuffing when roasting
vastly improves the final flavor of roasted groundhog although they are
tasty plain roasted also.

Ras

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 21:01:31 -0500
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Recipe request for Ras

And it came to pass on 9 Feb 99,, that LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
> Recipe plaese? original, OK. Translation, preferred.

Okay... from _Libro del Arte de Cozina_, 1599:

Pastel de conejo de las Indias -- Pastry of Rabbit of the Indies
(Guinea Pig)

The rabbit of India must be scalded with hot water in the manner
that one scalds suckling pigs, or it must be flayed, remove the
entrails, and stuff it like the domestic rabbit, and cover it with
pastry, as we said in the previous chapter.

[The previous "chapter" is a recipe for rabbit pie, and it goes as
follows:]

To Make Pastry of Domestic Rabbits

Take the rabbit and cut off the head, and the feet, take out the
entrails and wash it with many waters, and stuff it with a mixture
made of chopped lard, ham, and its liver cleaned of the bile, mint,
chopped marjoram, sour grapes, pepper, cinnamon, cloves,
nutmeg, and salt, raw egg yolks, and when it is full sew up the
opening, and the rabbit sprinkled with the said mixture, put it in a
pastry made in the manner of "nauezilla" with some little slices of
bacon underneath, having taken out the legs, put them upon the
rabbit with as many more little slices of fat pork, and sprinkle all
with the same spices, cover the pastry, and make it cook in the
oven, and serve it hot.

Brighid
Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 01:04:08 +0200
From: Thomas Gloning <Thomas.Gloning at germanistik.uni-giessen.de>
Subject: SC - Ostrich & calf  (was: medieval faires)

Ras wrote:
>>>
Ostrichs are mentioned in Apicius and several recipes are given. They
are originally from Africa and were imported and raised in Rome. I see
no problem with seeing them at a medieval feast considering the trade
with the Mideast.
<<<

Coming from the other edge of the timeframe to the Middle Ages, ostrich
is also mentioned in Rumpolt's cookbook (1581, fol. LXIIIIb: "Vom
Strausz/ vnd was darausz zu machen sey", 'About the ostrich and what can
be made of it').

At the end of the passage Rumpolt says:

"Vnd es wirts mancher essen fu:er Kalbfleisch".
'Many people will take the ostrich dish for a dish of calf'

And then:

"Vnnd von einem Strauss kan man so viel Speise zurichten/ als von einem Kalb".
'And you can prepare as many (the same kind of) dishes from an ostrich
like from a calf'.

Thus, Rumpolt refers back to his own long, actually _very_ long calf
section with its 59 recipes.

This section with the calf recipes is now happily webbed due to the
laborious work of Martina Grasse at:
http://www.uni-giessen.de/~g909 (option "Alte Kochbuecher", then
"Rumpolt", then "Vom Kalb").

But to come back to the ostrich: Are there recipes for ostrich from
_medieval_ sources? After all, Apicius is a roman source, and Rumpolt is
an early modern source.

Thomas

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 12:13:28 -0500
From: Wajdi <a14h at zebra.net>
Subject: Re: SC - cod and parrottongues

LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
> agora at algonet.se writes:
> << I wonder if someone remember a Roman recipe for parrottongues.  >>
>
> Hummingbird tongues yes. Parrot tongues, no.

My copy of apicius (giacosa) has a recipe for roasted flamingo or parrot
(Apicius 232), but nothing for parrot-tongue.  However, the commentary refers to
tongue in the following: "...flamingos were said to have been slaughtered for
their tongues or brains alone (Historia Augusta, Heliogabalus 20, 6: Pliny,
Naturalis historia 10, 133; and Martial 13, 71)."

wajdi

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 00:21:10 +0200
From: Thomas Gloning <Thomas.Gloning at germanistik.uni-giessen.de>
Subject: SC - cod and parrottongues / Apicius

Ana wrote:
>>>
I wonder if someone remember a Roman recipe for parrottongues. They
imported parrottongues from Africa, how did they prepare it? Is it in
Apicius or in other texts?
<<<

As far as I can see, Apicius has no recipe for parrottongues, and the
only passage where parrot (_psittacus_) is mentioned is at the end of
the flamingo recipe in VI 6.1:

"Idem facies et in psittaco"
'The same way you can do it with the parrot'.

Given this close connection between flamingo and parrot, perhaps a
passage from Pliny's Naturalis Historia could be interesting. He says:

"Phoenicopteri linguam praecipui saporis esse Apicius docuit, nepotum
omnium altissimus gurges" (X 133; ed. Mayhoff II, 259,5ff.).

roughly

'Apicius held that the tongue of the flamingo has an excellent taste, he
who was an outstanding gourmet/glutton among all the squanderers'.

In addition Martial has a passage about the phoenicopterus, the
flamingo:

"Dat mihi pinna rubens nomen, sed lingua gulosis
Nostra sapit. Quid si garrula lingua foret?"

Could be something like:

'I have my name from the reddish/coloured feathers, but my tongue is
delicious to the gourmets. (...)'

Alas, these passages do not indicate how the tongues were prepared.

Thomas

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1999 12:02:06 -0400
From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)
Subject: Re: SC - Recipes for period Bear Meat - long

Hello!  Here is the only recipe in "Take 1000 Eggs or More" that calls for
bear meat specifically.  This is a very elaborate layered dish in 4 colors,
like a checkerboard lasagne.

The 4 colors:
White - grind in a mortar, Ginger, Cinnamon, Galingale; take then almonds &
flour of Rice, and a part of Flesh, & cast thereto in a mortar, & grind
very small, & mix it with Eggs

Yellow - take Saffron, Ginger, Cinnamon, Galingale, Bread, & a part of
thine Flesh, & grind it small in the mortar, & mix it up with Eggs.

Black -  take Ginger, Cinnamon, Galingale, Bread, Eggs, & Old cheese.
**This should probably say *burnt* bread, otherwise it won't be black.

Green - take then Parsley, & grind it small in a mortar, & wring it & do it
up; & add it to thine Flesh, & there-with color thine fair part of Flesh.

I think the strong thick dough cake is intended to serve as a baking
container, otherwise this 7-layer construction (with stew & grease between
the layers), would likely slide apart.  But I haven't tried it.  If you'd
care to send me some of that bear meat, I'll give it a go.  ;-)

Harleian MS. 279 Dyuerse Bake Metis

xij.  Vn Vyaunde Furne[3] san[3] noum de chare.   Take stronge Dow, & make
a cake sumdele [th]icke, & make it tow; [th]an take larde[3] of Venysoun,
or a bere, or of a Bere, & kerue hem [th]inne as Fylettes of Porke, & lay
[th]in lardys square as a chekyr, & ley [th]er-vppe a tyne y-makyd of
Eyroun vppe-on [th]e tyne; ley [th]in farsure, y-makyd of Hennys, & of
Porke, of Eyroun, & myid brede, & Salt, & chese, yf [th]ou it hast; &
[th]at it be makkyd at .iiij. tymes.  Fyrst make [th]us [th]in whyte
farsure:  grynd in a mortere, Gyngere, Canelle, Galyngale; take then
almaundys & floure of Rys, and a party of Fleysshe, & caste ther-to in a
mortere, & grynd ry[3]th smal, & temper it with Eyroun, [th]us make [th]in
[3]elow Farsure:  nym Safroun, Gyngere, Canel, Galyngale, Brede, & a partye
of [th]in Fleyssche, & grynd it smal in [th]e mortere, & temper it vppe
with Eyroun.  The [th]ryd maner schal ben blake:  nym Gyngere, Canelle,
Galyngale, Brede, Eyroun, & Old chese; nym [th]an Percely, & grynd it smal
in a mortere, & wryng it & do it vppe; & do it to [th]in Fleyssche, &
[th]er-with coloure [th]in fayre partye of Fleyssche, & ley a party of
[th]in Fleyssche on .iiij. quarterys, but [th] at [th]e brede be as [th]in
cake; take [th]en & ley [th]er-vppe-on [th]in Fleyssche, & lay
[th]er-vppe-on a grece; a-boue [th]in grece ley [th]i cyvey; nym [th]in
[th]ridde cours of [th]in Flessche, & lay as brode as [th]in cake, & [th]an
grece, & [th]er a-bouyn, a cyvey.  ley [th]e iiij. course of [th]in
Fleyssche on .iiij. quarterys as brode as [th]in cake, & [th]an grece, &
[th]an a-boue, a cyuey.  The .v. cours of [th]in Fleyssche, ley as brode as
[th]ine cake, & [th]en grece, & [th]an aboue, a cyuey.  Nym [th]e .vj.
cours, & lay as brode as [th]in cake, & [th]an grece, & [th]an a cyuey.
Nym [th]e .viij. cours of [th]e Fleysshe, & lay as brode as [th]in cake on
.iiij. quarterys, & grece, & [th]an a cyvey; & a lytel bake hem, & serue
forth.

xij.  Vn Vyaunde Furne[3] san[3] noum de chare.  Take strong Dough, & make
a cake somewhat thick, & make it tough; then take slices of Venison, or a
bear, or of a Bear, & carve them thin as Filets of Pork, & lay thine slices
square as a checkerboard, & lay thereupon a pancake made of Eggs upon the
pancake; lay thine stuffing, made of Hens, & of Pork, of Eggs, & crumbled
bread, & Salt, & cheese, if you have it; & that it be made at 4 times.
First make thus thine white stuffing:  grind in a mortar, Ginger, Cinnamon,
Galingale; take then almonds & flour of Rice, and a part of Flesh, & cast
thereto in a mortar, & grind very small, & mix it with Eggs, thus make
thine yellow Stuffing:  take Saffron, Ginger, Cinnamon, Galingale, Bread, &
a part of thine Flesh, & grind it small in the mortar, & mix it up with
Eggs.  The third manner shal be black:  take Ginger, Cinnamon, Galingale,
Bread, Eggs, & Old cheese; take then Parsley, & grind it small in a mortar,
& wring it & do it up; & add it to thine Flesh, & there-with color thine
fair part of Flesh, & lay a part of thine Flesh on 4 quarters, but that the
breadth be as thine cake; take then & lay thereupon thine Flesh, & lay
thereupon a grease; above thine grease lay thy stew; take thine third
course of thine Flesh, & lay as broad as thine cake, & then grease, & there
above, a stew.  lay the 4th course of thine Flesh on 4 quarters as broad as
thine cake, & then grease, & then above, a stew.  The 5th course of thine
Flesh, lay as broad as thine cake, & then grease, & then above, a stew.
Take the 6th course, & lay as broad as thine cake, & then grease, & then a
stew.  Take the 8th [sic] course of the Flesh, & lay as broad as thine cake
on 4 quarters, & grease.  & then a stew; & a little bake them, & serve
forth.

