French-Toast-msg - 3/12/14

Period French Toast and similar fried egg-dipped bread items. Pain Perdu, Sopas Doradas (Golden Sops). Recipes.

NOTE: See also the files: French-Toast-art, 3-F-Toast-Rec-art, frittours-msg, eggs-msg, bread-msg, fried-breads-msg, fried-foods-msg, breakfast-msg, eggs-msg.

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    Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  THLord Stefan li Rous
                                          Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 21:36:18 EST
From: Bronwynmgn at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - French toast?

rkappler at home.com writes:
<< Pain Perdu:
 (redacted/paraphrased): soak slices of bread in wine and rosewater.  Dredge
 in beaten eggs and sugar.  Fry, sprinkle with sugar. >>

There's also one in Seven Centuries of English Cooking (not the best
reference) called Brown Fires which is brown bread dipped in eggs, and
saffron.  Yummy; I've used it for breakfast at events with good results.
Unfortunately the original isn't in Seven Centuries, although I believe I
found it elsewhere; just can't remember where!

Brangwayna Morgan


Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 22:24:31 -0600
From: Magdalena <magdlena at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: SC - French toast?

Can you tell I just got my hands on Platina?  ;>

Platina 8.63  Golden Balls

Toast chunks of bread crust a little on both sides.  When they are toasted,
soften with rose water in which there are both beaten eggs and ground sugar.
When they are taken out, fry in a pan with butter or fat, far apart so that they
do not touch each other.  When they are fried and transferred into a serving
dish, sprinkle with sugar and rosewater colored with saffron.  This pleases M.
Antonius, not undeservedly, for it fattens the body, helps liver and kidneys,
and stimulates passion.

- -magdalena


Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 08:59:36 EST
From: RuddR at aol.com
Subject: SC - Re: French toast?

Puck writes:
"Henisch speaks of the gluttony on Shrove Tuesday to get rid of all the
perishables before lent begins.  One of her passages involves a recipe that
sounds much to me like French Toast:

Pain Perdu:
(redacted/paraphrased): soak slices of bread in wine and rosewater.  Dredge
in beaten eggs and sugar.  Fry, sprinkle with sugar.

thoughts?"

It looks like French Toast to me, too.  Check out "Payn pur-dew", _Two
Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books_, p. 42; a little simpler, no wine or
rosewater, and just the egg yolks.

Rudd Rayfield


Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 08:21:53 -0700 (MST)
From: Ann Sasahara <ariann at nmia.com>
Subject: Re: SC - French toast?

On Mon, 15 Nov 1999, Richard Kappler II wrote:
<snip>
> Henisch speaks of the gluttony on Shrove Tuesday to get rid of all the
> perishables before lent begins.  One of her passages involves a recipe that
> sounds much to me like French Toast:
>
> Pain Perdu:
> (redacted/paraphrased): soak slices of bread in wine and rosewater.  Dredge
> in beaten eggs and sugar.  Fry, sprinkle with sugar.
>
> thoughts? Puck

The Hampton Court Cookery Book has an original recipe for "pain perdu" as
an example of Tudor cookery.  When I was cooking my way through the
book, I skipped the pain perdu, because it seemed too much like Henry
VIII's french toast.  (Instead, I made the salmon pie. Recipe page is
still under construction at: www.geocities.com/~ariann/SalmonPie.html.
The aulese in the upper left corner was recommended by Lord Ras).  My book
is in NM and I'm in AZ, so I will post the original pain perdu and the
redaction on Sat.

Ariann


Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 08:55:49 -0800
From: "Stephanie Dale Ross" <aislinncc at mailcity.com>
Subject: SC - Re: Payn Pur-Dew

I happen to have a recipe for Payn Pur-dew, gleaned from one of my very first events where I helped out in the kitchen, say uh, 17 years ago? I pasted it onto a 3x5 card all those years ago, but have never made it. Unfortunately, no sources are mentioned :(.
Aislinn Columba of Carlisle

Payn Pur-Dew

The name means either God's bread or lost bread: this is the medieval version of modern french toast.

