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bread-msg – 12/16/07

 

Medieval breads and grains. Recipes. Flour bleaching. Rising agents.  Bread for feasts.

 

NOTE: See also these files: breadmaking-msg, BNYeast-art, flour-msg, yeasts-msg, bread-stamps-msg, bread-stuffed-msg, brd-mk-flat-msg, brd-mk-sour-msg, fried-breads-msg, brd-manchets-msg, leavening-msg, trenchers-msg.

 

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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

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From: bloch at thor.ucsd.edu (Steve Bloch)

Date: 29 Jun 90 00:15:29 GMT

 

DEW%PSUECLC.BITNET at MITVMA.MIT.EDU (Baron Dur) writeth:

>I ran an experiment this weekend!  You can bake bread in a wok!  I used a

>standard bread recipie, a wok, and a pizza screen.  I put the dough on the

>screen in the wok, covered it, and baked for 40 minutes.  [puns omitted]

 

I believe Cariadoc mentioned, perhaps a month past, a dish called

"rampart-bread", "muqawwara" in the original Arabic.  I have made this

dish at two or three Wars with reasonable success.  In brief:

 

Make a yeast-leavened bread-dough, most of the liquid being eggyolks.

Let it rise.  Forming it into a disk shape (say, a foot across and a

handsbreadth thick), FRY it on both sides in a large frying-pan with

butter.  Then take it out, cut out the middle at a 45-degree angle

(not breaking the bottom), crumble the stuff you cut out, mix the

breadcrumbs with chopped almonds and pistachios, and sprinkle it back

into the cavity in alternating layers with melted butter, honey,

sugar, and a sprinkle of rosewater.

 

I was surprised that the bread cooked through without burning on the

outside.  I rested the pan directly on the coals left over from

breakfast; if you prefer a softer crust, you might put it a few inches

above the fire.  A more detailed description, with quantities and (my

translation of) the original recipe, may appear in the Winter T.I.

--

Stephen Bloch

Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib

>sca>Caid>Calafia>St.Artemas

bloch at cs.ucsd.edu

 

 

From: crf at pine.circa.ufl.EDU (FEINSTEIN)

Date: 20 Mar 91 22:33:00 GMT

 

BREAD:  If you want "real" ale barm, talk to a homebrewer!  No doubt a few

dregs could be reserved.  :-)  As both a brewer and a cook, however, I have to

offer a caution:  these days, yeasts are pure strains, not the wild mix which

the medievals would have used.  Thus, any brew dregs wouldn't work very well or

very quickly.  As an alternative, you might want to try my favorite trick:

substitute ale for some or all of the water in your bread recipe!  Admittedly,

it's not the "real thing", but it surely does work better, and it also tastes

much more like the "real thing" than if you used ale dregs!  Frankly, it's

produced the best, and probably the most accurate-tasting, results I've

obtained.  Because when I've used real ale barm, I couldn't taste the ale and

the bread didn't have such a good web.  When substituting ale for water, the

bread looks good, tastes of the ale, and smells and tastes WONDERFUL!

 

 

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

From: marian at world.std.com (marian walke)

Subject: Re: Medieval cooks didnt make bread

Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA

Date: Mon, 2 May 1994 16:41:30 GMT

 

>>In London, there were *two* guilds of bakers, the Brown Bakers and the White

>>Bakers.  (One baked only brown bread, the other only white bread.)

>>

>>    Franz Joder von Joderhuebel (Michael F. Yoder) [mfy at sli.com]

 

>Interesting indeed! Where did you find this? And were both

>guilds subject to the same Assize of Loaves? (or is it Assize of

>Bread?)

 

>Michael Fenwick of Fotheringhay, O.L. (Mike Andrews)

>Barony of Namron, Kingdom of Ansteorra

 

Old Marian commenting here:

(major source: C Anne Wilson, "Food and Drink in Britain" - at least, I

think that's the title - my much-used paperback lost its cover a few

years ago! Items in square brackets [] are my own comments.)

 

Medieval bread was not just divided into white and brown - there were

several gradations, and since the same names were not used in all places,

there is some confusion about where each kind of bread was placed in the

spectrum from whitest to brownest.  However, quoting from Wilson:

 

"The best white wheaten bread, made of the finest flour which had been two

or three times sieved through woollen and linen bolting cloths, was in

the Middle Ages called wastel bread (from the Norman French GASTEL or

cake) or pandemain (probably originally from PANIS DOMINI, the

sacramental bread, because that was made of the most delicate flour

obtainable....  Cocket, another fine white bread, but a slightly less

expensive one, was produced until about the beginning of the 16th

centruy.  But before that time the name manchet had begun to be applied

to white bread of the finest quality.  Manchets were made up as rather

small loaves: in Elizabeth I's reign they were supposed to weigh 'eight

ounces into the oven, and six ounces out', and forty were to be made out

of the flour bolted from one bushel of corn [i.e., wheat]. Bread

described as being 'of whole wheat' was of wheat flour more coarsely

sieved than that used for wastel or cocket; while a still coarser and

more branny wheat bread was made under the name of 'bis' or 'treet'."