(From "Take a Thousand Eggs or More", 2nd ed., vol 2, pp. 470-471,
copyright 1990, 1997, Cindy Renfrow.)

Regards,

Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu
renfrow at skylands.net

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1999 19:31:38 -0400
From: "Alderton, Philippa" <phlip at morganco.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Recipes for period Bear Meat to be used in

Frederich-

Whatever you do, please be sure to cook it very thoroughly. Bears are VERY
subject to trichinosis and don't have the advantages of regular wormings and
such as our modern swine do- also, they're omnivorous, and are likely to eat
anything.

If in fact you were serious about this being an old bear, particularly if it
was male, consider stewing the blazes out of it, and marinating it.
Tenderizing it with a sledgehammer would not be out of the question ;-)

My suggestion for a period recipe would be a Hunter's Stew, found in most
European Medieval Cultures. All you do is take as many meats  as you have
caught that day and stew them. I could easily see using venison, rabbit, and
pheasant, since we have ready access to them, maybe a few quail, etc. Served
with a homemade bread, with several lighter sides, you'd have the basis of a
very simple but tasty feast, with the major part of it, the meat, just left
on the fire to mumble away.

Phlip

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 09:57:43 EDT
From: RuddR at aol.com
Subject: SC - Vyaunde Furnez sanz noum de chare (was Recipes for Period Bear Meat)

Cindy Renfrow writes:
<<Hello!  Here is the only recipe in "Take 1000 Eggs or More" that calls for
bear meat specifically.  This is a very elaborate layered dish in 4 colors,
like a checkerboard lasagne.>>

(Snip)

<>

(Major snip, in which she gives the recipe: "Vn Vyaunde Furnez sanz noum de
chare" (Harleian MS 279, Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, p. 49.) and
her translation.)

A few years ago I made a test version of Vyaund Furnez sanz noum de chare
(Baked Dish Without a Name, of Meat -- Nameless Meat Pie (?)), of only four
layers, just to try it out and see what it might do.  It was a
"cooking-from-the-hip" experiment, and I didn't take any notes; I was going
to take them next time, if I felt it was worth doing again.  It turned out to
be a lot of work for not that spectacular a result, so I haven't tried it
since. It is a long and complicated receipt, and who knows what they really
had in mind, but here's what I did:

I made it as a deep-dish pie, with regular crust in a pie pan, understanding
that to do it right it would be much larger and deeper than what I made. The
multi-colored, multi-layered fillings, which are rotated each layer, were
pretty straight forward, although the color variation wasn't as marked as I
would have liked. The bottom of the pie was lined with thin strips of bacon
fat for the lard. The hardest part was figuring out the layers between the
fillings.  Trying to make sense of the original receipt, I concluded that a
"tyne y-makyd of eyroun" was a scribal error for a "cyue y-makyd of eyroun"
(t and c, and u and n might easily be confused in 15th century secretary
script).  I read  "cyue" as "civee" (u and v being sometimes interchangable),
which in other contexts is an onion sauce.  A civee of eggs, it occurred to
me, might be a sauce of minced onions mixed with egg.  I made such a mixture,
and spread a layer of this over the strips of fat to form a base.  When the
receipt called for a cyue to be layered, alternating with grease, I concluded
this referred to the cyue of eyroun that had just been prepared.  I layered
butter (in place of grease) and the onion and egg mixture between the colored
ground-meat layers.  When it baked, the egg and onion layer solidified,
holding the filling together, and setting off the colored layers, giving a
pronounced striped effect.

It tasted alright, and a full-scale one would be impressive.  I should try it
again sometime.  Thank you, Cindy, for reminding me of that long-ago experiment.

Rudd Rayfield

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 11:05:06 -0400
From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)
Subject: Re: SC - Vyaunde Furnez sanz noum de chare (was Recipes for Period Bear Meat)

Hello!  Thanks for sharing your experiment!

><snip> Trying to make sense of the original receipt, I concluded that a
>"tyne y-makyd of eyroun" was a scribal error for a "cyue y-makyd of eyroun"
>(t and c, and u and n might easily be confused in 15th century secretary
>script).  I read  "cyue" as "civee" (u and v being sometimes interchangable),
>which in other contexts is an onion sauce.  A civee of eggs, it occurred to
>me, might be a sauce of minced onions mixed with egg.  I made such a mixture,
>and spread a layer of this over the strips of fat to form a base.  When the
>receipt called for a cyue to be layered, alternating with grease, I concluded
>this referred to the cyue of eyroun that had just been prepared.  I layered
>butter (in place of grease) and the onion and egg mixture between the colored
>ground-meat layers.  When it baked, the egg and onion layer solidified,
>holding the filling together, and setting off the colored layers, giving a
>pronounced striped effect.
<snip>

I took my interpretation of "tyne" as a "pancake" from the recipe that
immediately follows this in the MS.

#13, also called "Vn Vyaunde furnez san[3] nom de chare", says "Take
flowre, Almaunde milke, & Safroune, & make [th]er-of .iiij. tynes, & frye
[th]i tynez in Oyle..."

Take flour, Almond milk, & Saffron, & make thereof 4 pancakes/crepes/flat
dough-thingies, & fry thy pancakes/crepes/flat dough-thingies in Oil...

#13 is a similarly elaborate recipe that uses fish instead of flesh.
Perhaps the name should read "A baked dish without meat"? ('nom' being
confused for 'non') and #12, being made in similar fashion, shared the same
name??

#13 is a dish in 4 layers, not 7.  It is also 4 colored & checkerboard in
assembly.  The layers are put on thus: Take the first course of the fish (4
colors), in 4 quarters, as a checkerboard, and put a stew/sauce (almond
milk & spices that the fish was cooked in) on the fish; sprinkle with
sugar, cover with a pancake.  And so on for 4 layers.  The top is - I think
- - supposed to have a decorative hole cut out in the center in the shape of
a rose: "Nym [[th]e] .iiij. cours a-cordant to [th]in o[th]er, a-[th]enched
to-geder, an a-boue a hole as a rose, & cetera."

Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu
renfrow at skylands.net

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 21:46:41 GMT
From: kerric at pobox.alaska.net (Kerri Canepa)
Subject: Re: SC - Margali in the food supply company

Bonne,

>here's a challenge:  reindeer ham
>
>can it be gotten in the U.S.?  At what price?

I did some calling around to the game processing businesses in the area and
found only one in Anchorage that might have what you need:

Indian Valley Meats 907-653-7511 or 7512

When I called them all they had on hand was stew meat and chops but they do get
larger cuts like rounds and roasts on occasion. They will also ship.

I'd suggest surfing the Net for "game meats" or "game processing" and "alaska"
and you might find some other sources.

Kerri
Cedrin Etainnighean, OL

Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1999 23:11:02 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Guinea Pig

LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
> The only 'recipe' I personally remember many details about consisted of a
> casserole of stewed unknown stuff over which the guinea pig, having been
> cleaned but NOT skinned was cut into chunks and the chunks were put in a
> layer over top of the stew. After cooking it was eaten by lifting the chunks
> of guinea pig by the fur and sucking off the meat.

Calvin W. Schwabe's "Unmentionable Cuisine" has a few guinea pig
recipes, and refers to Peruvian housewives removing a couple of kitchen
floor tiles to make a little underground pen to fatten the cavies on
potato peelings and such. He specifies that, as Ras says, they are _not_
skinned, but rather scalded and scraped of their fur, which apparently
comes off pretty easily once they're scalded. I have to say I think it's
unlikely the hairs would stay firmly enough attached to the skin to
support any weight when the muscle tissue was tender enough to suck off
the bones.

Adamantius

Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 09:42:42 -0500
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
Subject: Re: SC - For Puck's Big Yaller Dawg

And it came to pass on 25 Nov 99,, that Stefan li Rous wrote:

[many snippages]
> >From my exotic-meats-msg file:
>
> > Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 05:16:40 -0500 (CDT)
> > From: alysk at ix.netcom.com (Elise Fleming)
> > Subject: SC - My Translation - Roast Cat Recipe
> >
> > Greetings from Alys Katharine.  Here is something I did a number of
> > years ago...
> >
> > Two Recipes from Ruperto Nola's _Libro de Guisados_
> >
> > Translated by Alys Katharine (Elise Fleming)
> > Roast Cat as One Likes to Eat It (p. 124)
> >
> > You will take the cat that is fat.  You have to slit its throat.  After
> > it has died, cut off the head and throw it away because it isn't edible.
> >  They say that by eating its brains one can lose one's own brains, sense
> > of judgment and reason.  After skinning it very cleanly, open it up and
> > clean it out well.  Then wrap it in a clean linen cloth and bury it in
> > the ground where it has to lie for a day and a night.  Then remove it
> > from there and put it to roast in a roaster and roast it on the fire.
> > When beginning to roast, rub it with good garlic and oil.
> >  When you have finished greasing it beat it well with a switch (bundle
> > of twigs?) (2)  This you have to do until it is well roasted, oiling it
> > and beating it.  And when it is roasted, cut it up as if it were a
> > rabbit or kid and put it on a large platter.  Take garlic and oil
> > (?liquified?) with a good broth so that it is (?quite thin?) and cast it
> > over the cat.  You can eat it because it is good table fare.

A much smoother, readable translation than the one I did.  Thank you
for posting it, Stefan.  A few comments on specific terms:

"Asador", which Mistress Alys has translated literally and accurately as
"roaster", can also be rendered as "spit".

The verb used for the mixing of the broth with garlic and oil is "desatar",
which can be translated as "to liquify" or "to dissolve".  I prefer the
latter.  It is, incidently, the same verb that is used throughout de Nola to
describe the making of almond milk; one "dissolves" the ground
almonds with the liquid.

"Quite thin" is a correct translation; "ralo" is used in many recipes in
that sense, just as a modern recipe might direct you to "add milk to the
batter until it is thin enough".

Brighid, guiltily slinking off to scratch her four darlings behind the ears...
Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 14:23:24 -0600
From: Magdalena <magdlena at earthlink.net>
Subject: SC - Penguins are period, & so are elephants...

Richard Keith wrote:
> Please note, I was not my intention to suggest that Penguins were to be
> considered a stable or normal portion of  any  western medieval European
> diet.  I was only stating that they had been seen and reportedly eaten
> within our period.

So were lots of things.  ;>  Here's another example.

Alvise da Cadamosto, 1456, while on the Gambia river, describes eating elephant.