7 fresh eggs, separated
4 tbsp heavy cream or milk
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cumin
12 slices whole wheat, rye or pumpernickle bread, cut into four triangles or squares each
3 tbsp powdered sugar
1/4 lb butter for sauteeing the slices in a heavy frying pan or skillet

1. Slowly heat the butter in the heavy frying pan or skillet, being careful not to let it burn.
2. With a fork or rotary beater, beat the egg yolks with the cream or milk. Add the egg whites. Beat again.
3. Stir in the salt, cinnamon, cumin
4. Dip the bread pieces in the spiced egg until they are completely coated and remove with a spatula
5. Saute the bread on both sides in the melted butter until golden brown.
6. Remove them to a rack or the serving platter and sprinkle them with powdered sugar. Serve warm

The sugar originally called for in the recipe is brown, but I changed it to powdered since we had the discussion recently about what forms of sugar are period. Wish I had the source for this recipe, but except for the sugar change, I reproduced it exactly as I had it, so that someone out there might read it and remember where it originally came from.


Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 11:21:02 -0600
From: Chip <jallen at multipro.com>
Subject: Re: SC - French toast?

Puck sprach:
> Henisch speaks of the gluttony on Shrove Tuesday to get rid of all the
> perishables before lent begins.  One of her passages involves a recipe that
> sounds much to me like French Toast:

> Pain Perdu:
> (redacted/paraphrased): soak slices of bread in wine and rosewater.  Dredge
> in beaten eggs and sugar.  Fry, sprinkle with sugar.

I've always thought of pain perdu as "French" French Toast.  We never
did use wine or rosewater, but it's close to what most Americans think
of as "French Toast" (what they see on the Shoney's Breakfast Bar).

IIRC, 'pain perdu' literally means 'lost bread'.  (A quick
babelfish-ing confirms it).  That's always bothered me.  Why lost?  Is
it because you have to hastily use it up before Lent so it doesn't go
bad as Puck's new book suggests?  Sounds reasonable, but most anything
dredged in eggs, fried and sprinkled with sugar is welcome on my plate
and anything but "lost".  Lost down my gullet, maybe.
____________________________________________________________
Iyad ibn Bisharo, Shire of Easaraigh, Kingdom of Meridies
Chip Allen, Cookeville, TN


Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:44:16 -0500 (EST)
From: cclark at vicon.net
Subject: Re: SC - French toast?

Iyad ibn Bisharo
>IIRC, 'pain perdu' literally means 'lost bread'.  (A quick
>babelfish-ing confirms it).  That's always bothered me.  Why lost? ...

I was under the impression that this was because it's a good way to revive
stale bread. Since both heat and added liquid counteract staleness, applying
both in the same recipe is even more sure to work.

Alex Clark/Henry of Maldon


Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 23:09:21 -0500
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
Subject: SC - The spiritual significance of French toast

All this talk of French toast and Pain Perdu made me go look up the
Spanish equivalent -- Sopas Doradas (Golden Sops).

And the recipe is as follows:

SOPAS DORADAS FRITAS CON MANTECA -- Golden sops fried with fat
source: Diego Granado, _Libro del Arte de Cozina (1599)
translation: Brighid ni Chiarain (Robin Carroll-Mann)

Take twenty egg yolks, six ounces of bread, thinly grated, three quarter
[ounces] of cinnamon, and three ounces of sugar, three ounces of
rosewater, and a little saffron, and mix them all together with finely
chopped herbs, remove the bread crust and make crustless slices the
thickness of the back of a knife, and moisten them in the said mixture,
and fry them with pork lard or cow's butter, and serve hot with sugar and
cinnamon on top, sprinkled with rosewater.

Now... as for the spiritual part.  I did a quick web search on "sopas
doradas", to see if there were modern recipes, and I came across the
text of a 1592 Spanish book,  "Fructus Sanctorum y Quinta Parte del
Flos Sanctorum" by Alonso de Villegas.  It's a collection of discourses
on various (Catholic) spiritual topics.  Included was an anecdote about a
Cistercian monk who was raised to the rank of cardinal by Pope
Clement V.  He was travelling with a group of monks as attendants.
One of them, a lay-brother, told the cardinal that when he died, he would
be greeted at the gate of heaven by Saint Benedict, the founder of their
order.  The saint would surely question the cardinal's identity, since he
would not be dressed in the humble habit of his order.  But the cardinal
would no doubt be able to explain that his rank required him to dress
differently.  However, Saint Benedict would then investigate further by
conducting a sort of spiritual autopsy.  He would summon porters to
throw the cardinal to the ground, cut open his chest with a knife, and
investigate the contents of the cardinal's stomach.  If it was full of herbs
and vegetables, then the saint would say, "Truly you are a monk of my
order, enter into Paradise."  If however, it was full of partridges and
francolins, blancmange and golden sops...  The story goes on to say
that the cardinal took the hint, and thereafter ate meals more
appropriate to his monastic vocation.