 

Wilson says all these breads were taken into account in the Assize of

Bread, which was in operation (with many amendments) from 1267 (our

earliest extant version) through 1815.  There may be earlier versions no

longer extant; it is said to date back to King John (ca 1200).  In large

towns there were variants of the Assize to cover local variations in bread.

 

"In London the white bakers and the brown or TORTE bakers for a long time

had separate guilds.  The 'White Book' of the city of London laid down

'that a tourte baker shall not have a bolter nor make white bread'.  His

brown bread was to include all the husks and bran in the meal, just as it

came from the mill.  But he was permitted to bake the dough which people

brought to him ready made up [a function bakers served for people who

made their own dough, but did not have their own ovens], and to make

horsebread of peas and beans.  In Ipswich, on the other hand, the bakers

who baked the fine white loaves...were also allowed to make treet bread

from the leavings, after they had sieved their meal and removed the

whitest and finest flour....

 

The same farthing could buy you a given amount of finest white wastel

loaf, or twice as much brown or treet loaf.  It bought you a loaf of

cocket a little larger than the finest white wastel or a wholewheat loaf

weighing half again as much as the cocket or a loaf of "other cereals"

weighing twice as much as the cocket.  However, the actual amount of

bread you got for that farthing varied from Assize to Assize; the object

was to keep the price of bread steady, and the weight of bread you got

for your farthing varied according to the success of harvests and other

economic factors.

 

"The rougher breads of servants and laborourers and their families were

made of of maslin [mixed rye and wheat] or the local grain: rye in

Norfold, barley in northwest England, lowland Scotland, parts of Wales

and Cornwall, oats in upland Wales and the Pennines and the Scottish

highlands...."  [So what kind of dark bread you ate depended on where you

lived as well as your social status.  The reason for these regional

variations was that wheat demands a longer growing season and better soil

than were present in the upland and rocky areas.  And remember, these

variations were all just for Britain, which all together is only about

half the size of the state of California.  Imagine the variations you get

when you're looking at the whole of Europe.  This is why there is no ONE

"Medieval Bread"!]

 

As for the combining of the two London guilds: According to Wilson, in

1304 there where 32 brown and 21 white bakers.  In 1574 there were 36

brown and 62 white bakers.  They joined in the 17th century, and the

separate guild of brown bakers disappeared.

 

[However, it should be noted that lots of craft guilds amalgamated as time

went on, probably to have more clout as one large than as several small

guilds.  In the 16th C you start seeing combined guilds of "Carpenters

and Joiners" or "Masons and Tilers" or "Weavers and Dyers" or "Cooks and

Innkeepers."  So joining the brown and white bakers may have reflected

the temper of the times as much as the demand for brown bread in London.]

 

--Old Marian

(Marian of Edwinstowe, Carolingia, East Kingdom (marian at world.std.com)

 

 

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

From: shafer at ferhino.dfrc.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer)

Subject: Re: bread (was Re: meadmaking help.....)

Organization: NASA Dryden Flight Research Center

Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 04:10:41 GMT

 

Elizabeth David, in her book "English Bread and Yeast Cookery", has a

chapter titled "Manchets and Mayn and Payndemayn", which includes the

recipe posted about two messages back from this, plus one from Gervase

Markham, "The English Hus-wife", 1615, and a modern version.  (Mostly

scaled down, since the posted recipe wanted half a bushel of flour and

David notes that a bushel was 56 to 60 lb, which makes somewhat more

bread than many of us are interested in).  Scattered throughout the

book are information about how bread was cut in c. 1508 (from "the

Boke of Kervynge) and a number of period and near-period recipes

(Kendal Oatcakes from 1698, for example).

 

If you want to know everything to know about English bread and yeast

cookery, buy this book.  It's really excellent--it tells you

everything from which stone to use in your mill onward. It's in print

in a US version and is ISBN 0-9643600-0-4 (the original, British

edition has a different ISBN).  Even if you never bake a single thing

from it, you'll enjoy reading it and you'll learn a lot from it.

 

This book finally explained to me why English supermarket white bread

is so dreadful (even worse than Wonder Bread)--it contains, quite

legally, a great deal more water than does its US counterpart.