"I had a portion cut off, which, roasted and broiled, I ate on board ship... to
be able to say that I had eaten of the flesh of an animal which had never been
previously eaten by my countrymen.  The flesh, actually, is not very good,
seeming tough and insipid to me."

<snicker> I love this quote.  I'm still trying to get my hands on a copy of the
original work it came from.

- -Magdalena

Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 20:13:40 -0800
From: Valoise Armstrong <varmstro at zipcon.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: New World Foods: Rant/ Counter Rant (Long)  

Cariadoc wrote:
><< I don't know any period recipes for bear, although someone else here
>  might.  >>

I know we talked about bear meat last fall, did any of that make it to
the florilegium? I know there is on very late period recipe from Marx
Rumpolt, p. 200. Here's an off-the cuff translation. I know bear is
legal game in a few states. Anyone ever tried it? Rumpolt mentions
treating it like wild swine, is that what it tastes like? I find it
interesting that the recipe uses the feet and head. Wonder what he did
with the rest? Cook it like boar or pork?

Von einem Beeren

Njmb die Fu:ess vom einem Beeren/ setz sie zu mit Wasser/ vnnd
lass sie so lang sieden/ biss dass das haar herab gehet/ butz sie
darnach sauber auss/ vnnd koch in einem guten Pfeffer/ in 
einem Mandelgescharb/ weiss vn{d} saur mit Limonien/ so
werden sie gut vnd wolgeschmack. Njm{b} die Beerenfuss/ vnd den
Beerenkopf/ besengs auff dem Feuwr/ wie man einem wild Schwein besengt/
setz es zu/ vnd kochs wie man ein wilden Schwein macht/ 
zeuch jn auss/ vnd lass in kalt werden/ beschneidt jn/
vnd sa:uber jn auss/ so ist es
gut zu essen.

Take the feet from a bear, set it on [the fire] with water and
let it boil so long, until the hair comes off, scrub it
afterward cleanly off, and cook it in a good pepper [sauce], in
a sharp almond [sauce], white and sour with lemons, so
will it become good and well flavored. Take the bear's feet and the
bear's head, besengs on the fire, as one besengt a wild pig,
set it to [the fire] and cook it as one makes a wild pig,
draw it out and let it become cold, cut it
and clean it out, so is it
good to eat.

Only one word that escapes right now - besengen, obviously a verb to
do with cook on the fire, but I'm not sure the exact meaning.

Valoise

Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 23:40:00 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: SC - Cariadoc asks about bear recipes

Sorry, I lost the original query and can't seem to remember what the
header was...

As I recall Ras and Friederich were speaking of bear stew, and one of
the bear recipes mentioned was something that had been mentioned on the
cooks' list.

Unless I'm manufacturing artificial memories again, something I seem to
be doing lately, the alleged period bear recipe was Vn Vyaunde Furne3
san3 noum de chare, from Harl. MS 279. It contains a line that goes,
"(th)an take larde3 of Venysoun, or a bere, or of a Bere, & kerue hem
(th)inne as Fylettes of Porke..."

For what it's worth, Thomas Austin, in his edition of this published as
the Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, says in his glossary and index
that this is a typo/scribal error and should read "Bore" or boar. He's
not really clear about why he thinks this, though it seems reasonable
given the lack of supporting evidence of bears being used for food in an
English recipe book, and the wealth of boar references.

As I recall there's a little information about bears in Platina, but no
culinary information to speak of. 

Adamantius

Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 09:25:23 -0700 (MST)
From: grasse at mscd.edu (Martina Grasse)
Subject: SC - Digest 1889 - Bear recipes

Rumpolt (I know...LATE period at 1581)  lists a recipe for bear-paws. (I do 
not have it translated yet, but can attempt to do so tonight.) My 
recollection (from skimming it a few months ago) was that they were roasted 
in a fire till the fur came off... and then there was some additional 
preparation, perhaps even a sauce.  Will post tomorrow.

Gwen Catrin von Berlin

Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 08:11:31 EST
From: ChannonM at aol.com
Subject: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #1887

Ok, how's about the idea of substituting turkey for "Bustard", it was driven 
out of existence I believe. I  nor anyone else I know has tasted "Bustard" 
but it was purportedly an upwards of 40lbs flightless land bird. Recipes can 
be found in several medieval sources such as "A Forme of Cury" 1390 (IIRC) 
and others but I can't seem to find them at the moment.
According to  Websters New Collegiate 1949
Bustard-avis tarda (slow bird), any of a family (Otididae) of Old World  and 
Australian game birds related to both cranes and plovers esp the Great 
Bustard (Otis tarda) the largest  European land bird.

Considering the availability of cranes and plovers, seems like it would be an 
acceptable substitute.

Hauviette

The turkey is of course from a entirely different family (Meleagridae), but 
hey, has anyone tasted Bustard lately?

Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 22:28:53 EST
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: Re[2]: SC - Religious dietary restrictions

Seton1355 at aol.com writes:
<< Where did they eat cat "in period"? >>

Italy. The same country that we get our Apician dormouse recipe from. Imagine 
that? You could create a dish using cat and rat and call it 'Predator and 
Prey.' Or present roast cat and when you sliced into you would find it 
stuffed with dormice. :-) Definitely have to put that in my file as a 
possible subtlety. :-)

Ras

Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 11:08:32 -0500 (EST)
From: alysk at ix.netcom.com
Subject: SC - Religious Dietary Restrictions

Seton1355 at aol.com writes:
<< Where did they eat cat "in period"? >>

And Ras replied:
>Italy. The same country that we get our Apician dormouse recipe from. 

Cat was also eaten in Spain, from whence the most popular "roast cat" recipe
hails.  The footnote in the modern book noted that cat was served (knowingly)
in some of the upper class homes, and unknowingly (called "rabbit") in many
of the lower class taverns.  I only own one cat that would make a plump meal.
The other is too stringy.

Alys Katharine

Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 22:19:47 +0100
From: "Cindy M. Renfrow" <cindy at thousandeggs.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Reuses for leftover worms

Here you go, Ras:

17th c. Spring Tonic: "take a quart of earthworms, scour with salt, slit
open, wash with their own filth, put in a stone mortar and beat" (Foley,
Ruth H.  "Snail Water," Herb Quarterly.  Vol. 4.  1979, p. 16) The worms
were mixed with herbs and toasted snails; the water derived from this was
then drunk with strong beer.

Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu
cindy at thousandeggs.com
Author & Publisher of "Take a Thousand Eggs or More, A Collection of 15th
Century Recipes" and "A Sip Through Time, A Collection of Old Brewing
Recipes"

Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 11:26:31 -0400
From: harper at idt.net
Subject: Re: SC - Herbs for spit-roasting meat?

And it came to pass on 25 Oct 00, , that deborah minyard wrote:
> CAT??

> >Thank you.  Nola's recipe for roast cat says to whip it with green
> >twigs while it is roasting.

Yes.  The recipe has been discussed here before and is in the 
Florilegium.  Different cultures have differing ideas about which 
plants and animals are acceptable food.

I have a modern Spanish cookbook that I picked up at a used book 
store.  The title (translated into English) is "Cooking Recipes of 
Basque Grandmothers".  The editor interviewed elderly women in 
the regions of Alava and Navarra and wrote down their recipes.  
There are two recipes for cat -- stewed and in sauce.  Now, it's 
possible that some kind of wildcat is meant here, but "gato" 
certainly means cat.  There is also a remedy for asthma in the 15th 
century "Manual de Mujeres" which contains cat grease.

I don't get the impression that it has ever been a common meat in 
Spanish cuisine.  Enrique de Villena doesn't mention it in his 1423 
carving manual, in which he describes how to carve a wide variety 
of animals.  Most period recipes call for more conventional meats, 
such as mutton, kid, and chicken.

Brighid, owned by four very demanding gray tabbies

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 02:40:53 +0100
From: TG <gloning at Mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE>
Subject: SC - otter  (was: request repeat)

<< Several days ago there was mention of a period sea otter recipe. ...
I would very much like this recipe for my collection. >>

To sweeten your time waiting for the sea otter recipe mentioned from La
Varenne 1651, here is a passage on the consumption of otters and a
recipe for otter's tail from German sources together with a rough
English translation:

1. Conrad Gessner, Book of animals, 1563
'About the otter. (...)
About its flesch.
The flesh of the otter should not be used for human consumption because
it is of cold complexion (humorally) and stinking. However, it is
reported that they are prepared by several Germans for food/culinary
use, and that they are allowed for consumption to the Carthusian monks,
who are not allowed to eat (many) other kinds of meat/flesh.'

The original text:
"Von dem Otter. (...)
Von seinem fleisch.
DAs fleisch des Otters sol nit in die spey? genommen werden: dann es ist
kalter complexion vnd stinckend: doch sˆllend sy von etlichen Te¸tschen
zuo der spey? bereitet werden/ auch den Carthusianer M¸nchen erlaubt/
welchen sunst allerley fleisch verbotten ist." (fol. 129)

2. A recipe for otter's tail from Maister Hanns' cookbook 1460

'How to fry/roast otter's tail.
Further: to fry/roast an otter's tail, take the parts of it that are
fat. You must prepare it. When it is almost fried/roasted, sprinkle with
ginger and pepper and fry/roast it until done. Serve it forth.'

"wie man ain otter schwanncz sol praten
Item ain otter schwanncz zue praten, Nym jn als verre er vaist sej du
solt jn beraitten. So er vil nahennd ist gepraten So bespreng jn mit
ymber vnd mit pfeffer vnd prat jn volen vnd gib jn hin". (# 56).
  
Th.

Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2001 09:29:53 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - fish and game ...

Elaine Koogler wrote: 
> Alligators are a new world phenomenon, I believe.  When I lived in the South
> Pacific, I was told that crocs are found in Asia and Africa, whereas the 
> 'gator is found in the New World.
> 
> Kiri

I'm pretty sure that there's an alligator species in China, but that in
the rest of Asia crocodiles are more the norm. So, strictly speaking,
they are Old World too, if not well-known to Europeans in period.

Adamantius

Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 22:55:37 -0800
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Period finger foods

At 11:21 PM -0600 2/13/01, Stefan li Rous wrote:
>Hmmm. Chicken in period had feet. Is there any evidence that they were
>ever served at feasts? or even eaten at all? Of course, they might not
>have been considered food for the gentry so they may not get mentioned
>in any cookbooks. But maybe in other records or writings?

In the recipe for "garbage" in _Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books_ 
(pointed out by Elizabeth, reading over my shoulder).
- -- 
David Friedman
ddfr at best.com
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/

Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 09:14:49 -0500
From: rcmann4 at earthlink.net
Subject: SC - Chicken feet (Translation Challenge)

Granado has a recipe that uses chicken feet, and other 
miscellaneous parts of the bird.

