gravy-msg - 2/14/08
Period gravy. These are not medieval, but Renaissance.
NOTE: See also these files: sauces-msg, garum-msg, murri-msg, mustard-msg, vinegar-msg, verjuice-msg, thickening-msg.
************************************************************************
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
************************************************************************
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2000 13:53:45 -0800
From: "Crystal A. Isaac" <xtal at sigenetics.com>
Subject: SC - Welser's gravy
I was looking through Valoise Armstrong's translation of Sabina Welser's
Cookbook (c. 1553 CE) and found the following recipe.
#9 To make a yellow sauce for game or birds
First put fat in a pan and fry some flour in it, then take some wine and
three times as much of broth and put it into the pan and add to it ginger
and pepper and color it yellow, then it is ready.
And also...
#11 To make a yellow peppersauce
Make it as follows: Brown good flour in fat, pour wine and meat broth in it,
and seasonings to it. When it is a fast day, however, then take pea broth
instead of meat broth.
I've had it in my head that "gravy" or roux -- you know, that flour cooked
in fat stuff Grandmamma makes at Thanksgiving -- is an out of period
technique, but I am not sure where I read/heard that.
My first pass at redaction brought up the following two results:
Test Batch One (suitable for vegetarians)
Melt 2 Tbl butter* in very small pan. Add 4 level Tbl of white flour,
whisking madly. <sucking noise> Big lump of stuff in pan. Reduce heat. Add
1/4 cup white wine, stir, stir, stir. Wine evaporates with shocking speed.
Reduce heat as far as possible (hurl curses at gas stove). Add about 9
tablespoons of hot reconstituted veggie bullion. Stir. Add 1/4 tesp ground
ginger, 1/8 tesp fresh ground pepper and 5 threads saffron (for yellow
color)**. Stir for a minute over very low heat to thicken.
*I used butter because Welser mentions using pea broth for a feast day
alternative, so I thought butter rather than drippings or lard might be
appropriate.
*I thought about using egg yolks for color and additional fat, but I was out
of eggs.
Results from Test Batch One
My personal food tester said, yum!
I liked this version, but I think it needed _way_ more ginger and pepper.
Would be good for an "unchallenging" and familiar dish at a feast. Would be
a good sauce for roasted vegetables.
By this time the chicken was done baking, so test batch two was begun.
Test Batch Two (NOT suitable for vegetarians, but closer to the original)
Take 3/4 cup pan drippings and place in medium sized pan. Whisk in 1/2 cup
flour. Cook till almost dry. Place 1/2 tesp ground ginger, 1/4 tesp fresh
ground pepper and 5 threads saffron in 1/2 cup white wine. Add wine to pan.
stir madly. As it dries, add 15 tablespoons* hot reconstituted veggie
bullion and keep stirring. I didn't let this batch reduce to the true
"gravy" consistency, so it was a little more sauce-like.
*I'm sorry about the inconvenient units of measurements, the ladle I was
using holds 3 Tbl, and I used 5 of them.
Results from Test Batch Two
My personal food tester said, yum, but I like the other one better.
This one definantly needed more spices, I think it may have needed salt as
well. (Test Batch One used salted butter so the lack was less obvious.)
Still, it was a good recipe, and we'll probably eat it again.
Questions:
Obviously, by adjusting the amounts of flour to liquids, you can make
something like Grandmamma's gravy, or something like a thin pesto. Does
anybody have another source that mentions recipe like this one?
Does anybody else remember a (good) authority that said roux-based sauce was
out of period?
Any help cheerfully accepted,
Crystal of the Westermark
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 11:57:32 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Welser's gravy
LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
> xtal at sigenetics.com writes:
> << I've had it in my head that "gravy" or roux -- you know, that flour cooked
> in fat stuff Grandmamma makes at Thanksgiving -- is an out of period
> technique, but I am not sure where I read/heard that. >>
>
> I don't think it has been determined that it is out of period. It has merely
> been stressed that the use of this technique is not found in medieval
> manuscripts. Sabrina's book is well within the early modern cookery period
> but well outside the period of medieval cuisine.
