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sauces-msg – 3/5/17

 

Period sauces. Sauce recipes.

 

NOTE: See also the files: green-sauces-msg, broths-msg, eggs-msg, camelne-sauce-msg, garlic-sauces-msg, vinegar-msg, verjuice-msg, garum-msg, mustard-msg, Mustard-art.

 

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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: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com>

To: sca-cooks at eden.com

Date: Tue, 08 Apr 1997 12:16:57 -0400

Subject: Re: Saracen Sauce

 

Sue Wensel wrote:

> What are the ingredients of your Saracen Sauce?

>

> Derdriu

 

Blanched (presumably peeled) almonds, toasted in olive oil until light

brown, cooled, and ground into fairly fine meal. Rose hips are an

optional addition, they would make the dish more tart than it would be

without them. This is then either "drawn up" with hot almond milk, capon

broth, red wine, or some combination thereof. It should be quite thick,

and if it isn't thick enough, you can thicken it with rice flour. It

should be red in color, traditionally alkanet is the standard coloring,

but I'm not certain I'd use anything but standard red vegetable

coloring, unless perhaps I used a bit of powdered red sandalwood, which

is also a bit iffy. Standard garnish are a sprinkling of pomegranite

cells, berries, seeds, etc (whatever you call them).

 

I don't have a modern redaction at hand, but could probably produce one

pretty easily...

 

Hopeful regards,

G. Tacitus Adamantius

 

 

From: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com>

To: sca-cooks at eden.com

Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 10:18:42 -0400

Subject: sca-cooks Re: Garlic

 

Mark Harris wrote:

> Ok. Now I'm not sure what a "jance" is, but I like Garlic.

 

A jance is any of a variety of French ginger based sauces, usually, but

not, I think, always made with milk. They are similar to a modern white

sauce except for a thickening of bread and/or egg yolks instead of

flour, and always contain plenty of ginger. A yellow jance contains some

saffron, a green jance parsley, and garlic jance, well, use your

imagination. You find recipes for them in the Viandier de Taillevent,

and probably also in Le Menagier de Paris.

 

>    Stefan li Rous

 

Adamantius

 

 

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 23:29:06 -0400 (EDT)

From: Uduido at aol.com

Subject: SC - sauces-longish

 

<< salmon is

> tempered with sauce cameline....but are there not more flavorful things than

> cinnamon to put onto salmon? >>

 

There are several approaches to the sauce "problem". The one I use is to make

my sauces vrey potent so to speak. In several attempts at doing period sauces

I have found that the more concentrated they are the better they are. (e.g.

the concentration of modern worchestershire or oyster sauce or catsup, etc.

 

I think sometimes as SCA cooks we tend to mistakenly associate the word sauce

with gravy and try to come up with something that can be "ladled" over the

dish instead of , IMO, more correctly spooned over it.

 

To support this theory, I would suggest you redact and try one of the fish

recipes from Apicius. When I did this I thought YUCK! but after actually making

the dish, the sauce turned out to be excellent and the serving size was

approximately 1 tblsp. per portion. My mouth waters just thinking about it.

 

Keeping in mind that modern sauces such as catsup contain things we wouldn't

think appropriate  (e.g. cinnamon, cloves, vinegar, etc.) or the anchovies

and citrus fruits in Worchestershire, the long slow cooking necessary for a

good sauce blends and reformulates the original raw flavors into a single

amalgamated whole. Try it you might like it. :-)

 

Lord Ras

 

 

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 03:30:44 -0500

From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter)

Subject: Re:  SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #209

 

Hi, Katerine here.

 

Anna of Dragonsmark asks whether, given that medieval sauces were designed to

balance the humors of the meats, we should be devising new sauces better to

suit current materials.

 

I believe not, for two reasons.  First, I'm not at all certain that I grant

the premise.  I know that Scully has a bee in his bonnet on this subject,

but other scholars by no means universally agree.  Certainly there are tracts

from the middle ages that argue for this -- Magninus Mediolanensis is an

example -- but there's no evidence for it in the *culinary* literature, and

it isn't clear that the medical literature isn't rationalizing practice as

opposed to guiding it.  Further, the repertoire of sauces is stable with

respect to names and general natures of sauces -- though not at all with

respect to their details -- over a period of two centuries; and the changes

do not reflect changes in the theory of the humors nearly so much as those

we see throughout the cuisine as a whole.

 

Second, I'd rather use the medieval main ingredient, or as close an analog

as we can find, at which point rebalancing makes little sense.  I think, in

a sense, the quesion whether cinnamon is the most tasty spice to put on salmon

gives the show away: the desire is to have a different sauce for *flavor*, not

for any medieval reason.  In that case, I'd be far more inclined to go with a

different *medieval* sauce.  There are many suggestions of sauces to go with

fish; I would be far more inclined to find a medieval sauce I liked, and use

it.

 

So I don't think there's any rational argument that altering sauces for more

flavorful ingredients according to modern prejudices is a medieval practice.

Sauces *did* evolve -- but not randomly. If one wanted to study in detail the

patterns by which specific spices augmented or replaced others, and then

reproduce those patterns, that would be a medieval practice.  But I've been

engaged in a detailed study intended to reveal that kind of pattern for

over five years, and I don't think I could begin to do it competantly.  It

takes a *great* deal of work; without doing that work, you're just making a

modern sauce, and presenting it as medieval.  I don't think that's appropriate.

 

To be clearer: one can, of course, serve whatever tasty food one likes.  If

one wants to serve modern created dishes because one knows them, and does not

know medieval dishes one would rather serve, well and good.  That, in itself,

is perfectly reasonable, though it is not what I would prefer to see.  But

I think we have a responsibility not to try to rationalize it, or "pretty"

it over for SCA consumption, but claiming that it is in any way a

reflection of medieval practice.  It's a deliberate move away from medieval

cuisine, based on a personal preference.

 

I don't think there's any moral imperative to stick to the medieval repertoire

(although I prefer to do so, and prefer meals where others have, provided that

they've also done the cooking well).  I *do* think there's a moral imperative

to be honest about what we do.  If we choose to be modern, we should be

honestly and openly modern.  Anything else is both miseducating and lying.

 

Cheers,

- -- Katerine/Terry

 

 

Date: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 13:49:19 -0400 (EDT)

From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu>

Subject: Re: SC - sauces-longish

 

Noemi writes:

> Out of curiousity, and clarification, is a sauce something that is added to a

> dish just prior to serving?  I was thinking of things like, for lack of a

> better and period example,  things like a paprikas where it definitely has a

> sauce, but it is what the dish was cooked in as well.