Source: Diego Granado, _Libro del arte de cozina_ (Spanish, 1599)

Para hazer una pepitoria

Tomaras cuellos y cabezas de aves limpios de su sangre, las alas 
limpias de todas plumillas, y los pies limpios del primer pellojo, y 
mollejas limpias de toda suziedad, y del pellejo que tiene dentro 
labalos con muchas aguas, cozerloshas, y despues los sofreyas 
con tajadas be tozino pequen~as, y luego les an~adiras los 
higadillos, y en estando de buena color pondras un poco de caldo 
de la olla, y de todas especias, y servirlohas con unas sopas en el 
plato.

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 22:10:50 
From: "Vincent Cuenca" <bootkiller at hotmail.com>
Subject: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #3100

> > Although that doesn't give us anything about how a bear would taste
>Stringy, greasy, and somewhat sweet for some reason.
>
>Constance

IIRC, Enrique de Villena (mid 1400s) discusses the consumption of bear in 
northern Spain.  He says that only peasants and laborers eat it.

Also IIRC, bears and pigs are somewhat related taxonomically, which might 
explain the sweetish taste of the flesh.  Or it could just be the diet of 
the individual bear.

Vicente

Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 00:38:50 +0200
From: tgl at mailer.uni-marburg.de
Subject: SC - snake

<< Do we actually have extant period recipes for snake? >> 

Wiswe (Kulturgeschichte der Kochkunst, p. 72) quotes what seems to be a
recipe for a sick dish for lepers from Taddeo Alderotti: a certain
mountain snake cooked with leek, dill and salt, cut to pieces, then
prepared as "pastillus vel zaldellum" or as small tarts ("tortelli")
with parsley and dill.

The reference according to Wiswe: page 191  at  Taddeo Alderotti: I.
Consilia. Ed. Giuseppe Michele Nardi. Torino 1937.

Th.

Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 18:49:25 +0200
From: tgl at mailer.uni-marburg.de
Subject: Re: SC - snake

> What year are we talking here?

I did not check the reference given, but Taddeo Alderotti is 13th
century, second half.

Th.

From: "Marcus Antaya" <mjantaya at home.com>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Massively expensive feast WAS: Smithsonian Stuff
Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2001 12:19:40 -0400

The actual recipie (and I do have it somewhere) is

52 Hard Boiled Eggs
26 Chickens
2 goats
1 camel

put 2 eggs per chicken, put the chickens equally in the goat (or sheep) and
stuff all into camel.  Roast on a spit for 2 days...

it's a bedouin wedding feast. Documentable, I think....grin

Gyric

From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" <nannar at isholf.is>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] camels
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2001 02:28:16 -0000

Stefan wrote:
>However, if anyone has any period camel recipes, I'd like to have them
>for the Florilegium. There's already some strange animals in the
>exotic-meats-msg file.

Not period, and not exactly a recipe, but:

"In preparation for a wedding or other feast in the Gulf countries a jointed
camel may occasionally be found simmering slowly in a huge aluminium pot
over an open fire. Chopped onions, saffron threads, cardamom pods, cinnamon
bark, cloves, pirced loomi and peppercorns are added to the pot, which is
occasionally stirred with a long-handled, oversized ladle.
(Traditional Arabic Cooking by Miriam Al Hashimi)

>Do male camels not make good beasts of burden? Perhaps they are harder
>to control? Or do the Arabs milk camels?

I believe they do milk them, yes. To quote Clifford Wright (A Mediterranean
Feast): "The camel driver almost never eats their flesh and barely makes a
living from their milk, butter, and cheese. In fact, Abou-Lughod's study of
the Awlad-Ali tribe of Bedouin in the Western Desert of Egypt ... tells us
that Bedouin families kept large sheep herds and camels for prestige, not
for sustenance." (Reminds me of some of my Icelandic ancestors, who kept
large horse herds for prestige. They also mostly preferred mares. You only
need one full-grown stallion for the herd, the rest were just trouble, or
they had to be gelded. The mares were also generally easier to tame and
easier to control.)

Nanna

Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] Period Dog Breeds
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 11:33:32 -0600
From: Michael Tucker<michaelt at neosoft.com>
To: <ansteorra at ansteorra.org>

> Chiara Francesca Arianna d'Onofrio wrote:
> > You know it has been a long year when you read the title and it says, in
> > your head, Period Hot Dogs.....sigh.
>
> Well..., I do have one period recipe for cat in the Florilegium. But
> I don't have any period recipes nor evidence for dogs being eaten in
> period. So, if anyone does, could they please enlighten us?
>
>   THL Stefan li Rous

Just one: the Cu Chulainn myth/saga. Our Hero has taken two vows: 1) never
to pass a hearth without tasting the food (i.e., never refuse hospitality), and
2) never eat the flesh of a dog. One day, he's offered roast dog fresh from the
hearth (by his enemies, who know of his vows). That day, of course, is his
undoing.

On the other hand, this is an Iron Age myth/saga, and (if based on anything
remotely resembling fact) predates our time. It may simply be that the
practice of eating dog was so unthinkable and foreign to that culture, that it was the undoing of one of the greatest heroes of the age.

Michael Silverhands

From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <rcmann4 at earthlink.net>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 21:35:28 -0500
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] lampreys

On 14 Jan 2002, at 21:06, Dan Phelps wrote:
> you ever seen a lamprey?  Catfish, barbs and all, are down
> right cute and cuddlesome by comparison.  Lamprey are like something
> out of a horror movie.

There's a nice close-up shot at:
http://www.fisheries.org/idaho/images/lamprey_moutha.jpg

Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom

Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 06:27:57 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] lampreys

Stefan li Rous wrote:
> I still would like to hear any information about lampreys being eaten
 >  in period or their capture/raising. And I'm still wondering if
 > anyone has served them at an SCA feast.

Oh, as Brighid mentioned, there are quite a few recipes calling for
lampreys. I would estimate about a quarter of the 14th-15th century
English fish dishes  at least mention them as a possible ingredient.
Generally they are bled, scalded, and skinned before being cut into
steaks, pretty much like eels. They can then be fried, cooked in a civey
with onions, baked in pies, etc., again, pretty much like eels. I assume
they appear so commonly in English medieval cuisine because the fish
dishes reflect a somewhat more river-based fishery structure than an
ocean-based one.

As for their use at SCA events, I believe you can buy lampreys frozen,
from Canada, just as you can eels, but in the USA, at least, the places
where lampreys are prevalent seem to view them as a slightly dangerous
(to other life forms) nuisance/pest. Consequently, their use as a food
source would be viewed with scorn comparable to my discovering a
restaurant in New York that sells, say, rats with cockroach sauce,
pigeons in their own guano, that sort of thing.

Adamantius

Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 11:51:31 -0500
From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] lampreys

Alan Davidson's section on lamprey's
in the Oxford Companion says that they
are still served as Lampreia a la cazuela
which are lampreys cooked in their own blood
and served on a bed of rice... a speciality
of Galicia... Lise Chapuis's book La Lamproie
contains apparently everything anyone would
want to know about the little creatures...in
French and published in 1994 Les Temps qu'il Fait.

Johnna Holloway  Johnnae llyn Lewis

Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 17:14:00 -0400
From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] snake

I have another reference for recipes and snakes.
Karen Hess discusses them in Martha Washington's
Booke of Cookery on page 431.

Johnnae llyn Lewis  Johnna Holloway

Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2003 14:33:12 -0400
From: Daniel Myers <doc at medievalcookery.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Hedgehogs
To: SCA Cooks <sca-cooks at ansteorra.or>

Ok, I'm used to seeing the recipe for "hedgehogs" - the meatballs with
almonds stuck in them to make it look like a spiny citter, but I just
came across the recipe below in Menagier that apparently calls for
cooking *real* hedgehogs.

I know there are some on this list who have eaten all sorts of animals,
but has anyone here eaten hedgehogs?  Could this be a mis-translation
or a joke recipe?  I can't imagine that there'd be much meat on them,
but then again, they ate songbirds in period.

  From Le Menagier de Paris (Hinson, trans.):
Hedgehog should have its throat cut, be singed and gutted, then trussed
like a pullet, then pessed in a towel until very dry; and then roast
it and eat with cameline sauce, or in pastry with wild duck sauce. Note
that if the hedgehog refuses to unroll, put it in hot water, and then
it will straighten itself.

- Doc
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
   Edouard Halidai  (Daniel Myers)
   http://www.medievalcookery.com/

Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2003 23:00:50 -0400
From: "Phlip" <phlip at 99main.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] A camel recipe from Charles Perry
To: "SCA-Cooks" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Perry"
To: "Phlip" <phlip at 99main.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2003 11:32 AM
Subject: Re: Camels

> Here's a typical medieval camel recipe. It's called jazuriyya; jazur is the
> word for a slaughter camel, derived from a verb meaning to slaughter. This
> one appears in Kitab al-Tabikh by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, compiled in the 10th
> century mostly from the private recipe collections of the 8th- and
> 9th-century caliphs of Baghdad and their circle.
> Jazuriyya
> Cut 4 pounds camel meat, 1 pound camel hump and 1 pound camel liver in thin
> strips. Put the meat in a pot with with 1 cup water, 1 1/3 cups oil, the
> juice of 1 pound onions and 2 teaspoons salt and cook, loosely covered,
> until the water has evaporated and the meat starts to fry. Add the hump and
> fry together. Add 2 cups vinegar and cook until tender. Then throw in the
> liver with 1 cup onion puree and plenty of coriander, salt, pepper and
> caraway, and cook until done.

Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 10:30:54 -0500
From: "Laura L" <laura at wisterian.net>
Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Squirrel recipes
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

From From Marx Rumpolt, Ein New Kochbuch, c. 1581
Transliteration and translation © 1999 by M. Grasse
http://clem.mscd.edu/~grasse/GK_game1.htm

Von einem Eichhorn kanstu nemmen zum Gebraten/ eynmachen/
vnd in ein Pasteten eyngeschlagen/ vnd kalt lassen werden/
so ist es gut vnnd wolgeschmack.

My very literal translation using my elementary knowledge of German,
babelfish and the LEO dictionary (http://dict.leo.org/?lang=en)

> From a squirrel can you take to roasted/ to confect/ and in pies 
> stamped (beaten/struck)and cold will leave like that is good it and pleasant
> tasting.

My less literal translation: chop up roasted squirrel and make a pie, 
Good both warm and cold.

Of course, I could be way off base.