Those of us who are not Cistercian monks, however, may presumably
enjoy sopas doradas without peril to our souls.

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)


Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 23:39:56 -0500
From: Christine A Seelye-King <mermayde at juno.com>
Subject: SC - Period French Toast Recipies

Since I'm doing French Toast this weekend, I went ahead and printed out a
few period recipies.  I thought folks here would like the compilation.
Christianna

Period French Toast Recipies

Two 15th Century Cookbooks (Take a Thousand Eggs)
Harleian MS. 4016
80. Payn purdeuz.  Take faire yolkes of eyren, and try hem fro the white,
and drawe hem thorgh a streynour; and then take salte, and caste thereto;
And then take manged brede or paynman, and kutte hit in leches; and then
take faire buttur, and clarefy hit, or elles take fressh grece and put
hit yn a faire pan, and make hit hote; And then wete the brede well there
in the yolkes of eyren, and then ley hit on the batur in the pan, whan
the buttur is al hote; And then whan hit is fried eyowe, take sugur
ynowe, and caste there-to whan hit is in the disshe, And so serve hit
forth.

Platina (1475) 8.63  Golden Balls

Toast chunks of bread crust a little on both sides.  When they are
toasted, soften with rose water in which there are both beaten eggs and
ground sugar. When they are taken out, fry in a pan with butter or fat,
far apart so that they do not touch each other.  When they are fried and
transferred into a serving dish, sprinkle with sugar and rosewater
colored with saffron.  This pleases M.
Antonius, not undeservedly, for it fattens the body, helps liver and
kidneys, and stimulates passion.

An Ordinance of Potage  (15th Cent.)
110. Payn purdyeu.
Take payndemayn or fresch bredd; pare awey the crustys.  Cut hit in
schyverys; fry hem a lytyll yn claryfyd buture.  Have yolkes of eyren
drawyn thorow a streynour & ley the brede theryn that hit be al helyd
with bature. Then fry in the same buture, & serve hit forth, & strew on
hote sygure.


Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1999 02:43:59 GMT
From: "Bonne of Traquair" <oftraquair at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Period French Toast Recipies

Is it too late to offer the two of you the recipe from Gervase Markham's
"The English Housewife"?

28. To make the best panperdy

To make the best panperdy, take a dozen eggs, and break them, and beat them
very well, then put unto them cloves, mace, cinnamon and nutmeg, and good
store of sugar, with as much salt as shall season it: then take a manchet,
and cut it into thick slices like toasts; which done, take your fryin pan,
and put into it a good store of sweet butter, and, being melted, lay in your
slices of bread, then pour upon them one half of your eggs; then when that
is fried, wish a dish turn your slices of bread upward, and then pour on
them the other half of your eggs, so turn them till both sides be brown;
then dish it up, and serve it with sugar strewed upon it.

Bonne


Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1999 19:29:28 EST
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - French toast -OOP recipes

stefan at texas.net writes:
<< So where did the name "French" Toast ever come from? And when? >>

>From Miraim-Webster:

French toast (noun)

First appeared 1871

 : bread dipped in a mixture of egg and milk and sauteed

Ras


Date: Sun, 21 Nov 1999 01:15:52 -0000
From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" <nannar at isholf.is>
Subject: Re: SC - French toast -OOP recipes

><< So where did the name "French" Toast ever come from? And when? >>
>
>From Miraim-Webster:
>
>French toast (noun)
>
>First appeared 1871
>
> : bread dipped in a mixture of egg and milk and sauteed

But A Gourmet´s Guide says: "In a seventeenth-century cookery book, R. May´s
The Accomplisht Cook (1660), we find this recipe: "French Toasts. Cut French
Bread, and toast it in pretty thick toasts on a clean gridiron, and serve
them steeped in claret, sack, or any wine, with sugar and juice of orange."
This is essentially the dish which survived into the early twentieth century
as poor knights pudding."