 

At least for roast meats, a sauce was often added to a dish NOT prior

to serving, but by the diners themselves.  Sorta like ketchup in a

modern restaurant.  (Katerine, can you confirm this for me?)

 

It can work very nicely to serve a single big hunk of meat with three

or four different sauces on the side: it allows the diners to try a

couple of different flavors, and takes less work than preparing four

different dishes.

 

                                      mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib

                                                Stephen Bloch

                                          sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu

 

 

Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:16:50 -0400 (EDT)

From: Uduido at aol.com

Subject: SC - Period Chutney Recipe

 

<< I would  love for someone to print a proper recipe and to note whether or

not the basic chutney is period.  >>

 

Guess what I've been doing for the last 24 hours? Period Chutney research.

:-) This recipe is from 'The Forme of Cury'  It is to all intent and purposes

a 'chutney'. Other chutney-like recipes appear in Apicius and Le Manigier. It

is GREAT with cold cooked meat!

 

COMPOST

FC 103

 

Take rote of parsel, of pasternak, rafens, scrape hem and waische hem clene.

Take rapes & caboches, ypared and icorue. Take an erthen panne with clene

water & set it on the fire; cast all (th)ise (th)erinne. When (th)ey buth

boiled cast (th)erto peeres, & perboile hem wel. Take alle (th)ise thynges vp

& lat it kele on a faire cloth. Do (th)erto salt; whan it is colde, do hit in

a vessel; take vinegar & powdour & safroun & and do (th)erto, & lat alle

(th)ise thynges lye (th)erin al ny(gh)t, o(th)er al day. Take wyne greke &

honey, clarified togider; take lumbarde mustard & raisouns coraunce, al

hoole, & gynde powdour of canel, powdour douce, anys hole, & fenell seed.

Take alle (th)ise thynges & castt togyder in a pot of erthe, & take (th)erof

whan (th)oui wilt & serue forth.

 

There is a redaction in 'Pleyn Delit which, IMHO, deviates away from the

original in very significant ways so I am not posting it. My translation and

redaction follows:

 

Take parsley root, parsnips, radishes, scrape them and wash them clean. Take

turnips and cabbages, pared and cored. Take an earthen pan with clean water

and set it on the fire; cast all this therein. When they both boiled cast

therein pears, and parboil them well. Take all these things up and let it

cool on a fair cloth. Do thereto salt; when it is cold, do it in a vessel;

take vinegar and powder and saffron and do thereto, and let all these things

lie therein all night, other(wise) all day.  Take Greek wine and honey,

clarified together; take Lumbard mustard and raisins of Corinth (currants ?),

all whole, and grind powder of cinnamon, powder douce, anys whole, & fennel

seed. Take alle these things and cast together in a pot of earth, & take

thereof when thou wilt and serve it forth.

 

COMPOST

FC 130

Copyright 1997 by L. J. Spencer, Jr. (a.k.a. Lord Ras al Zib)

 

1/2 cp parsley root, peeled and diced

6 parsnips, peeled and diced

1 medium black radish, peeled and diced

1 lb turnips, peeled and diced

1 gallon cabbage, cored and chopped

2 quarts winter pears, peeled, cored and chopped

Salt

1 bottle Retsina (Greek wine)

2 cps honey

2 quarts cider vinegar

.......................................

Powder:

1 cp sugar

1 Tblsp ground cloves

1 Tblsp ground cinnamon

2 Tblsp ground ginger)

.......................................

1 tsp saffron

1/2 cp ground white mustard (the supermarket variety)

1 lb dried currants

1 tsp cinnamon

......................................

Powder douce:

1 cp sugar

1 tsp ground cloves

2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp ground ginger

1 Tblsp ground cubebs (opt.)

2 tsp groung galingal (opt.)

1 Tbsp grains of Paradise (opt.)

.......................................

1 tsp aniseed

1 tsp fennel seed

 

Place parsley root, parsnips, radishes, turnips and cabbage in a non-reactive

kettle (e.g. enamel, glass, or teflon. Cover with water. Bring to a boil.

Addd pears. Reduce heat to medium and cook until pears are barely tender.

Drain; spread on a cloth. Sprinkle with a substantial amount of salt and

leave until cold.

 

While mixture is cooling, bring wine and honey to a boil, removing the scum

as needed. When the scum stops rising remove from heat.

 

Put cooled cabbage mixture into a non-reactive kettle. Add vinegar, powder

and saffron. Let sit in a cool place for 12 hours.

 

Add remaining ingredients to the wine/honey mixture, stiiring well to make

sure that the sugar is dissolved. Add wine/honey spice mixture to

cabbage/pear mixture and blend carefully. Store in a cool place and use as

needed.

 

 

Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 12:17:11 -0400

From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>

Subject: Re: SC - Period Chutney Recipe

 

Uduido at aol.com wrote:

> Guess what I've been doing for the last 24 hours? Period Chutney research.

> :-) This recipe is from 'The Forme of Cury'  It is to all intent and purposes

> a 'chutney'. Other chutney-like recipes appear in Apicius and Le Manigier. It

> is GREAT with cold cooked meat!

>

> COMPOST

> FC 103

<recipe snipped>

 

I second the motion! Just a couple of comments on compost: there are

recipes for it in Le Menagier de Paris, as well as Das Buoch Von Guter

Spise, which primarily gives the recipe for the spiced sauce, and

suggests different vegetables that can be preserved/served in it. Also,

a variant can be found, I think, in the XIIIth century Northern European

cookbook, one version of which is also known as The Icelandic Medical

Misellany.

 

Best of all, I should point out that this stuff keeps for a long time,

especially if you put it, while hot, into a sterile canning jar. You

could do the whole thing with the pressure canner, I suppose, but I've

never found it necessary in this case. I have a couple of jars of

compost that are around two years old, and the one I opened last week

was just fine.

 

Adamantius

 

 

Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 17:38:24 -0400 (EDT)

From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu>

Subject: Re: SC - Sauce Robert...

 

Adamantius wrote:

> I seem to recall a recipe for aioli in an earlier Spanish

> source, but I'd have to look for the reference... .

 

It appears in the 14th-c. Catalan _Libre de Sent Sovi_.  I might be

wrong, and it's in the 15th-c. Catalan _Libre del Coch_ instead, but I'm

pretty sure it's in _Sent Sovi_.

 

                                      mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib

                                                Stephen Bloch

                                          sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu

 

 

Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 09:41:40 -0400

From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>

Subject: Re: SC - Sauce Robert...

 

Anne-Marie Rousseau wrote:

> Adamantius sez:

> >Well, yes, apart from my understanding that la Varenne uses pork fat for

> >roux. It is at least recognizable, more or less. As for emulsified

> > he only says to use lard. Unless the mammocks are particular to pigs?