-Irmgart

Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 08:46:18 -0700 (MST)
From: Martina C Grasse <grasse at mscd.edu>
Subject: Re: RE: [Sca-cooks] Squirrel recipes
To: Laura L <laura at wisterian.net>
Cc: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Irmgart, you are not that far off, but I would translate it a little
more like:
From a squirrel you can take to roast/ prepared /and folded into a pie/
and let get cold/ so it is good and welltasting.

It does sound like take roast squirrel and prepare it (bone it?) and
stuff the bits in a pastry (bake or fry it, though that step is assumed
and not specified) and serve it cold.  Squirrel pastie anyone?

IIRC the original does indeed have a woodcut of your standard bushy
tailed critter.

Gwen Cat
Back from a wonderful sunny Estrella with MISERABLY COLD nights.  If
anyone from the list was there, I am so sorry I did not get to meet you
face to face.

Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 11:06:46 -0500
From: Daniel Myers <edouard at medievalcookery.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] (LONG!) Dragon Dormant Baronial Investiture
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

On Mar 12, 2005, at 12:52 AM, Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Petru commented:
>> I was way under-budget. The feast actually cost slightly over 1400$,
>> so about 7$
>> canadian per head. Bulk-shopping does wonder to a budget! :-)) (and quite
>> frankly, we'll need the money to pay for all the regalia!!!). Still, had I
>> known, I would have added more game to the pies, and maybe prepared another
>> fancy dish just for the fun of it. (Turtle soup, anyone? :-))
> Medieval turtle soup? Recipe?
>
> Where would you get the right turtles? I guess, like one of our recent
> cooks did for quail (or some such), you could raise them. :-) But I
> suspect that would take a while.

I couldn't find any recipes off hand, but I did notice earlier this
week that there are turtles in two of the period paintings of fish
sellers.

Fishmongers, Vincenzo Campi (1580s)
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/c/campi/vincenzo/4fishmon.html

The Fishmonger's Shop, Bartolomeo Passerotti (1580s)
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/p/passerot/fishmong.html

- Doc
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
   Edouard Halidai  (Daniel Myers)

Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 21:30:33 -0500
From: patrick.levesque at elf.mcgill.ca
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Turtle Soup,	was: (LONG!) Dragon Dormant Baronial
	Investiture
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

> Medieval turtle soup? Recipe?

There are two recipes for turtles in the 'Ouverture de Cuisine'...  (which has
been webbed by Thorvald - my apologies, I don't have the URL handy, since I'm
working from a printed copy). One of them can be seen as a turtle soup, stew,
or turtle in broth... I haven't obviously experimented on it yet.

"Prennez la tortue, & couppez la teste,
<<131>>
& la laissez mourir, puis la mettez
boulir si longuement que vous pouuez
tirer l'escaille arriere de la chair: puis
vous osterez toute la peau que vous
trouuerez, & prennez la chair & les
oeufs s'il y en a, & la mettez esteuuer
auec bon bouillon, & mettez vn peu de
fleur de muscade, vn peu de poiure &
rosmarin, mariolaine, mente & beurre
fresche, & sel, & vin blanc ou verius,
& vn citron fresche par tranches, & le
laissez bien estuuer ainsi, & seruez."

> Where would you get the right turtles?

I haven't figured that part out yet... I believe turtles are now protected in
France (I don't know about the rest of Europe) and I haven't started to look
around here to see what's available.

Petru

Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 05:58:42 -0700
From: James Prescott <prescotj at telusplanet.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Turtle Soup, 	was: (LONG!) Dragon Dormant
	Baronial Investiture
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

At 21:30 -0500 2005-03-13, patrick.levesque at elf.mcgill.ca wrote:
>>  Medieval turtle soup? Recipe?
>
>  There are two recipes for turtles in the 'Ouverture de Cuisine'... (which has
>  been webbed by Thorvald - my apologies, I don't have the URL handy, since I'm
>  working from a printed copy). One of them can be seen as a turtle soup, stew,
>  or turtle in broth... I haven't obviously experimented on it yet.

The French version was actually webbed by Thomas Gloning -- I was
one of the people who helped with the transcription.

The English translations by me are (draft form):

170. To prepare a tortoise.

Take the tortoise, and slit the throat, and let it die, then
put it to boil so long that you can pull the shell away from
the flesh: then you will remove all the skin that you find,
and take the flesh and the eggs if there are any, and put it
to stew with good stock, and add a bit of mace, a bit of pepper
and rosemary, marjoram, mint and fresh butter, and salt, and
white wine or verjuice, and a fresh [sweet] lemon in slices,
and let it stew well thus, and serve.

171. Otherwise. [Tortoise]

When the tortoise is well cooked, fricassee it in butter, a
fresh [sweet] lemon cut into slices on top, or make a sauce
on top with some toasted white bread, and some ground white
[blanched?] almonds, and strain all well through cheesecloth,
add sugar and ginger, and boil it so that it is thick, and add
the fricasseed tortoise, and you will serve [it] thus.

Thorvald

Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 22:43:57 -0500
From: patrick.levesque at elf.mcgill.ca
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Turtles, turtles, rha-rha-rha
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Found one supplier: New Orleans Seafood distributes frozen turtle  
flesh. They even accept on-line orders.

However, turtles are on the endangered species list. Import is prohibited in Canada without a license and a damn good reason to do so. Haven't found any domestic source for turtle meat up north yet...

(Acutually, I can get a license to bring some turtle flesh as souvenir, if I'm a tourist. I just don't see how I could get 20 pounds of turtle flesh to be considered a souvenir...)

I'll have to research something else, I guess.

Petru

Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 12:45:17 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] dormice
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

See http://www.glirarium.org/dormouse/index.html

I finally have the translation from Slovenian that I needed
to go along with my article from last summer. So sometime
this summer I'll finish "Hunting Dormice in Slovenia".

Johnnae

Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2005 14:39:20 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Dormouse was Boar Meat
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

The dormouse isn't a mouse.  It's a nocturnal climbing rodent that more
closely resembles a squirrel.  Beef is not going to be close to the  
flavor or the texture.

As for information about the dourmouse for your write up, try:

http://www.glirarium.org/dormouse/

Bear

> I am planning on doing a rendition of the dormouse recipe in Aspicius
> using beef instead of Mouse, seeing that the current supply of "quality
> dormouse" is in short supply. I want to make it clear to my diners that
> they are eating   beef, but I want them to have the "fun" of eating
> dormouse.
>
> Suggestions on the write up?
>
> Vitha

Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2005 15:46:55 -0400
From: "Lonnie D. Harvel" <ldh at ece.gatech.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Dormouse was Boar Meat
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

It was about 15 years ago, but we did a variant on that recipe and used
rabbit (frozen) for the dormouse. We also used rabbit to do a dormouse
pie. I have also had a version of the Aspicius recipe done with quail.

Terry Decker wrote:
> The dormouse isn't a mouse.  It's a nocturnal climbing rodent that
> more closely resembles a squirrel.  Beef is not going to be close to
> the flavor or the texture.

Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 00:36:01 -0400
From: Robin <rcmann4 at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Dormice (was Boar Meat)
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Martinsen at ansteorra.org wrote:
> I am planning on doing a rendition of the dormouse recipe in Aspicius
> using beef instead of Mouse, seeing that the current supply of
> "quality dormouse" is in short supply. I want to make it clear to my
> diners that they are eating beef, but I want them to have the "fun" of
> eating dormouse.
>
> Suggestions on the write up?
>
> Vitha

There was a Roman feast at the recent East Kingdom coronation, and
"dormice" were one of the dishes served.  Here's a link to the cook's  
notes:
http://www.panix.com/~nexus/cooking/cc34.shtml

They were tasty, and very, very cute.
-- 
Brighid ni Chiarain
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom

Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 09:57:01 -0400
From: "Lonnie D. Harvel" <ldh at ece.gatech.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Dormouse was Boar Meat
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Stefan li Rous wrote:
> Would you happen to still have your redactions for these two dormouse
> dishes,  (and maybe the original recipes since I'm not sure if both
> are in the Florilegium or not)?

Well, I wasn't much into writing recipes back then, I was about 26 at
the time and assumed my memory would always serve. :)

You have the following in the Florilegium (provided by Bear):

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

Stuffed Dormice
Recipe By     : Apicius
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

NOTES : Glires:  Isicio pocino, item pulpis ex omin membro glirium
trito, cum pipere, nucleis, lasere, liquamine farcies glires et sutos in
tegula positos mittes in furnum aut farsos in cilbano coques.

Dormice:  Stuffed dormice with pork filling, and with the meat of whole
dormice ground with pepper, pine nuts, silphium, and garum.  Sew up and
place on a baking tile, and put them in the oven; or cook the stuffed
[dormice] in a pan.

Translation from Giacosa, Ilaria Gozzini; A Taste of Ancient Rome,
University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Stuffed Dormouse:  Is stuffed with forcemeat of pork and small pieces of
dormouse meat trimmings, all pounded with pepper, nuts, laser, broth.
Put the dormouse thus stuffed in an earthen casserole, roast it in the
oven, or boil it in the stock pot.

Translation from Vehling, Joseph Dommers; APICIUS Cookery and Dining in
Imperial Rome,dover Publications, 1977.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

The preparations following that are my recollection of some dishes I did many years ago.

I used rabbit instead of dormouse. I acquired two skinned rabbits from
the Dekalb Farmer's Market. I cut the saddle away from the bone in as
big a piece as possible, then pounded them flat. Then minced the
remaining meat and added it to about 1/2 pound of ground pork. I added
chopped walnuts, pepper, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, and a tiny bit of
anchovy paste. (the last two items were my fake for garum.) I wrapped
the mince into two bundles inside the pounded rabbit and tied them up.
Those went into a dish (pottery cassoulet IIRC). I then poured a mixture
of red wine, vinegar, and olive oil over them (maybe 1/2 cup or so) and
stuck them in the oven. This made for four good-size servings. I took
the dish to a covered-trencher at a collegium, where we sliced it into
about six pieces each, a total of about 12 tasting servings.

As for the honey-glazed dormouse, that was more playing around. Working
from a frozen, cut-up rabbit bought at the grocery store. Of course, we
thawed it. Working with the pieces like chicken, we dredged it in flour
and baked it. In the last few minutes of baking, we glazed it with a
mixture of honey, white wine, and crushed pepper. As we took it out of
the oven, we rolled the pieces in toasted sesame seeds. Very yummy.
Works great for chicken. (Oh, I had salt and a little peper in the flour
dredge.)

Aoghann

Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 10:16:01 -0500
From: "Jeff Gedney" <gedney1 at iconn.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] medieval dog recipes
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

> In part I was kidding. However, I would be interested in any  
> >evidence of dogs being eaten in our period and area of study.

I believe that in the voyages of Martin Frobisher to find the
NorthWest Passage, they cooked Eskimo dogs and noted various
anatomical differences between them and European dogs...