>
> Ras
The deal is that prior to widespread examination of and research into
the Sabina Welserin cookbook of, I think, 1553, it was commonly believed
that the first documented use of roux in a European source occurred in
La Varenne's "Le Cuisinier Francais" (or something like that) dated at
roughly 1650. Not medieval, not period (yesyesyess, some of us use Digby
and he's even later, but what the hey...). Sabina Welserin's cookbook is
from 1553, some hundred years earlier, putting it arguably in the late
Middle Ages but definitely in the SCA period.
Adamantius
Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 10:05:06 -0500
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - SC: Gravy Making
The earliest use of flour and fat to make a roux I know of is from Sabina
Welserin (1553), where there are several. Here is one from Valois
Armstrong's translation:
"First, when you would make a black sauce, you should heat up a little fat
and brown a small spoonful of wheat flour in the fat and after that put good
wine into it and good cherry syrup, so that it becomes black, and sugar,
ginger, pepper, cloves and cinnamon, grapes, raisins and finely chopped
almonds. "
It sure sounds like a roux thickened sauce to me.
Bear
Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 18:39:01 -0400 (EDT)
From: cclark at vicon.net
Subject: Re: SC - SC: Gravy Making
Elysant wrote:
>This discussion makes me wonder how old the "roux" method actually is. And
>what are the oldest methods we know of that were used for thickening sauces
>and gravies?
There are recipes for khabis (a sweetmeat) in al-Baghdadi that say to cook
and mash some gourds or carrots and then "Put sesame-oil into a dish and
boil : then add flour, and then the [mashed veggies]. Pour on syrup until
set : then remove."
Looks to me like this is a kind of roux. Though I don't recall seeing any
recipes where it's used to thicken a sauce.
Henry of Maldon/Alex Clark
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 22:54:00 -0400
From: Daniel Myers <eduard at medievalcookery.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Roux in Sabina Welserin's cookbook?
To: SCA Cooks <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
I was digging through Sabina Welserin's cookbook (Valoise Armstrong's
translation) looking for other stuff when I came across this recipe.
"5 How to cook a wild boar's head, also how to prepare a sauce for
it. A wild boar's head should be boiled well in water and, when it
is done, laid on a grate and basted with wine, then it will be
thought to have been cooked in wine. Afterwards make a black or
yellow sauce with it. First, when you would make a black sauce, you
should heat up a little fat and brown a small spoonful of wheat flour
in the fat and after that put good wine into it and good cherry
syrup, so that it becomes black, and sugar, ginger, pepper, cloves
and cinnamon, grapes, raisins and finely chopped almonds. And taste
it, however it seems good to you, make it so. "
So what do you think? Did Welserin have Varenne beat by about 100
years?
- Doc
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 05:44:51 +0200
From: Volker Bach <carlton_bach at yahoo.de>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Roux in Sabina Welserin's cookbook?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Am Dienstag, 18. Juli 2006 06:57 schrieb Sue Clemenger:
> Dunno, since I'm not really familiar with Varenne (hope that
> doesn't get me kicked out of the cool kids' kitchen).
> It does, however, sound completely yummy. I wonder what kind of
> cherries would have been used? It's almost cherry season here in
> Montana....mmmm..... --Maire
The original says 'kersseltz' - more like 'cherry sauce'. If this is indeed
the same as the near-ubiquitous cherry sauce of South German tradition, the
base is small sour cherries (Weichselkirschen).
YIS
Giano
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 05:47:30 +0200
From: Volker Bach <carlton_bach at yahoo.de>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Roux in Sabina Welserin's cookbook?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Am Dienstag, 18. Juli 2006 04:54 schrieb Daniel Myers:
> I was digging through Sabina Welserin's cookbook (Valoise Armstrong's
> translation) looking for other stuff when I came across this recipe.