 

Funny, I don’t remember mammocks from my anatomy classes...

Jes' one a' those things modern science doesn't address...my dictionary

sez mammocks are fragments or shreds. Since lard is by definition porkfat (other animals give things like suet and tallow) I'd bet anything

mammocks are what we would call cracklings.

 

> > la Varenne _The French Cook_ a 1654 English translation of the 1651 work

> > THICKNING OF FLOWRE.

> Melt some lard, take out the mammocks, put your flowre into your melted

> latd, seeth it wel, but have a care it stick not to the pan

 

...Interesting that this appears to call for unrendered fat, something that

would probably have been on hand in the kitchen, anyway.

But yes, this is clearly a recognizable roux, in spite of the fact that

using fats other than oil or butter has pretty gone out, except in

special cases like beef gravy, etc.

 

Adamantius

 

 

Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 09:31:24 -0400

From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>

Subject: Re: SC - drawn butter?

 

Mark Harris wrote:

> What is drawn butter?

 

All right. In the "Everything Most People Never Wanted to Know

Department", I have my Official Drawn Butter Dissertation, which

actually may come in handy for some. (Hah!)  ;  )

 

Okay. Things that are, in archaic versions of English, drawn, are mostly

either eviscerated, which isn't an issue here, or made thick in some

way, which is. Examples are the instructions to draw up a thick almond

milk, or to draw something through a streynour, which more often than

not means to force the item through a strainer to puree it and thereby

make it smooth mixture, rather than lumps and water.

 

Butter is an emulsion, a perfect mixture of an oil and water, which

under normal circumstances don't want to mix. In this case, they do

anyway. When you melt butter, it becomes a relatively thin liquid, and

the emulsion "breaks" apart into its two parts again, which is why you

can skim the clear butterfat off the top, and leave the rest behind, and

it is this clarified butterfat that is what most modern people think of

as drawn butter (which, by the way, is NOT the same thing as the ghee

used in Indian and Midle Eastern cookery, but don't get me started).

 

In [late] period cookery parlance butter would have been "drawn" by

melting it VERY slowly and on a very gentle heat, like in a double

boiler or some such, with another liquid, beating it as it melts. So you

find sauces made from things like the vinegar that a fish was marinated

in, with butter melted into it and whipped to form a relatively thick,

creamy sauce, along the lines of modern beurre blanc or hollandaise.

Yummers.

 

Sauces like that are still made today on the Continent, especially in

France, Spain, Portugal and Italy. In England, however, somebody

conceived the idea that drawn butter should be made by making a roux

thickener of cooked flour and butter, turn that into a sauce by adding

water or vinegar or a mixture, or ale, or SOMETHING, and simmering it

for a bit, and then adding more butter, this time beating it in in the

traditional way. I don't know if this was developed by someone who felt

that the starch of the roux would keep the sauce more stable (so it

wouldn't break or de-emulsify on high heat), or if the issue was

expense, with flour and water taking the place of some of the butter, or

if they thought that simple butter beaten into a flavorful liquid was

just too rich, or what. In any case, flour-thickened drawn butter sauces

appear to have originated in England in the late eighteenth, early

nineteenth centuries. In spite of the fact that the sauce in the packet

of Lipton Rice or Noodles In Sauce is more or less made this way, with

dried butter solids and Wondra or some other pre-cooked flour stuff,

it's still a perfectly viable sauce. I like mine on peas, with a tiny

pinch of sugar and some chopped mint. (And STILL Lady Aoife thinks I

don't give English cooking a fair break! ;  )   ) Some people like it on

Lutefisk, which is how we got on this topic in the first place, IIRC.

 

But, drawing butter up with a small amount of just water , or vinegar,

or some other watery liquid is still alive and well (in dishes like REAL

fettucine Alfredo, f'rinstance), just as it would have been done in

period. At least in late period, anyway.

 

Adamantius

 

 

Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 17:32:39 -0400 (EDT)

From: ANN1106 at aol.com

Subject: Re: SC - Substitute for bitter orange

 

I have never heard of the orange/lemon juice as a substitute for bitter

orange. When I make a Bitter Orange Sauce to be used with desserts, I cut

the peel of half of the oranges that I will be using and add this to the

juice. The sauce is then heated (with cornstarch, sugar and juice of a

lemon). When ready, the peels are allowed to macerate for 30 minutes before

straining and storing.

Cointreau and Triple Sec are two alcoholic liqueurs that are made from

Seville (Bitter) Oranges.

Audrey (aaparker at aol.com)

 

 

Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 17:05:24 -0400 (EDT)

From: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy at abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: SC - Classes:  Last Minute Tips Request

 

<snip>

 

But: check out the sauces that Lord Julian le Scot made for Known World A&S

this year.  He teaches a class on sauce making, and his redactions are very

good indeed.  I especially like his mustard.  The sauce vert was nummy,

too.

 

http://www.math.harvard.edu/~schuldy/kwas.menu.html

 

        Tibor

 

 

Date: Wed, 03 Dec 1997 10:44:13 -0400

From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>

Subject: Re: SC - hollandaise sauce

 

Mark Harris wrote:

> Ok, question time. This is Stefan, after all.

> What is Hollandaise sauce? I know it is some kind of fancy sauce but

> what is in it? What makes it special? Is it period? Where is it from,

> Holland?

 

Sauce Hollandaise, as we now know it, is the modern descendant of

earlier forms of a sauce believed to have been brought to France by the

Heugenots. So, its prototype appears to have actually been a Flemish or

Dutch sauce thickened with eggs, like a savory custard, and perhaps a

little butter beaten in to smooth the texture. I'm not up on the finer

details of Heugenot history, but that would put the prototype sauce at,

what, late sixteenth, early seventeenth century?

 

Francois Pierre de La Varenne, in "Le Cuisinier Francois" (1651) gives

a recipe for a similar sauce, calling for "good fresh butter, a little

vinegar, salt, nutmeg, and an egg yolk to bind the sauce; take care that

it does not curdle." We have no ingredient measurements or proportions,

though, let alone any additional  method or instructions, so it's hard

to say how close to Hollandaise this is. There are a number of examples

of contemporary French and English sauces made by beating soft or melted

butter into things like vinegar, and there seems to have been an equally

prevalent tradition in Germanic countries of thickening sauces with egg

yolks.

 

Modern Hollandaise sauce is usually made by warming egg yolks in a bowl,

over a pan of hot water, and whipping them until light with vinegar,

lemon juice, salt, white and/or cayenne pepper. You then beat in melted

or clarified butter, a tiny bit at a time, as you might with mayonnaise,

until it is light yellow in color, thick, and the sharpness of the lemon

and the vinegar is a bit more subdued. More daring cooks will often omit

the bain marie / double boiler aspect, and do it right in a saucepan

over direct heat. Of course, then it is more likely to curdle and

de-emulsify or break.