Let me check the Refs for you, It might be in Hakluyt.
Alas as I recall they did not give anything like a recipe.
But they seemed quite familiar with the concept of eating dog.
Of course that is not surprising, after weeks of nothing
but weevily biscuit and dried peas, and rancid salt beef,
it would be surprising if the sailors would not be willing
to munch on just about anything for variety.

Capt Elias
Dragonship Haven, East
(Stratford, CT, USA)
Apprentice in the House of Silverwing

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 14:51:24 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] medieval dog recipes
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Actually, Europeans did eat penguin in period.  Penguin was a term for the
Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis), a flightless sea bird of the Northern
Hemisphere.  The name was transferred to the unrelated birds of the  
Southern Hemisphere in the 18th Century.

Bear

> Drakes men ate Penguins, well within our period while circumnavigating
> the globe.  They were not in Antartica, they were on South America.  You
> have to get around the cape to do that and that is pretty far down the
> Southern Hemisphere.  It was actually on an island in the vicinity of the
> cape.
>
> Ranald De Balinhard

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 16:30:14 -0500
From: Daniel Myers <eduard at medievalcookery.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] medieval dog recipes
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

On Jan 17, 2006, at 1:41 AM, Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Doc replied to me with:
>> Cat, ermine, and hedgehog I can document, but not dog.
>
> I assume the cat is the Spanish recipe we've talked about here
> innumerable times. What is the documentation for the other two?
> Maybe we have discussed the hedgehog before. Is that the recipe
> where you cook it with a coating of mud and when it is done you
> peel off the mud and the spines come off with it?

Yes, the cat recipe is from "Libre del Coch".  The others are below:

Ermine. Hit schal beon ymad qwit & wel ysauoured of god poudre of
gynger & quibibes & cloues, & [th]is mete schal beon perti wi[th]
vert desire.  [Curye on Inglysch, C. Hieatt, S. Butler (eds.)]

Hedgehog should have its throat cut, be singed and gutted, then
trussed like a pullet, then pressed in a towel until very dry; and
then roast it and eat with cameline sauce, or in pastry with wild
duck sauce. Note that if the hedgehog refuses to unroll, put it in
hot water, and then it will straighten itself. [Le Menagier de Paris,
J. Hinson (trans.)]

The meat of a hedgehog is good for lepers. Those who dry its
intestines and grind them to a powder and eat a little of that are
made to piss, even if they can not do so otherwise.  [Das Kochbuch
des Meisters Eberhard, G. Balestriere (trans.)]

- Doc

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 17:29:15 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Penguins and potatoes was medieval dog recipes
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

The island was actually in the Straits of Magellan.  To quote Drake (or more
probably his nephew, IIRC), "The 24 of August (1578) we arrived at an island
in the straits (probably Isla Isabel), where we found a great store of fowl
which could not fly, of the bigness of geese, whereof we killed in less than
one day 3,000 and victualled ourselfs thoroughly therewith."  (The famous
voyage of Sir Francis Drake into the South Sea, and there hence about the
globe of the earth, begun in the year`of our Lord, 1577., as taken from
Haklyut)

I gather from Morison, the accounts of Rev. Francis Fletcher and the
Potuguese pilot, Nuno da Silva, provide more detailed information.  Fletcher
refers to the birds, "...which the Welch men call Pengwin."  (Welsh, "pen
gwyn" or white head).  BTW, the primary rookeries are actually on a couple
of rocks near Isla Isabel, Santa Marta and Santa Magdalena.

Bear

> Drakes men ate Penguins, well within our period while circumnavigatring
> the globe.  They were not in Antartica, they were on South America.  You
> have to get around the cape to do that and that is pretty far down the
> Southern Hemisphere.  It was actually on an island in the vicinity  
> of the cape.
>
> Ranald De Balinhard

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 21:02:54 -0500
From: "RUTH EARLAND" <rtannahill at verizon.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: medieval dog recipes
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

I'm not going to argue about whether or not our medieval forbears ate dog.
People ate a lot of things, and dog is still eaten in parts of the world.
One of my Chinese colleagues was trying to shock me one day by telling me
how good dog tasted. He seemed quite surprised when I responded by saying
that dogs, as carnivores, probably didn't taste as good as herbivores, but
people will eat what is available, and if you're hungry enough, anything
will taste good.

What I will say is that last year, I cooked an Anglo-Saxon feast and had to
do some pretty varied research. There just isn't a lot of documentation for
a pre-Norman Anglo-Saxon feast, so I dug a bit. I was using Hagen's "Food
and Drink in Anglo-Saxon England" books 1 and 2. She looked at a lot of
research on rubbish. Based on the finds of Greenland trash heaps, she states
that few dog bones showed signs of butchering compared to those of sheep and
pigs. Which bears out the Scandinavian tradition of dogs being more useful
as working or companion animals than as a food source. She relates that the
dog bones that did show signs of butchering came from the later years of the
settlement, when climate changes and disease had done their damage to the
food supply.

So people may have eaten dog in period. But I'm betting that they didn't
until they ran out of other meat.

Also keep in mind that for most of our period of interest, recipes were
written by and for the rich. Even if the poor were eating anything that
didn't eat them first, the rich would probably have more palatable  
things to eat.

Berelinde

Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 21:04:12 -0500
From: "Radei Drchevich" <radei at moscowmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] medieval dog recipes
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

What is considered proper fair for the noble has changed greatly over  
the centuries.

I have reference in one of my latin works written before 400 CE, I
believe it is "A Term of Ovid", I can find the quote if you are
interested.  that refers to a Grand Imperial Feast at which were served
Flamingo Tongues, Thrushes Tongue boiled in Honey, Sows Utter stuffed
with Fried Baby Mices<not deboned, and prefur-out, so crispy little
buggers>, as well as many other things the modern mind would find
completely inedible.

Chocolate covered ants or grasshoppers, as well as fried ants or
grasshoppers are considered high fair in some places. What we see today
as not edible except in dire condition may have been quite popular even
gourmet in its time.

some call it fish bait, some call it cavier<g>, some call it a garden
pest some call it Escargot

radei

Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 15:23:00 -0500
From: "Radei Drchevich" <radei at moscowmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Sows Utter stuffed with Fried Baby Mice.
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Appears in an 1st century Roman text.  I will have to Find the  
reference again.

basics the baby mice <pre-hairing out> are fryed in olive oil, stuffed  
in the sows utter and baked.  Is mentioned in "those about to dei  
Salute you" as well as "Now I lay me down to Eat", original source I  
believe is Pliny.

Those records are still paper, so may take a while to find the  
reference.

> Radei mentioned:
>>>>
> Sows Utter stuffed with Fried Baby Mice.
>
>> Recipes for mice, Anyone?  (couldn't resist....) Berti
> <<<
>
> Oh? Period recipe, please?
>
> Stefan
> --------
> THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra

Radei
Vasil House of the Red Shark
Guild of St. Camillus de Lellis

Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 08:17:21 -0800 (PST)
From: Helen Schultz <meisterin02 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] stuffed camel, anyone
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

The first time I saw this recipe was about 16-17 years ago when I  
bought a spiral bound book called "The Complete Dagger Lick'in-Good"  
by Mistress T'Sivia bas Tamara v. Amberview (copyright 1986 by  
Raymond's Quiet Press) at Pennsic...  I always assumed it was a  
"tongue-in-cheek" type of recipe done in a Medieval style (although  
all the rest of the recipes in the book appear to be Medieval  
redactions) <shrug>.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Meisterin Katarina Helene von Sch?nborn, OL
Shire of Narrental (Peru, Indiana)  http://narrental.home.comcast.net
Middle Kingdom
http://meisterin.katarina.home.comcast.net

Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 23:27:42 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] stuffed camel, anyone
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

The hump is a mound of fatty meat, that supposedly tastes like coarse beef
when roasted (which probably cooks out a lot of the fat).  As a culinary
delicacy, it is taken from a young camel, as, according to a couple of
sources, old camels tend to to be tough and gamy.  Haven't tried it,  
being short on camels.

Bear

> I thought that the hump of a camel was just fatty tissue..doesn't
> sound like an appealing roast to me.
> Phillipa
> On Feb 23, 2007, at 10:23 AM, Elaine Koogler wrote:
>>   However, I have heard of roasts made from the camel's hump...
>>
>> Kiri

Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2007 12:07:14 -0800
From: Lilinah <lilinah at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] stuffed camel, anyone
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Bear wrote:
> The hump is a mound of fatty meat, that supposedly tastes like  
> coarse beef when roasted (which probably cooks out a lot of the fat).

There was a feast last fall that i just could not miss, because real
camel meat was on the menu and i'd never had camel before. So i can
say from experience that it didn't taste or smell anything like any
sort of beef I've ever had.

I chatted with the cook afterwards. She's a terrifically enthusiastic
person who does most of her research on period uses of... mmm... pee
and poo, and other materials and processes unusual in most of the
modern US. Talk about recycling! And her classes are NOT to be missed
since she imparts an amazing amount of well organized information in
a thoroughly engaging, intriguing, and entertaining manner. And since
she's always gathering more info, there's always something new, so
they're worth going to more than once.

Anyway, Aurelia told me that the recipe directed the cooks to brown
the meat first, and she said that minute the camel meat hit the pan,
it smelled like caramelized, even burnt, sugar. It did have a rather
burnt odor when it was served, but i dug in anyway, and it did not in
the slightest taste burnt.

The texture was rather more tender than the usual muscle meat, since
the hump is not hard working muscle, but it was not unpleasant. It
was a interesting flavor, quite different from any other animal meat
I've eaten. No, it did not taste like chicken :-) But it didn't taste
like beef either. It was much milder than goat, and to me more
pleasant than lamb or kid. I assume it was from a young camel, as it
wasn't gamy. I'd certainly be willing to eat it again.
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita

Date: Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:24:30 -0500
From: Elaine Koogler <kiridono at gmail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] How to cook a wolf

Actually, there is a recipe about how to cook a wolf that's in "A Soup for
the Qan.":

*32.Roast Wolf Soup*

Ancient *pen-ts'ao* do not include entries on wolf meat.  At present we
state that its nature is heating.  It treats asthenia.  I hae never heard
that it is poinonous for those eating it.  In the case of the present recipe
we use spices to help its flavor.  It warms the five internal organs and
warms the center.

Wolf meat (leg; bone and cut up), tsaoko cardamoms (three), black pepper
(five *c'ien*), *kasni* (one *ch'ien*), turmeric (two *chi'en*),
*za'faran *(one
*ch'ien*).

Boil ingredients together into a soup.  Adjust flavors of everything using
onions, sauce, salt and vinegar.