--

Mary Shafer                                              

SR-71 Chief Engineer   NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA

shafer at ferhino.dfrc.nasa.gov  

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/People/Shafer/mary.html

 

 

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

From: shafer at spdcc.com (Mary Shafer)

Subject: Re: Camp Bread, In period

Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA

Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 18:16:25 GMT

 

Kevin Riley  <lindo at radix.net> wrote:

>This doesn't exactly answer the question about ovens, but here's a

>recipe for Bannocks that can be cooked either on a griddle (or other

>flat piece of metal).  If anyone can tell me what might have been used

>to substitute for the baking soda...

 

I don't know if it is period, but Spirits of Hartshorn (aka Baker's

Ammonia and ammonium carbonate) was (and still is) used in northern

Europe in cookies before patent baking sodas became popular in the

1800s.  However, these make very crisp cookies, which isn't what

anyone would want in bannocks.

 

However, I'd suspect, based on Elizabeth David and the author of "In A

Scots Kitchen", that bannocks originally weren't raised at all but

were more like hoecakes or other unleavened biscuit.  It's unlikely

that they'd be yeast-risen, like a sourdough, because oats have no

gluten at all to trap the CO2 produced by yeast.

--

Mary Shafer  DoD #0362 KotFR  shafer at ursa-major.spdcc.com

URL http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/People/Shafer/mary.html

 

 

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

From: shafer at spdcc.com (Mary Shafer)

Subject: Re: Camp Bread, In period

Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA

Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 18:37:02 GMT

 

rosalyn rice <rorice at nickel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:

>In article <3252CE4E.1513 at radix.net>, Kevin Riley  <lindo at radix.net> wrote:

>>TJorDan001 wrote:

>

>>This doesn't exactly answer the question about ovens, but here's a

>>recipe for Bannocks that can be cooked either on a griddle (or other

>>flat piece of metal).  If anyone can tell me what might have been used

>>to substitute for the baking soda...

>

>       I just got a tanatalizing bit of information about what might

>have been a period substitute for baking soda - baking soda.

>

>       Acipius suggests cooking green vegetables with "Nitrum" so that they

>keep their color. Nitrum is a form of natural soda. It is possible that

>such a thing could have been used as a leavening agent, though I

>seriously doubt it. It doesn't appear as an ingredient in any medieval

>recipes, and commercial baking sodas/powders appear to be a 19th c.

>invention. (All this from Harold McGee "On Food and Cooking")

 

Commercial, or "patent", baking powders are a mixture of sodium

bicarbonate (baking soda) and cream of tartar.  Cream of tartar forms

deposits on the outside of wine barrels, where it can be scraped off.

Comprehensive cookbooks even provide formula for substitution.

 

Nitrum, to keep vegetables green, sounds like baking soda. It's well

known that a pinch of baking soda will keep vegetable a vivid,

unnatural green (while destroying the vitamin content, especially

vitamine C).  It also gives the vegetables a chemical taste

--

Mary Shafer  DoD #0362 KotFR  shafer at ursa-major.spdcc.com

URL http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/People/Shafer/mary.html

 

 

From: ddfr at best.com (David Friedman)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Camp Bread, In period

Date: 4 Oct 1996 08:06:30 GMT

 

yehudahben at aol.com (YehudahBen) wrote:

> From Lady Agnes   Is it possible that they used Sourdough at least for

> some of their baking ?

 

Yes. Pretty clearly sourdough was used in period. Charles Perry, who knows

quite a lot about medieval Islamic cooking, believes that it is what the

recipes mean when they talk about leavening.

 

David/Cariadoc

--

ddfr at best.com

 

 

From: troy at maestro.com (Philip W. Troy)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Camp Bread, In period

Date: Sat, 05 Oct 1996 10:01:02 -0400

Organization: Toad Computers

 

rorice at nickel.ucs.indiana.edu (rosalyn rice) wrote:

> Kevin Riley  <lindo at radix.net> wrote:

> >TJorDan001 wrote:

> >This doesn't exactly answer the question about ovens, but here's a

> >recipe for Bannocks that can be cooked either on a griddle (or other

> >flat piece of metal).  If anyone can tell me what might have been used

> >to substitute for the baking soda...

>

>         I just got a tanatalizing bit of information about what might

> have been a period substitute for baking soda - baking soda.

>

>         Acipius suggests cooking green vegetables with "Nitrum" so that they

> keep their color. Nitrum is a form of natural soda. It is possible that

> such a thing could have been used as a leavening agent, though I

> seriously doubt it. It doesn't appear as an ingredient in any medieval

> recipes, and commercial baking sodas/powders appear to be a 19th c.