 

Emulsified sauces in general appear to be rare in medieval cookery. I

believe there's one calling for hard-boiled egg yolks, mashed with the

other ingredients, and olive oil beaten in (kind of an early mayonnaise

or tartar sauce), in one of the Spanish or Catalonian sources. Not sure

which offhand.

 

I'd have to say my feeling is that Hollandaise sauce as we know it today

is OOP, but that there might be recognizable ancestors from within

period.

 

Adamantius

 

 

Date: Tue, 02 Dec 1997 20:58:03 -0500

From: margali <margali at 99main.com>

Subject: Re: SC - hollandaise sauce

 

> Ok, question time. This is Stefan, after all.

> What is Hollandaise sauce? I know it is some kind of fancy sauce but

> what is in it? What makes it special? Is it period? Where is it from,

> Holland?

> Stefan li Rous

 

well, you can buy something called hollandaise sauce in packettes, and

something yellowish and drippy in jars they swear is hollandaise

sauce...

you take lots of butter, yolks of eggs beaten, either lemon squeezings

and zest OR an herbal vinegar, salt and pepper to taste-

get the butter melted but not boiling hot, put the eggs in a sauce pan,

and start whisking. pour the butter in while whisking until it thickens.

when the sauce is pretty much done, add the salt and pepper, and the tsp

or so of liquid flavor. provided it hasnt curdled, you have hollandaise

sauce. if you are in practice, it takes as long as the packette of

powdered stuff.

 

i use the egg whites in the scrambled eggs to fill the crepes, but you

can use it to make anything calling for just the whites.

 

a good hollandaise should make the capillaries scream for help!

margali

 

 

Date: Wed, 03 Dec 97 09:58:12 PST

From: "Alderton, Philippa" <phlip at morganco.net>

Subject: Re: SC - hollandaise sauce

 

My step-mother makes a very good mock Hollandaise sauce which is both tasty

and easy.

 

1/2 cup mayonaisse (Hellman's)

2 teaspoons prepared mustard

1 teaspoon lemon juice

 

Mix and heat through, stirring. DON'T BOIL.

 

It's nice for those occasions when you have forty-eleven other things to

do, and don't really have the time to make a proper Hollandaise.

 

The day she gave me the recipe, she was making a Holiday brunch for 15-20

people, and she had a recipe for Eggs Benedict in which you poached the

eggs the night before, kept them in a pan of water overnight, and heated

and served the next day. Folks, you have not lived until you learn to poach

eggs by the pot of simmering water method, with 3 dozen eggs to have done!

I got her an egg poacher for Christmas- we still laugh about it.

 

Phlip

 

 

Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 21:56:58 EST

From: LrdRas <LrdRas at aol.com>

Subject: Re: SC - Re: Cracknels

 

<< I'm finding it hard to imagine a sweet pudding-like dessert

with pork or some sort of fatty cracklings in it, but just because it

seems strange to me doesn't prove anything at all!

>>

 

Since so many recipes from period seem to me to resemble mincemeat and I have

no aversion to sweet meat, I often serve a wonderful relish made with apples,

onions, green peppers, garlic, pepper and brown sugar to accompany roast

pork.

 

Ras

 

 

Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 20:10:04 EST

From: LrdRas <LrdRas at aol.com>

Subject: Re: SC - french cooking or is Ham mousse just a fancy sausage?

 

dkpirolo at cts.com writes:

<< 3.  Is mayonnaise period?

 

In Ancient Cuisines , Jeff Smith cites an ancient Greek recipe which calls for

a vinegar, oil and egg and indicates that he thinks this is a "mayonnaise"

recipe. However, the majority of food experts place it well within the modern

era.

 

Ras

 

 

Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 23:20:40 -0800

From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <acrouss at gte.net>

Subject: Re: SC - french cooking or is Ham mousse just a fancy sausage?

 

> 3.  Is mayonnaise period?

 

The first example of an emulsion sauce I've seen is in la Varenne, 1651.

Before that, sauces are all thickened with particulates or through

reduction. So I would say no, mayonaisse is not period.

 

- --Anne-Marie

 

 

Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:40:16 -0400

From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>

Subject: SC - french cooking or is Ham mousse just a fancy sausage?

 

> 3.  Is mayonnaise period?

 

I _think_ there's an emulsified (which is the key for the creaminess of

mayonnaise) sauce in Manuscrito Anonimo, which is a puree of garlic,

and, I think, hard-boiled egg yolks, with olive oil beaten slowly in.

That's probably about as close as you'll find until the eighteenth

century or so. If you look at one of the Spanish cold garlic soup

recipes, or a French rouille recipe, you'll find something like it,

except the period equivalent would lack the red peppers and occasional

potato found in rouille.

 

Adamantius

 

 

Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 13:04:42 -0500 (EST)

From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu>

Subject: SC - hollandaise, aioli, almedroch

 

Also in the Stone Ages, Gideanus wrote:

> Emulsified sauces in general appear to be rare in medieval cookery. I

> believe there's one calling for hard-boiled egg yolks, mashed with the

> other ingredients, and olive oil beaten in (kind of an early mayonnaise

> or tartar sauce), in one of the Spanish or Catalonian sources. Not sure

> which offhand.

 

In the c.1400 AD Catalan _Libre de Sent Sovi_ are the following two

recipes (our translation; be warned that neither of us has formal

training in medieval Catalan, or modern Catalan for that matter).

Sorry I don't have the original Catalan on-line; it's on paper in a

pile somewhere in this house.

 

141 Almedroch

If you wish to do almedroch, take grated cheese and two or three cloves

of garlic, and mince them [until they're stiff & can be shaped].  And

when they are minced, temper them with hot water, and when you

[axetars]? them, don't use the pestle to immediately disintegrate them,

but only mince them finely.  And it should be of a good thick

consistency. And if perchance they are destroyed, take a large spoon,

and heat it well on the fire; and when it is well heated, put it into

the almedroch, and stir it around, and it will return to its state.

 

142 Almedroc with eggs

If you wish to make almedroc, you will have 2 or 3 cloves of garlic and

cheese, as in the previous recipe for almedroch.  And crush them very

well, and crush into them two or three eggyolks boiled in water.  And

when it is well mixed, [exetats] it with good broth and butter.  And if

you don't have butter, add a little oil and good spices.  And make it a

consistency that is thick, and don't cook it.  And use it on pork, that

goes on the spit.  And it should not be tempered, which will destroy

it, but left as flavored as it is.  In the same way is made [esquesos]

garlic, but make it with more garlic.  And don't put in seasonings &

spices, except to make it white and thick, and don't let it boil.  And

it serves to give heat when used thus with almedroc.