>
> "5 How to cook a wild boar's head, also how to prepare a sauce for
> it. A wild boar's head should be boiled well in water and, when it
> is done, laid on a grate and basted with wine, then it will be
> thought to have been cooked in wine. Afterwards make a black or
> yellow sauce with it. First, when you would make a black sauce, you
> should heat up a little fat and brown a small spoonful of wheat flour
> in the fat and after that put good wine into it and good cherry
> syrup, so that it becomes black, and sugar, ginger, pepper, cloves
> and cinnamon, grapes, raisins and finely chopped almonds. And taste
> it, however it seems good to you, make it so. "
>
> So what do you think? Did Welserin have Varenne beat by about 100
> years?
I'd say it's pretty clear. But in Germany, that kind of sauce is around
earlier than La Varenne anyway (Welserin is early, though, could well
be the earliest). It's usually ascribed to French or Italian influence.
The original text says
...darnach soll man ain schwartz oder ain gelbs brielin dariber
machen, erstlich wan man das schwartz brielin will machen,
soll man ain wenig schmaltz lassenn hais? werden vnnd ain
leffellin voll schens mell jm schmaltz brennen vnnd darnach
ain g?ten wein daranthon vnnd ain g?ten kersseltz...
Giano
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 07:32:17 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Russian food
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
On Jul 23, 2006, at 2:12 AM, Pat Griffin wrote:
> Not all gravies are roux, Stefan. A proper roux is simply flour browned in
> fat, then liquid added. White sauces, for instance, are not roux, because
> the starch is not browned. Other gravies can use thickening starches other
> than wheat flour.
>
> Lady Anne du Bosc
> Known as Mordonna The Cook
> mka Pat Griffin
> -----Original Message-----
>
> I thought gravy = roux, and vice-versa.
In the modern sense, at least, roux is generally wheat flour heated,
even if briefly, with an oil or fat. It doesn't even have to be
browned; you can have a "white" or "blonde" roux, and in classical
French cookery, a roux rarely is cooked to a shade darker than peanut
butter. However, there are fields of Creole and Cajun cookery where
the cook prides him or herself on the ability to caramelize a roux so
deeply it goes beyond simple brown and attains various mahogany and
russet shades mixed with the dark-roasted-coffee browns, all without
burning the flour (in theory, but then I think a lot of dark-roast
coffee is simply burnt, too, at least in the US). Generally this is
known as a "red" roux. Its thickening power is reduced as the roux
gets darker, but you can use plenty and still thicken, plus it adds a
distinctive flavor and color.
But flour + fat + heat = roux, flour + butter mixed to a simple paste
= beurre manie, and many gravies are thickened with things other than
roux (like the Southern US gravies with flour sprinkled directly in),
and sometimes they're just deglazed, slightly reduced pan juices.
Once you get past the almond-milk-and-breadcrumb granees and grav?s
of the Middle Ages, there's a longish period where gravies (under
that name) seem to be largely ignored except in England as a by-
product of roast meats, either the pan drippings or the juice from
slicing them.
There's a rather viciously amusing little story in Brillat-Savarin's
"Physiology of Taste" in which he boasts of stopping with some fellow
travelers at an inn, only to discover that the innkeeper had
recently put the last chunk of mutton to roast at the fireplace for a
group of English travelers sitting nearby. The Englishmen were
hungry and declined to share their roast, so instead Brillat-Savarin
says he persuaded them to part with the gravy in the drip-pan so he
and his friends could have scrambled eggs with gravy. He then tells
us that he waited until no one was watching, strolled over to the
fireplace, and repeatedly stabbed the roasting mutton with his knife,
causing it to leak its precious bodily fluids and its purity of
essence (okay, guys, what am I quoting there?) into the drip pan,
leaving behind a dry husk in the shape of a leg of mutton. Which,
Savarin says, the English travelers, being English, never noticed.
He also says the scrambled eggs were excellent...
Adamantius
<the end>