So...yes, wolf recipes do exist, at least in Mongol foodways!

Kiri

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 2010 11:13:15 -0400
From: Kathleen Gormanshaw <kgormanshaw at gmail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Seal meat

On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 5:02 AM, Stefan li Rous
<StefanliRous at austin.rr.com> wrote:
> So what DOES seal meat taste like? How was it cooked?

I don't have a period answer, but some comments from my husband who
ate it growing up in Newfoundland:

"It's a red meat, it's a bit greasy (meat itself is lean, the fat is
in clumps and it is this fat that creates the fishy taste), a slight
fishy taste (depending on how much fat you get cleaned off), texture
of beef.

"Sloppy Seal" - cooked & mixed with bbq sauce (same as Sloppy Joes)
was a favorite at our house.

Bake covered with salt pork fat, onions, turnip, carrots.

Can be canned (pressure cooked ) with a bit of onion & salt pork.

I personally love it."

Eyrny

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 2010 10:54:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Donna Green <donnaegreen at yahoo.com>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Seal meat

On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 5:02 AM, Stefan li Rous
<StefanliRous at austin.rr.com> wrote:
> So what DOES seal meat taste like? How was it cooked?

Some of the sailors tales and chronicles from the Age of Exploration include citations of period Europeans eating seal (and various other critters). My notes on this are at home, but I can dig them up if anyone is interested.

Juana Isabella
West

Date: Tue, 01 Jun 2010 20:09:57 -0400
From: Sam Wallace <guillaumedep at gmail.com>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Seal meat

Stefan,

The only recipes I have for seal or similar are from Nuevo Arte de 
Cocina. It was first published in 1758, so perhaps not a work we would 
normally consider on this list. I apologize in advance for the following 
rough translations. Just the same:

//Sollo pescado, y lobo.
Para componer gustosamente el Sollo, le cortar?s la cabeza, que no es 
afrenta, y sazonar?s un cocimiento de agua, sal, vino y vinagre; ponle 
buena manteca de baca fresca, ?chale de todas especias y cantidad de 
yerbas, peregil, un poco de hinojo y oregano, y con todo esto lo 
cocer?s, y mojar?s unas rebanadas de pan tostado; y de este modo aun 
despues de tan mortificado, te dar? el pobre sollo un buen plato.

Pike fish, and wolf.
To compose gladly pike we cut off the head, so that no-one is affronted, 
and season a concoction of water, salt, wine and vinegar; put good fresh 
cow butter, take all spices and quantity of herbs, parsley, a little 
fennel and oregano, and bake all this, and wet several slices of toasted 
bread, and in this way after such mortification, pike will give the poor 
a good meal.

Lobo de mar asado.
Entre los pescados, que conocemos en este Reyno de Aragon, es uno el 
llamado lobo; y por haber de tratar tan poco de ?l, le ingerimos con el 
sollo. Su figura es como saboga; el mejor modo de componerle para 
nuestro mantenimiento, es asado en esta forma: hecho trozos se pondr? 
sobre unas hojas de laur?l, en vasija espaciosa, freir?s unos ajos y los 
echar?s sobre el pescado, tendr?s prevenido en una cazuela peregil 
picado con ajos, pimienta y agrio, y le ir?s dando con un manojo de 
peregil por encima, le pondr?s mas fuego arriba que abaxo, despues le 
volver?s y le dar?s por la otra parte con la salsilla, y despues lo 
podr?s servir ? la mesa.

Roast sea wolf.
Among the fish, we know in this kingdom of Aragon, is one called the 
wolf, and having to deal with so little of him, eat it with the pike 
[fish]. His appearance is like twait [a European shad], the best way to 
compose for our alimentation, is roasted in this manner: slices will be 
put on some bay leaves in a spacious vessel, fry some garlic and throw 
them over the fish, have ready in a pan chopped parsley with garlic, 
pepper and sour [perhaps lemon or lime juice], and you will give him a 
bunch of parsley on top, you will put more fire up than down, then turn 
it and give him the party with salsilla [tropical vine having edible 
roots sometimes boiled as a potato substitute], and after you serve it 
to the table.

I thought that perhaps lobo de mar might be a wolf fish, but it 
translates as fur seal from contemporary Spanish, comes up with lots of 
seals when I do an image search on-line, and wolf fish is something 
entirely different in contemporary Spanish. Neither really looks like 
shad to me. So these may or may not be a recipe for seal.

Guillaume

Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 12:25:54 -0700 (PDT)
From: Donna Green <donnaegreen at yahoo.com>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] camel's hump

<<< has anyone eaten camel's hump?? how was it prepared?
-- 
Ian of Oertha >>>

I did have camel once at a feast, but I've no clue what part of the beast the meat came from. The meat is very sweet and the cook took great precautions to keep it from getting burnt ... the cooked sugars gave it a somewhat carmelized taste. It was served in a stew.

Juana Isabella
West.

Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 16:13:39 -0400
From: Suey <lordhunt at gmail.com>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] camel's hump

I have never even seen camel's meat, much less tasted it, but as seen in my 
blog "camello with 10th C recipe for camel stew"
<http://www.medievalspanishchef.com/2012/07/camello-with-10th-c-recipe-for-camel.html>

it continues to be popular today in the Middle East and the hump is the 
best part. As I indicate, it seems to be heavy - so it cannot all be 
fat. I had not trouble finding photos of it.

Suey

Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 15:16:54 -0700 (GMT-07:00)
From: lilinah at earthlink.net
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] camel's hump

Ian of Oertha queried:
<<< has anyone eaten camel's hump? >>>

Yes, i have. In fact, when i heard that camel was being served at that particular feast, i made an effort to attend. That was something i couldn't miss!

<<< how was it prepared? >>>

I was not the cook and it was, i dunno, 6 years ago, so i'm not sure how it was prepared.

I recall the head feast cook commenting that it was trouble to try to brown it first, as it (or its fat) kept caramelizing. As i recall, it was quite tender, tasted like meat - none of the strong unpleasant flavors that lamb (why, yes, i don't really like lamb!), sheep, or goat has, and was slightly sweet.

I'd definitely eat it again.

I cannot say the same for kidneys - although i suspect the kidneys i had were not properly prepared. I did not feel ill, but the experience was somewhat reminiscent of eating in a urinal.

Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
who will be cooking lamb at Pennsic in her mid-15th & 16th c. Ottoman cooking class

Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 18:39:08 -0500
From: David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] camel's hump

On 7/23/12 11:27 AM, Ian Kusz wrote:
<<< has anyone eaten camel's hump?  how was it prepared? >>>

Al-Warraq has a bunch of recipes for camel. But I haven't made any of them.
-- 
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/

Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 20:49:08 -0500 (EST)
From: JIMCHEVAL at aol.com
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Someone Is Kidnapping and Eating Britain's
	Swans

I scribed in jest, Johnnae. I would imagine a number of people here know 
recipes for swan - not least because it was often made the same way as 
peacock (and what self-respecting medieval cook doesn't know how to make THAT?).

Since in fact I doubt a band of rogue medieval cooks is going around doing 
this, I'm left to wonder just how hungry these folks  are. From what I've 
read of the game birds preferred by the upper classes of the  late medieval 
period, none are very appetizing (not even peacock, which already  got a bad 
rap from the medical authorities of the time).

Not that I want to encourage any criminal activity (nor severe indigestion), but should anyone  perchance have not yet encountered such a recipe, here's one from my translation  of the Enseingnemenz:

"Swans and peacocks
All swans, peacocks: first drain out all the blood through the head, 
after, split them down the back to the  shoulder and gut them, and then put them 
on skewers with the feet and the heads;  then crush up saffron and white 
bread mixed with wine, and crush up egg yolks  and saffron, and dab the birds 
with these, using a feather, and sprinkle powder  over it, which is also of 
all spices, except zedoary and hartwort. And when the swan or the peacock is 
cooked, wipe it, wrap it in a towel, and take it so to the table, and give 
to the lord the neck and the head, and the wings and the thighs, and the 
rest to the others."

Jim  Chevallier
www.chezjim.com

Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 01:00:35 -0500
From: Sharon Palmer <ranvaig at columbus.rr.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Swan recipes

2. Cold in a pie with its accompaniments/ the feathers arranged over the pie.

Rumpolt tells you to have the feathers showing, sometimes the wings/ 
tail/ or head, so you can see the kind of pie it is.  And no one ever 
stuck the swan wing on chicken pie.. of course not!

Ranvaig

Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:30:25 -0500
From: Alexander Clark <alexbclark at pennswoods.net>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Swan recipes

Not only were swans often included in the cookbooks, they also
appeared on many menus. In the menus that someone thought were worth
preserving, as many as I've seen of them, swans are among the most
frequently appearing items, approximately tied with partridges and
pheasants.

In most sources there is just one place for swans, which is in the
first course. (Other dishes that also tend to be specific to the first
course are viand bruse, boars' heads, great flesh, capons, and pike.)
-- 
Henry/Alex

Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:40:44 -0500 (EST)
From: JIMCHEVAL at aol.com
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Swan recipes

Taillevent recommends the second, which is where it appears in one of the  
fifteenth century recipes following the (very corrupt) published edition of  
his Viandier from that century:

"Banquet Of My Lord Of La Marche  
And  Firstly 
Vinaigrette,  cretonn?e of lard, brewet of cinnamon, venison with clove. 

SECOND  COURSE 
Peacocks,  swans, herons, young rabbits with spiced sauce, partridges with  
sugar."

Jim  Chevallier
www.chezjim.com

Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 11:11:23 -0500
From: Sharon Palmer <ranvaig at columbus.rr.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Swan recipes

<<< Not only were swans often included in the cookbooks, they also
appeared on many menus. In the menus that someone thought were worth
preserving, as many as I've seen of them, swans are among the most
frequently appearing items, approximately tied with partridges and
pheasants.

In most sources there is just one place for swans, which is in the
first course. (Other dishes that also tend to be specific to the first
course are viand bruse, boars' heads, great flesh, capons, and pike.)
--
Henry/Alex >>>

That may be true of English menus, but in the 30 some Rumpolt menus, 
swans appear twice as roasted swan in the second course among other 
roasted poultry, and once in the first course among other cold pies. 
Compared to 14 references to Partridge, 9 to partridge, 14 to grouse, 
and 10 references to New World Turkey.

The progression of dishes is different too.
Ranvaig

Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2013 09:11:11 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] dormice

Dormouse is an Old World rodent with a number of species across Europe, Asia 
and Africa and a number of taxonomic identies.  What you are after is the 
edible dormouse (Myoxus glis), a European species.  They are hunted in some 
places, protected in others, and the big kicker is whether they are 
permitted for import.