 

The first, from the directions for how to rescue it if it is

"destroyed", is apparently an emulsified sauce of cheese and garlic,

and the second is the same thing with boiled eggyolks (which, as I

understand it, help to stabilize the emulsion), as well as broth and

butter.

 

Marimar Torres, in her book on modern Catalan cooking, _The Catalan

Country Kitchen_, gives a recipe for "allioli", which she translates as

"garlic mayonnaise", made from minced garlic, a raw whole egg, olive

oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.  She comments that "Purists in

Catalunya insist on making their allioli in a mortar and pestle, but I

always use a food processor...."  I've read elsewhere that "purists"

don't include egg in their allioli, relying on compounds in the garlic

alone to stabilize the emulsion.

 

On the subject of "eggyolks boiled in water", I recall that the 13th-c.

Arabo-Andalusian _manuscrito anonimo_ contains LOTS of recipes calling

for boiled eggyolks.  In particular, one entitled "Cooking Stuffed

Eggplants" (which I included in my T.I. article of c. 1994, "Some Recipes

of al-Andalus"), that says "...boil eggyolks and also fry them a little..."

One possible interpretation was to boil eggs, peel them, extract the

yolks, and then fry them, but on a lark I tried separating raw eggs,

dropping the yolks gently into near-boiling water (which I had handy,

having just boiled eggplant in it), then fishing them out with a slotted

spoon and frying them in oil (which I had handy, having just fried the

eggplant in it).  This works, and the yolks have a rather different

texture from what they would have if boiled inside the rest of the egg.

 

                                       mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib

                                                Stephen Bloch

                                          sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu

 

 

Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 23:11:21 -0800

From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <acrouss at gte.net>

Subject: Re: SC - Garden time

 

> On the same line, Horseradish recipes?????  Please?

 

There's a recipe for a horseradish sauce in the German corpus. Horseradish

root, vinegar, a bit of sugar and spice, if memory serves. Tasted just like

the non-cream style stuff out of the jar.

 

- --AM

 

 

Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 21:25:51 -0500

From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>

Subject: RE: SC - Pine nuts

 

For a nice fish sauce (Greek, and probably period), heat a cup of

pomegranate juice, thicken it with bread crumbs, and stir in about three

tablespoons of pine nuts.

 

Bear

 

 

Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 10:12:07 -0500

From: vjarmstrong at aristotle.net (Valoise Armstrong)

Subject: Re: SC - Jellies vs. aspics

 

Allison wrote:

> As for cooked, sweetened, mashed fruit, you get 'mus' in

>the German corpus, which turns out like applesauce, etc., depending on

>the fruit.  It is used generally as a sauce.

 

Actually mus refers more to dishes of a certain consistency than to fruit

sauces. That's why you can find not only grape, fig, cherry, or apple mus,

but also mus recipes for wine, fish, egg, crayfish, chicken, rice, etc.

Some of them (even the fruit ones) are thickened with bread crumbs or eggs.

 

Probably the closest thing to conserves or fruit paste would be latwerge,

basically fruit thickened by cooking it down. I think Kuchenmeysterei (c.

1490) might have a recipe, I don't know of any others.

 

Valoise

 

 

Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 16:16:17 -0500

From: "J. Scott & Arisa Ballentine" <ballentine at earthlink.net>

Subject: SC - RE: roux from a newbie

 

Philip & Susan Troy quoted:

 

>> How long you brown

> > the flour determines the final color of the gravy, short time for white

> > gravy, browned well for up to 10 minutes for really dark gravy. It

> > develops a stronger, nutty flavor the longer it cooks (this is what the

> > Cajuns call a roux, BTW).

 

Well, the French certainly use the term roux as well.  There are 3 classic

stages of roux:

 

white: cooked just enough to get rid of the starchy taste - no color change

       - very strong thickening power.

 

blonde: also called "popcorn" roux because there is only a slight change of

       color, but a distinct nutty flavor like fresh popcorn - strong

       thickening power.

 

brown: dark, rich roux, usually takes up to thirty minutes to fully establish

       this roux - very little thickening power - very flavorful - most

       people stop here.

 

The Cajuns have added an additional step:

 

black: extremely dark roux, cooking time is usually at least one hour (note:

       this is usually taken from brown to black in a slow oven), extremely

       flavorful, this is the difference between good gumbo and gumbo -

       virtually no thickening power.

 

Fergus Stout

 

[editor’s note - roux are a post-1600 development, but I thought this message

   interesting and useful.]

 

 

Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 16:23:15 EDT

From: Mordonna22 at aol.com

Subject: Re: SC - low calcium diet help

 

ghesmiz at UDel.Edu writes:

<< or if it is possible to make

a cream sauce out of "non-dairy creamer"?  or any simple and quick

multi-purpose sauces that would be low calcium? >>

 

An easy cream sauce can be made with powdered non-dairy creamer:

 

Easy "Cream Sauce"

 

2 cups stock, milk, or water

Salt and pepper to taste

garlic to taste

4 heaping tbs creamer

2 rounded tbs corn starch

1/4 c water

 

Heat liquid to slow boil, add seasonings and creamer, mix corn starch with

cold water and add to boiling liquid.

stir vigorously with whisk until thickened and smooth.

 

Mordonna DuBois

Cook, Warrior Haven

(who has lived and eaten on a meagre budget at times)

 

 

Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 21:45:52 EDT

From: RuddR at aol.com

Subject: SC - Re: Walnuts

 

<Salut!

I know that Juglens nigra is native to the US, but is there an old world

walnut? If so, has anyone tried making "walnut milk," or seen recipes

using walnuts??

 

Bogdan>

 

Sauce for stockysshe in an-other maner (Ashmole MS 1439, Two 15th Cent.

Cookery Books, p109), has walnuts, garlic, pepper, bread and salt ground

together and thinned with fish broth: thick garlic walnut milk.  It goes great

with more than fish, and very easy in a blender.

 

Rudd Rayfield

 

 

Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 13:11:54 EDT

From: RuddR at aol.com

Subject: SC - 16th c. German Roux

 

David Friedman writes:

<A standard modern technique for making a sauce or gravy is to stir flour

into hot fat then add liquid, creating a suspension. So far as I know, this

technique is unknown in medieval cooking, where thickening is typically

done with bread crumbs, egg yolks, amidoun (wheat starch) or rice flour.

This raises the interesting question of when and where the technique

originated.