I´m currently reading The Melting Pot - Balkan Food and Cookery, by Maria
Kaneva Johnson (the best source for traditional Balkan cooking I´ve yet
seen, by the way) and she has a recipe for bread dipped in an egg and milk
or white wine mixture, fried in butter and served with cinnamon sugar,
apricot jam, golden syrup or orange-marmelade sauce, and says this about it:

"Palace bread, Sarajski hlyab (Bulgarian, from the Turkish saray ekmegi),
also known in the north-eastern part of the country as dzidzhi papo which is
childish language for something pretty to eat, deriving from the Turkish
cici, toy, pretty, and the Bulgarian papam, I eat; pohovane snite sa vinom
(Croat, meaning egg-coated fried slices with wine) and pohane vinske snite
(Slovenian, egg-coated, fried wine slices), from the German Schnitte,
slice."


Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000 06:43:09 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Period French Toast Recipies

Christine A Seelye-King wrote:
> My question is, is the phrase "wish a dish turn your slices of
> bread upward" a typo, and if so, what is meant?  with a dish?  using a
> dish to help flip the slices?

Apparently, yes. It may be to safeguard against breaking the slices,
kinda like those enormous spatulas called pancake turners. Remember they
were using a somewhat softer wheat in Jacobean England than we're used
to.  There's a precedent, I believe, for using a saucer for jobs like
skimming the froth off of boiling liquids. Not to mention being the
requisite tool for chicken-fried steak, I hear ;  )

Adamantius

>         Christianna
> > Is it too late to offer the two of you the recipe from Gervase
> > Markham's "The English Housewife"?
> >
> > 28. To make the best panperdy
> >
> > To make the best panperdy, take a dozen eggs, and break them, and
> > beat them very well, then put unto them cloves, mace, cinnamon and
> nutmeg, and good store of sugar, with as much salt as shall season it:
> then take a manchet, and cut it into thick slices like toasts; which
> done, take your
> > fryin pan, and put into it a good store of sweet butter, and, being
> melted, lay
> > in your slices of bread, then pour upon them one half of your eggs; then
> > when that is fried, wish a dish turn your slices of bread upward, and then
> > pour on them the other half of your eggs, so turn them till both sides be
> > brown; then dish it up, and serve it with sugar strewed upon it.
> >
> > Bonne


Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2000 09:15:34 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Period French Toast Recipies

Christine A Seelye-King wrote:
> Ok, here's another question.  This is from the Harlean Ms. and it quoth:
> "And then take manged brede or paynman, and kutte hit in leches; "
> 
> Ok, 2 questions, really.  Manged bread?    And would leches be a shape,
> like lozynges?

"Manged" is claimed, in Austin's glossary to the Two Fifteenth-Century
Cookbooks, to be synonymous with "manchet". I don't know if it's true,
but it's at least a reasonable possibility.

Leches are slices, as in lechemeat, a food thick/firm enough to be
sliced, as opposed to a running pottage. 

> Christianna

Adamantius


Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2000 23:38:37 +0100
From: Thomas Gloning <Thomas.Gloning at germanistik.uni-giessen.de>
Subject: SC - Period French Toast Recipes

Thanks a lot, Christianna, for your beautiful collection of recipes and
additional material. [see French-Toast-art]

I know nothing about French toasts, so I was wondering if the following
German recipe (about 1445) has something to do with the 'French
Toast'-tradition or its near relatives? Here it goes:

"Wiltu machen gulden snydden So nym eyer doderen saffran vnd salcze vnd
cloppe isz vnd czuch die snyden da dorch vnd backe sij vnd du czucker
dar uff vnd gyp salcze darbij" (Rheinfr‰nkisches Kochbuch, 1445, Nr. 43;
spelling somewhat simplified).

Roughly: 'If you want to make golden slices (of bread), then you must
take egg yolks, saffron and salt and stir it and put the slices through
this mixture, bake it (in hot fat) and put sugar onto it and serve it
with some sauce'. (I am sure, Allison will produce a more accurate and a
more 'English' translation soon.)