> invention. (All this from Harold McGee "On Food and Cooking")

>

>         Lothar

 

It's always been my impression, probably from something in the

Flowers/Rosenbaum translation of Apicius, that the Roman cooking soda was

sodium carbonate, a.k.a. Washing Soda. Sodium Bicarbonate does the same

thing, from a culinary standpoint, producing a bright green in vegetables

no matter how badly they're overcooked by modern standards. Since they

would have been cooked nearly to a puree by Roman cooks, this would have

been an issue.

 

As regards the use of eggs and/or soda in bannocks, to render them

toothworthy, I believe the first thing used to lighten and tenderize them

would have been fat of some kind. Modern oatcake recipes generally call

for some kind of fat, either butter or lard, to be rubbed in, as in a pie

crust recipe. They are, of course, rolled pretty thin, and have a

cookie-like texture.

 

The problem with using either eggs or fat is that they tend to shorten the

shelf-life, a great inconvenience to soldiers on the march. Probably they

would have stuck to the earliest forms of the sgian (scone) which would

have been a crisp, toasted, oatmeal-and-water pancake. Otherwise, there's

always hard-tack or biscuit, which is the equivalent of Melba toast, more

or less. A regular yeast bread, sliced and toasted till perfectly dry,

hence the term bis-cuit, or twice cooked. Sailors ate a form of it too.

 

Of course, good bread would have been available when sacking a town,

sometimes...

 

Gideanus Tacitus Adamantius

 

 

From: Deloris Booker <dbooker at freenet.calgary.ab.ca>

From: pat at lalaw.lib.CA.US (Pat Lammerts)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Camp Bread, In period

Date: 9 Oct 1996 20:57:22 -0400

 

>There is a new edition of the Ed Wood book on ancient sourdough

>breadmaking techniques out. I'm not at work so I don't even know the EXACT

>title, but I will post info tonight or tomorrow. He points out that

>sourdough culture was THE method for leavening up until very recently.

>It's a really good read and has lots of recipes.

 

Here is the book that MtheU wrote about:

 

Wood, Ed, 1926-

  World sourdoughs from antiquity / Ed Wood. -- [Rev. ed.]. -- Berkeley,

Calif. : Ten Speed Press, 1996.

  ISBN 0898158435

 

$16.95 per Books in Print.

 

Huette

(pat at lalaw.lib.ca.us)

 

 

From: djheydt at uclink.berkeley.edu (Dorothy J Heydt)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: 14th Century Bread

Date: 10 Feb 1997 16:11:46 GMT

Organization: University of California at Berkeley

 

Morgan E. Smith <mesmith at freenet.calgary.ab.ca> wrote:

>Until this century, the majority of bread was made with sour dough

>cultures, not the types of commercial yeasts we have today. ...

 

Well, that's half right.  Commercial "cake" yeast is a

twentieth-century invention, and commercially available

granulated dried yeast is probably not much older.  But it's not

the case that all period yeasts were of the sourdough type that

had to be kept wet in a crock.  The stuff sporulates, after all,

and under adverse conditions goes into offline mode till better

times come back.  One of the ways to keep yeast between uses was

to dip a twiggy branch or bush into the yeast froth and allow it

to dry.  To begin a new batch of ale, you'd swish the branch

through the starting liquid and infect it with yeast spores, who

would then wake up, cry "Chow's on!" and get to work. A bush hung

up to dry over the alehouse door was a signal that the hostess

had just finished brewing.  In the same way, kneading troughs used

week after week for bread would become impregnated with the spores,

and you had only to pour in the liquid and work the flour in to get

it enough yeast to get it to rise nicely, leaving a new crop of spores

in the trough in the process.  (Cf.  Dorothy Hartley's _Food in

England._)

 

Dorothea of Caer-Myrddin                          Dorothy J. Heydt

Mists/Mists/West                                Albany, California

PRO DEO ET REGE                                     djheydt at uclink

 

 

From: L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt <liontamr at postoffice.ptd.net>

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: 14th Century Bread

Date: 11 Feb 1997 13:12:29 GMT

Organization: ProLog - PenTeleData, Inc.

 

dvick at crl.com (Donald E. Vick) wrote:

>In article <32fbc2c3.3925262 at news.avalon.nf.ca>,

>Barbara <bjluby at avalon.nf.ca> wrote:

>>I, too, am curious about the ingredients used in late

>>14th century (English) bread.  Would the people of

>>this period have had access to salt for bread-making?

>>

>>Can bread be made without salt? without yeast?

>