 

At Pennsic, I acquired a copy of the recent translation of the cookbook of

Sabrina Welserin, which is mid 16th c. German. Several recipes early in the

book (5, 9, 11, ...) seem to be describing the modern technique. Does

anyone know of an earlier example elsewhere?>

 

Although it is not a true roux, since there is no grease or butter mentioned,

there seems to be a "proto-roux" described in Ashmole MS 1439 (Two Fifteenth-

Century Cookery-Books, p. 110):

 

"Sauce gauncile

Take floure and cowe mylke, safroune wel y-grounde, garleke, and put in-to a

faire litel pot; and se(th)e it ouer (th)e fire, and serue it forthe."

 

A flour and milk base does seem to be unusual for a medieval sauce; this is

the only one I recall seeing.

 

Rudd Rayfield

 

 

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 20:05:09 -0800

From: Anne-Marie Rousseau <acrouss at gte.net>

Subject: RE: SC - >  Feeding Gunthar and Thyra

 

Hi all from Anne-Marie

 

For her Highness, there is are several outstanding creamy yet slightly tart

sauces in ther period and Elizabethan repetoire. Sauce Robert comes to mind

(butter, mustard, vinegar, capers and chives), as does la Varennes "white

sauce" (an egg yolk emulsion sauce with vinegar. Sound familiar?)

 

Then Ber sez...

>       I also love beef Wellington and anything Anne-Marie cooks!

 

aw shucks :)... well, here's some recipes. The text is from my pbulications

"French Food in the Renaissance". All rights reserved, no publication with

permission, blah blah blah.

 

SAUCE ROBERT

       This rich, creamy, slightly tangy sauce appears in many of the French

sources. There is some variation, for example le Cuisinier franois updates his

with capers, but all use verjuice and mustard and butter. What it's served on

seems to vary as well, with le Menagier a Paris putting it on poached sole

(M30), le Viandier de Taillevent on poached or baked John Dory (a North Atlantic

flat fish) (T115, T207), and le Cuisinier fran=E7ois on Poor John (another fish,

maybe a regional name for a John Dory?) (V80), goose (V33, p41), pork loin

(V56, p48), or wild boar (V39, p67). We've enjoyed this sauce on fish, pork,

and even veggies, though there's no documentation for the latter. Heck, it's

even good with bits of bread...

Poor John with a Sauce Robert. (V80)

You may put it with butter, a drop of verjuice, and some mustard, you may also

mixe with it some capers and chibols.

 

Barbe Robert [Sauce] (T207)

Take small onions fried in lard (or butter according to the day), verjuice,

vinegar, mustard, small spices and salt. Boil everything together. (A 1583

cookbook quoted by Pichon et al., p109)

 

(M30) "POLE" and SOLE are the same thing; and the "pole" are speckled on the

back. They should be scalded and gutted like plaice, washed and put in the pan,

with salt on them and water, then put on to cook, and when nearly done, add

parsley; then cook again in the same liquid, then eat with green sauce or with

butter with some of the hot cooking liquid, or in a sauce of old verjuice,

mustard and butter heated together.

Our version:

1 tsp. rinsed and minced capers

2 tsp. minced green onion, just the white part

2 tsp. fine ground prepared mustard

1/2 stick butter

1 tsp. cider vinegar or verjuice, if you have it

Mix all over heat till well blended. If it separates, whip with whisk till

reblended. Makes about 1/2 cup.

Serve on poached fish or roast pork or goose.

 

LA VARENNE'S WHITE SAUCE

       The primary sources considered for this work show an interesting

development in the use of thickening agents. The middle ages saw the use of

bread crumbs and almonds, as well as the technique of reduction, or thickening

by protracted boiling. There was an occasional use of eggs, both hard boiled

(which thickened by particulates) and raw (thickening as the proteins in the

raw egg coagulated). The work Epulario seems to rely heavily on raw eggs rather

than the particulate thickener of the earlier works. Le Cuisinier franois has

an entire chapter discussing a number of preparations that one could use to

thicken sauces and dishes. It suggests making these ahead of time and keeping

them "against future need=92, stating that these are "useful for all, or instead

of eggs".

 

       Several of these preparations are familiar, as they include the

ubiquitous almond (thickening using particulates), along with the old standby

of bread crumbs and egg yolks. but, Lo!  le Cuisinier fran=E7ois specifies one

method ("A Thickning of flowre", Vp120)  whereby flour is cooked with fat, and

onion, broth, mushrooms and vinegar are added and the preparation strained

before use. It's a roux! The basic ingredient of most  modern French sauces is

this cooked emulsion of flour and fat.

 

       Another example of the burgeoning art of French sauce making is la

Varenne’s white sauce. It's a real emulsion sauce; like hollandaise, bernaise

and mayonnaise.  Recipes in le Cuisinier franois call for this sauce on leeks

(V38, p157), cauliflower (V16, p84), asparagus (V77, p113), artichoke bottoms

(V62, p108), as well as chicken pie (V4, p126), veal breast (V11, p126) and

lamb pie (V23, p113; V26, p134). It has a delicate yellow color and is a

creamy, slightly tart accompaniment to anything you fancy.

 

       I found myself incapable of producing this sauce on the stovetop without

it curdling. With vigorous whisking, it was still presentable, but only if

eaten immediately, and would tend to curdle out again. The blender version of

this sauce, while not authentic in preparation method tastes the same and is

ideal for any situation where the sauce may not be served immediately, or the

temperature of your stove may not be gentle and steady enough (like, say, most

of the time?). This sauce can cool off and it won't  curdle or go ropy. If it

starts to separate at all (we only noticed it after over an half hour), whiz it

for a second or so more in the blender.

 

Sparagas with White Sauce  (V77 p113)

Choose the biggest, scrape the foot of them, and wash them, and seeth them in

water, salt them well, and let them not seeth too much; after they are sod,

draine them and make a sauce with very fresh butter, a little vinegar, salt,

nutmegg, and the yolk of an egg to thicken the sauce, and have a care that it

doe not curd or (turne) and serve them garnisht with what you will.

 

Our version:

In a small pan, melt 1/4 lb. butter till it's all bubbly hot.

To the blender, put 3 egg yolks

2 T. vinegar (cider or balsamic or white wine)

1/4 t. salt

1/4 t. nutmeg

Cover, flick on and off at high speed. Remove cover, turn on high and gradually

add the hot butter.  Blend on high for 4 seconds or so. Serve on anything that

doesn't move.

Makes about 1/2 c. sauce.

Optional modern variation:

1 shallot minced

2 T white wine vinegar

1 T water

1/4 t. fresh ground pepper

boil till dry in a small pan (i.e. the shallots have soaked up all the liquid),

and add the butter and melt as described above. Continue with rest of

instructions.