There are more German recipes for "Gulden schnitten"-type dishes in
later times. They are mentioned in the dictionaries.

Cheers,
Thomas


Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 12:17:11 -0500
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
Subject: SC - Semi-OT: dietetic Golden Balls experiment

Today's breakfast was Christianna's rendering of Platina's Golden Balls, 
heavily adjusted to fit my dietary needs and what I had on hand in the 
pantry.

I took two slices of dietetic whole wheat bread and soaked them in a 
mixture of a beaten egg and a tablespoon of rosewater.  I did not add 
sugar to the egg mixture.  Meanwhile, I soaked a few strands of saffron 
in a half tablespoon of rosewater.  Since I didn't start the soaking much 
in advance, I helped it along by pressing the saffron with the back of a 
spoon.

I cooked the bread in a non-stick pan lightly sprayed with oil, then 
sprinkled it with the saffron-rosewater and a teaspoon of sugar.  I was 
afraid that the results might be overpoweringly rosewater-flavored, but in 
fact, the taste was quite subtle.  The drizzle of bright-gold saffron liquid 
added an additional nuance of flavor, and looked very pretty.

I can well imagine that made with white rolls and butter, and with a more 
generous quantity of sugar, it would be an even richer and more flavorful 
dish.  I would not serve this modified version at a feast.  However, as a 
way of introducing some medieval flavors into my mundane diet, it 
worked quite nicely.

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)


Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 11:19:19 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Pixel, Goddess and Queen" <pixel at hundred-acre-wood.com>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] pain perdu-- desperate

> ladies & gents I still have some pain perdu questions...
 [snip]

> - for 200 people as part of my breakfast board, will 200 slices be 
> enough if I cut them in half cross wise?
>
> -- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa   jenne at fiedlerfamily.net

I would cut them into four, lengthwise (basically making them into
sticks), put them fairly far along the board, and assume that everyone
will eat at least 1 1/2 slices worth. The smaller portions will help 
with portion control, and hopefully will help reduce wastage as well.

Margaret


Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2013 13:23:15 -0800 (GMT-08:00)
From: lilinah at earthlink.net
To: SCA-Cooks <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Ottoman "French" toast

I'm slowly working my way through Shirvani's mid-15th c. collection of Ottoman recipes. Slowly because i don't know Turkish. I am using a translation of the Eski Osmanlica into modern Turkish because i have been unable to find anyone locally who can read (and thus teach me) this very archaic language - there was a significant change in the 16th c. alone (taking it from something like 12th c. Seljuk Turkish into something a little closer to modern Turkish), not to mention all the natural changes over the centuries plus several intentional governmental "reforms".

Anyway, today i translated a number of short recipes. One called Helva (halvah) involved whipping egg whites with starch, then frying several individual spoonfuls at a time in butter, and when they're all done, pouring hot honey over them and eating. Seems to me to be almost like fried meringues...

But what i've come to share is a mid-15th c. Ottoman "French" toast recipe - i can't recall who it was, but a number of years ago one of our members compiled all the recipes she could find that were like French toast, and this can join them.

(folio 112 recto)
Ekmek kayganasi
Bread kaygana

Ten eggs are placed in a bowl and beaten; a small amount of sifted flour joins until the batter becomes thick; salt is sown in it. Then slice fresh soft bread into thin slices,...the material will become cloudy/dim.

-- ASIDE --
This is what it says literally - i have a giant thick Turkish dictionary that Charles Perry recommended to me (Redhouse) and that is what it says. However, i assume that at this point ...the bread slices are dipped into the batter.
-- END ASIDE --

These bread slices are fried in pure sweet butter. The slices are stacked on a tray, on top hot melted honey is poured, then it is served, and eaten.

Pretty simple. But apparently much enjoyed.

Source:
"15. Yuzul Osmanli Mutfagi", Muhammed bin Mahmud Shirvani
Translated and edited by Prof. Dr. Mustafa Argunshah - Dr. Mujgan Chakir Gokkubbe, Istanbul, 2008
(title means "15th Century Ottoman Cuisine")

Urtatim (that's oor-tah-TEEM)

<the end>
Edited by Mark S. Harris	French-Toast-msg	Page 10 of 10