Bear

<<< Just in case someone might like some period recipe for these. I have no 
idea where you would buy some, though.

exotic-meats-msg (108K) 5/ 6/12 Period and SCA exotic meats. Swans, 
ostrich, crawfish, dormice, cat.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-MEATS/exotic-meats-msg.html

Stefan >>>

Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:27:03 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] dormice

This is still a good website.
http://www.glirarium.org/dormouse/index.html

Here's a write-up on the Slovenian Dormouse Museum.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/slovenia/cerknica/sights/museum/dormouse-museum-hunting

We visited there in 2004 and found it rather charming. The museum guide took us to her office so we could see a mother with her young. That way we could say that we actually saw living one. They are still quite common in the forests in Slovenia, but they tend to be nocturnal, so you don't see them during the day.

Why would one want to buy one? They are not very big, so cooking one or a group of them would not yield much meat. I've suggested in the past small squirrel or chipmunks or even hamsters for a substitute. 
The ones being sold as pets seem to be African ones.

Johnnae

Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:15:38 +1300
From: Dama Antonia <dama.antonia at gmail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] dormice

On 28/02/2013 4:27 a.m., Johnna Holloway wrote:
<<< Why would one want to buy [a dormouse]? They are not very big, so cooking one or a group of them would not yield much meat. I've suggested in the past small squirrel or chipmunks or even hamsters for a substitute. >>>

I don't think quantity is exactly the point.  Why would you want to buy 
quails?  Poussins? Shrimp?

At any rate, according to Wikipedia, the edible dormouse can reach 19cm 
in length (excluding the tail), which I think compares pretty well with 
a smallish squirrel, and would be bigger than a hamster or chipmunk.
-- 
Antonia di Benedetto Calvo

Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:11:32 -0800 (PST)
From: V O <voztemp at yahoo.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] dormice

You could always do what a friend of mine did for a feast, make faux dormice from chicken legs. We took the meat off of the bone and rolled them up to form small "bodies" fat on one end and narrow at the other so they look like little rounded mouse bodies with out the legs and heads. For some of the I left a bit of the skin on and pulled it to the fat end to hang off and when they cooked the shriveled up to look like the tails were left on. Really grossed out some people, but was lots of fun. Cooked just like the recipe from period, but not as difficult getting the meat.

Mirianna

Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:44:59 -0500
From: Sharon Palmer <ranvaig at columbus.rr.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] dormice

At 11:16 AM +1300 2/28/13, Dama Antonia wrote:
<<< Still, people eat lots of fairly small creatures because they think 
they're tasty. >>>

My obligatory Rumpolt comment, is that Ein New Kochbuch has recipes 
for Marmot, seal, beaver, porcupine, guinea pig (which can be up to 
four pounds!), wild and domestic hedgehog, hare, rabbit, coney 
(Caninichen), and squirrel.   (But no dormice).

Ranvaig

Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:52:58 -0500
From: Sharon Palmer <ranvaig at columbus.rr.com>
To: V O <voztemp at yahoo.com>,	Cooks within the SCA
	<sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] dormice

<<< You could always do what a friend of mine did for a feast, make 
faux dormice from chicken legs. >>>

Or this one:
http://www.panix.com/~nexus/cooking/cc34.shtml

Ranvaig

Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2013 07:24:36 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pantry Raid

On Mar 7, 2013, at 12:00 AM, Glenn Gorsuch <ggorsuch at gmail.com> wrote:
<<< I was just given about 5 pounds of bear (NOT Bear)...anyone have any brilliant ideas? >>>

Depends on the cut. (Tongue is mentioned in some recipes.) 

Medievalcookery.com has a few and varied recipes.
http://www.medievalcookery.com/search/search.html?term=Bear&file=all

I've always heard that frozen cuts of bear meat are best stewed.

Johnna

Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2013 10:31:15 -0200
From: Ana Vald?s <agora158 at gmail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pantry Raid

I ate bear in the north of Sweden and in Finland. We had the heart (really
good, made in a saut?e of scallions and chantarelles, eaten with
lingonberries) and some steak. The people who did it told us how they did
it, they marinated it for two days in beer, juniper, honey and vineger to
tenderize it.

When it was tender enough it was done as deer meat or any other game, steak
or in casseroles, accompanied by chantarelles, potatis and carrots.

Ana

Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2013 07:33:30 -0900
From: Valleri Collins <lstywnch at gmail.com>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Bear was, Pantry Raid

Morgana, I've been in Alaska for 16 years and have eaten bear twice. The
first time my husband lovingly marinated, seasoned and roasted it. I took
two bites before thinking, "I wonder if this is what dog tastes like," and
couldn't eat any more. It was very rich and dark. The second time someone
at work offered me a bite of his bear roast that had been stewed in the
crock pot. It was the most nasty, foul, gamey thing I'd ever tasted and has
put me right off bear.

Valeria

Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2013 10:26:00 -0700
From: Deborah Hammons <mistressaldyth at gmail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Bear was, Pantry Raid

All "game" meat has a different taste.  Many years ago I was in a
discussion over just when and where the term "gamey" began to be used to
describe something that did not taste good.  I have been actively been
hunting and fishing for over 30 years.  Have never taken bear.  (Because
they are too dumb to know they are dead before they get to you, and I am a
bowhunter).  The best deer I have ever tasted came from a wheat farm in
Montana.  Moose from Pinedale, Wyoming.  Elk from Saratoga Wyoming.

Antelope, well.  is antelope. I have had domestic goat and it is better
than "speed goat". I think it is because antelope have a hormone they
release when they run, that makes the meat strong/bitter tasting if you
don't let it metabolize out.  Moral, don't shoot one you have seen running,
and make a good enough shot that it doesn't run off.

Bears are omnivores. And on lean years eat more meat than not.  The bear I
have tasted that had plenty of salmon and berries was much milder than
those driven to scavenging. Deer and antelope taken from areas thick in
sage will taste sagey.  Trout that are wild most often have a pink or red
flesh due to the fresh water shrimp they eat.  Hatchery raised are white
and muddy tasting.  It takes about a year in the wild before the alfalfa
pellets process out.  Same with salmon.

In my experience, how wild game is handled after the kill can also directly
affect the taste.  For example, most "venison" needs to be separated from
the bone, and fat.  Bear is a fat meat in the first place, so rendering it
slowly and draining OFF the fat will make it tast better.  It is rich. And
seems to lend itself to strong spices.

The best bear.  Taken in the Yukon. Friends made a roast of a backstrap
chunk.  No fat.  Used their "Cajun" injector with accompanying spices.
Bacon wrapped.  Roasted in a clay pot for 6 hours.  Texture of pulled
pork.  Yum.

Aldyth

Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2013 10:19:18 -0800 (PST)
From: Donna Green <donnaegreen at yahoo.com>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Bear Recipes

On Mar 7, 2013, at 12:00 AM, Glenn Gorsuch <ggorsuch at gmail.com>
wrote:
<<< I was just given about 5 pounds of bear (NOT Bear)...anyone have any brilliant ideas? >>>

There's a recipe for bear (not Bear) in Scappi I think.

Juana Isabella

Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2013 13:30:14 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Bear Recipes

<<< There's a recipe for bear (not Bear) in Scappi I think.

Juana Isabella >>>

88. Various ways to cook bear meat. The bear has to be young and caught in its season, which is the winter, for even though in July it is much fatter because of its grazing.

Long paragraph on page 179 of the Scully translation. The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570): L'Arte Et Prudenza D'Un Maestro Cuoco by Bartolomeo Scappi, Terence Scully.

You can view it on google books.

Johnnae

Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2013 12:59:18 -0700
From: "Daniel Myers" <dmyers at medievalcookery.com>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Bear Recipes

On Mar 7, 2013, at 12:00 AM, Glenn Gorsuch <ggorsuch at gmail.com>
wrote:
<<< I was just given about 5 pounds of bear (NOT Bear)...anyone have any brilliant ideas? >>>

Here's what little I found on a quick search:

Sauce for Any Game Animal (stag, bear, deer or other). Clean the meat
and roast or boil it; then make this sauce: get a toasted, crustless
loaf of bread with a handful of the animal's meat and pepper, ginger and
saffron, and grind it up together; distemper this with lean broth,
verjuice and honey, and boil it until it is thick; put it into bowls.
[The Neapolitan recipe collection, (Italy, 15th c - T. Scully, trans.)]

xij - Vn Vyaunde Furne3 san3 noum de chare. Take stronge Dow, and make a
cake sumdele thicke, and make it tow; than take larde3 of Venysoun, or a
bere, or of a Bere, and kerue hem thinne as Fylettes of Porke, and lay
thin lardys square as a chekyr, and ley ther-vppe a tyne y-makyd of
Eyroun vppe-on the tyne; ley thin farsure, y-makyd of Hennys, and of
Porke, of Eyroun, and myid brede, and Salt, and chese, yf thou it hast;
and that it be makkyd at .iiij. tymes. Fyrst make thus thin whyte
farsure: grynd in a mortere, Gyngere, Canelle, Galyngale; take then
almaundys and floure of Rys, and a party of Fleysshe, and caste ther-to
in a mortere, and grynd ry3th smal, and temper it with Eyroun. thus make
thin 3elow Farsure: nym Safroun, Gyngere, Canel, Galyngale, Brede, and a
partye of thin Fleyssche, and grynd it smal in the mortere, and temper
it vppe with Eyroun. The thryd maner schal ben blake: nym Gyngere,
Canelle, Galyngale, Brede, Eyroun, and Old chese; nym than Percely, and
grynd it smal in a mortere, and wryng it and do it vppe; and do it to
thin Fleyssche, and ther-with coloure thin fayre partye of Fleyssche,
and ley a party of thin Fleyssche on .iiij. quarterys, but that the
brede be as thin cake; take then and ley ther-vppe-on thin Fleyssche,
and lay ther-vppe-on a grece; a-boue thin grece ley thi cyvey; nym thin
thridde cours of thin Flessche, and lay as brode as thin cake, and than
grece, and ther a-bouyn, a cyvey. ley the iiij. course of thin Fleyssche
on .iiij. quarterys as brode as thin cake, and than grece, and than
a-boue, a cyuey. The .v. cours of thin Fleyssche, ley as brode as thine
cake, and then grece, and than aboue, a cyuey. Nym the .vj. cours, and
lay as brode as thin cake, and than grece, and than a cyuey. Nym the
.viij. cours of the Fleysshe, and lay as brode as thin cake on .iiij.
quarterys, and grece, and than a cyvey; and a lytel bake hem, and serue
forth.  [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, (England, 1430)]

- Doc

<the end>