 

- --Anne-Marie

 

 

Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 23:00:35 +1100

From: "Phillippa Venn-Brown" <p.vbrown at tsc.nsw.edu.au>

Subject: Re: SC - Isles Anniv Feast April 25, menu vers 1.1

 

> Sorrel Sauce (Take a 1000 eggs or more) - will have to taste test this one,

> see if it goes with anything served above.

 

This Sorrel sauce goes brilliantly with Roast Pork or suckling Pig which I

made it to accompany for Charles of the Park's "Fine Food Feast" posted to

the list last Sept/Oct.

 

I have it on authority from my friends who can eat seafood that it also

goes well with light flavoured fish.

 

Filippa Ginevra.

 

 

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1998 14:19:39 EST

From: Balano1 at aol.com

Subject: Re: SC - Fruit sauce/Rødegrød med Fløde

 

Hopefully, someone else can help document this but it is and has been a

standard throughout Scandanaivia and Western Europe for time unknown.  I'm

told it's one of those that everyone's grandma can make and no one really has

a recipe for but I can attest to its pervasive appearance throughout Sweden

and Germany...this is a modern adaptation -

 

Rødegrød med Fløde

 

2 ten ounce packages frozen mixed berries, strawberries and rasberries

2 Tblsp sugar

2 Tblsp arrowroot powder

1/4 cup cold water

slivered almonds

1/2 cup light cream

 

Blend berries until pureed or rub through a fine sieve.  Place puree in a 1

-

1 1/2 quart saucepan and stir in sugar.  Bring to a boil stirring constantly.

Mix 2 Tbsp arrowroot powder and 2 Tblsp cold water to make a smooth paste.

Stir into sauce, let mixture thicken and remove from heat and cool.  Chill

for at least 2 hours and serve with slivered almonds on top and cream on the

side.

 

- - Sister Mary Endoline

 

 

Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 09:36:46 SAST-2

From: "Ian van Tets" <ivantets at botzoo.uct.ac.za>

Subject: SC - Sumac revisited (Italian sauce)

 

Back in the not too distant past there was a brief flurry of

discussion on a middle eastern flavouring known as Sumac.  I recently

tripped across a description of a European sauce using Sumac and

thought that one or two of you might be interested.

 

Francesco Datini, a merchant from Prato near Venice in the

late 14th century, was rather fond of his food.  He travelled

regularly and his correspondence (much of which has survived)

often covers important topics like "what I would like for dinner when

I come home".  Among his favourite sauces was savore sanguino,

which was made by "pounding raisons, cinnamon, sandal and sumac

together and mixing them with wine and meat".

 

My source for this sauce is Iris Origo's "Merchant of Prato",

(the revised edition published in English by Penguin in 1963).  Origo

cites the following as her source:

      Biblioteca Marucelliana, Florence, Manoscritti, C. 226 (a

miscellaneous codex of the 15th century), p. 128

 

Jan van Seist

 

 

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 18:58:01 -0500

From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)

Subject: Re: SC - Blue Sauce - Maybe chestnuts?

 

Hello! I don't recall if anyone mentioned it, but there is a recipe in

Epulario (p. 32) for 'skie color sauce in summer' which calls for

mulberries: "Take wild mulberies which grow in the Hedges, and a few

stamped Almonds with a little Ginger, temper all this with Veriuice and

straine it."

 

Cindy

 

 

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:12:23 -0500

From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>

Subject: Re: SC - Sauces for Roast Pork

 

Bronwynmgn at aol.com wrote:

> I am the head cook for our shire's event in May.  The main dish for the feast

> will be spit-roasted pork (ie we are having someone come in to do a pig

> roast).  I would like suggestions for 2-3 sauces that could be spooned onto

> the meat after the diner gets it on his plate.  The remainder of the feast is

> primarily 14th century English and French, and I would prefer recipes that fit

> into those parameters.

 

Taillevent recommends roast pork be eaten with verjuice, and says some

people put garlic, onions, wine, and verjuice in the pan with the

drippings from the meat and make a sauce with that. Kind of like sauce

Robert without the mustard.

 

He says of stuffed roast suckling pig that while some lazy persons eat

it with Cameline Sauce, it should be served with a hot Yellow Pepper

Sauce. Of that, Poivre Jaunet, he says to grind ginger, long pepper,

saffron -- and some people add in cloves with a little verjuice -- and

toast; infuse this in vinegar (or verjuice) and boil it when you are

about to serve your meat.

 

Something Taillevent doesn't recommend for roast pork, but which happens

to be excellent with it, is Garlic Jance, made from ginger, garlic and

almonds, ground, infused in verjuice and boiled until thickened. He says

some people put white wine in it too. It's a little like a modern Greek Skordalia...

 

Adamantius

 

 

Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 14:13:38 +0100

From: Thomas Gloning <Thomas.Gloning at germanistik.uni-giessen.de>

Subject: SC - Opusculum de saporibus (was: Welcome ...) / sauce for lamprey

 

<< Oh, and then there's Maino de Maineri's early 14th century Opusculum

de Saporibus, roughly, Little Book of Condiments, a sauce book in Latin,

which appears to have been plagiarized by Arnald de Villanova in his

much-more-well-known Regimen Sanitatis. >>

 

As you all know, Arnald of Villanova died 1307 or 1309 in a shipwreck.

Magninus died about 1364. The first texts of Magninus mentioned by

THorndike are from the 1320ies, when Arnald was long dead.

 

If I understand correctly the incipit of the Regimen sanitatis, quoted

by THorndike, it was the other way round:

 

"Incipit liber de regimine sanitatis Arnaldi de villa nova quem Magninus

mediolanensis sibi appropriavit addendo et immutando nonnulla" (p. 184

note 8, continued from p. 183).

Roughly: Here begins the book about the healthy way of life by Arnald of

Villanova, that Magninus of Milano 'made his own', whereby he added and

changed quite a bit.

 

On the other hand, Terence Scully in his "The _opusculum de saporibus of

Magninus Mediolanensis_" (Medium Aevum 54, 1985, 178-207) holds, that

the Regimen is the work of Magninus. In this case, the Regimen could

have been incorporated into the collected works of Arnald by the

_editors_ of Arnalds collected works.

 

Here is a sample recipe from the opusculum for the translators on this

list:

 

"Pro lampridis magnis assatis et murenis recipe zinziberi albi

gariofilorum gallange granorum paradisi ana 3. m. panis assi infusi in

aceto medium. Distemperetur cum pinguedine piscis et agresta et bulliat.

Vel potest fieri gellatina superius scripta. Et sicut dictum est de

lampreda similiter intelligatur de murena." (p. 188)

 

The latin text of the _opusculum de saporibus_ is at:

http://www.uni-giessen.de/~g909/sapor.htm

or via

http://www.uni-giessen.de/~g909 (choose "Alte Kochbuecher")

 

Thomas

 

 

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1999 05:42:14 +1000

From: "Craig Jones & Melissa Hicks" <meliora at macquarie.matra.com.au>

Subject: SC - Sauce recipe for Lamb Shanks

 

Artemis,

 

> Yet another quick question. I'm currently looking for a good

> (and preferably simple) sauce recipe to go over some roasted

> lamb shanks I'm serving at a feast. Something from around

> 1200-1350 would be ideal, but with a month to go I'm open to

> all suggestions.

 

A new variation that Drake & I have been using is as follows from Redon's

Medieval Kitchen.  The recipe is for Chicken but the sauce is really yummy

with lamb!!!

 

Roast Chicken.  To prepare roast chicken, you must roast it; and when it is

cooked, take orange juice or verjuice with rosewater, sugar and cinnamon and

place the chicken on a platter; and pour this mixture over it and send it to

table. (Maestro Martino, Libro de Atre Coquinaria, no 127)

 

Redon's redaction of the sauce is:

 

juice of 3 bitter oranges (sevilles) OR 10 tablespoons verjuice plus 1

tablespoon rose water

1/2 tea sugar

1 pinch ground cinnamon

salt to taste

 

Drake's Variation:  Instead of pouring this over the meat, we heat it

separately and thicken with cornflour.  Presto - Gravy for Coeliac (allergic

to gluten) people.

 

Meliora - from Polit.

 

 

Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 21:10:01 EDT

From: Elysant at aol.com

Subject: Re: SC - white sals

 

LrdRas at aol.com writes:

> margali at 99main.com writes:

> << Any chance of getting Cariadoc's white sals recipe we made at Pensic?

>   margali

  

> The white sals recipe 'we' made at Pennsic was my recipe. The translation of

> the recipe was in Cariadoc's Collection of Medieval and Renaissance

> Cookbooks, Vol. II, The Book of the Beloved; 'White Sals'.

 

Hello Margali,

 

Here's the recipe for White Sals for you.   Credit for redacting this recipe

actually goes not only to Lord Ras, but also to myself, and to Puck. :-)

Elysant

-----Original (translation)-White sals. Walnut meats, garlic, pepper, cinnamon, white mustard, Tahini andlemon juice.Redaction-White sals

 

(copyright c 1999 Ras, Elysant, Puck)

 

1 cp. Walnuts

2 cloves Garlic

1/8 tsp. Black pepper, ground

1/2 tsp. True cinnamon, ground

3/4 tsp. prepared mustard (see notes below)

2 Tblsp Tahini

Lemon juice, as needed

 

In a food processor combine walnuts and garlic until they form a smooth

paste. Put walnut mixture in a bowl. Add pepper. cinnamon, mustard and

Tahini. Mix thoroughly adding lemon juice by the teaspoonful until a smooth

very thick mixture is achieved.

 

NOTE: There is a description of mustard as prepared in the medieval middle

east in another section of Caraidoc's Collection. We used a modern mustard

that most fit this description. Any country-style mustard would work.

 

 

Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 09:40:15 EDT

From: WOLFMOMSCA at aol.com

Subject: Re: SC - Preserves & Sauces - recipes wanted

 

This one freezes well, and besides being a great sauce for roasted meats,

also makes a great condiment for burgers on the barby.

 

From The English Hous-wife, Gervase Markham, 1615

 

Sauce for a Roast Capon

 

To make an excellent sause for a rost Capon, you shall take Onions, and

having sliced and peeled them, boyle them in fair water with Pepper, Salt,

and a few bread crummes: then put unto it a spoonfull or two of claret Wine,

the juyce of an Orenge, and three or four slices of Lemmon peel: all these

shred together, and so pour it upon the Capon being broke up.

 

2 cups minced onion (save yourself the last step of "shredding")

1/4 tsp. minced lemon peel

2 Tbsp. dry red or white wine (Your choice, I've used both with equal success)

1 1/2 cups OJ (fresh-squeezed is best, but country-style with the pulp works

fine)

2 Tbsp bread crumbs

Salt

Pepper (both to taste)

 

Put the onions in a saucepan with enough water to cover, add salt & pepper as

you like it.  Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 10-15 minutes.  Add the

rest of the ingredients, bring back to a boil, and simmer until it thickens

up a bit.    Serve it forth, as the saying goes.

 

This was served at an Elizabethan feast I did this past February.  I had

leftovers, so I chucked it in a zip-loc baggie and put it in the freezer.  I

thawed it out in August for a roast beef dinner, and it was just fine.  Be

aware that freezing this will cause the onions to somehow become more

onion-y. I don't know why (that's the science of cookery).  But it worked

quite well.  It also worked well as an ingredient in everyday meatloaf.  Came

out quite yummy.

 

Wolfmother

 

 

Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 16:47:30 -0500

From: "Alderton, Philippa" <phlip at morganco.net>

Subject: SC - Apicius Venison Sauce Recipes

 

I just typed this in for a friend, and I thought some of you who don't have

Apicius yet might like a copy.

 

Flowers and Rosenbaum , Book VIII, section II

 

1. Ius in Cervum- Sauce for Venison

 

Crush pepper, lovage, caraway, origan, celery-seed, asafoetida root,

fennel-seed; pound well, pour on liquamen, wine, passum, a little oil. When

it comes to the boil thicken with cornflour. Moisten the cooked stag inside

and out, and serve.

 

2. In Platoneum- For Fallow Deer

 

and for every kind of venison you can use the same sauce.

 

3. Aliter- Venison, Another Method

 

Boil the stag, and roast lightly. Pound pepper, lovage, caraway,

celery-seed; add honey, vinegar, liquamen, and oil. When hot thicken with

cornflour and pour over the meat.

 

4. Ius in Cervo- Sauce for Venison.

 

Pepper, lovage, Welsh onion, origan, pine-kernals, Jerico dates, honey,

liquamen, mustard, vinegar, oil.

 

5. Cervinae Conditura- Sauce for Venison

 

Pepper, cumin, herbs, parsley, onion, rue, honey, liquamen, mint, passum,

caroenum, and a little oil. Thicken with cornflour when boiling.

 

6. Iura Ferventia in Cervo- Hot Sauce for Venison

 

Pepper, lovage, parsley, cumin, toasted pine kernals or almonds. Add honey,

vinegar, wine, a little oil, liquamen, and stir.

 

7. Embamma in Cervinum Assam- Sauce for Roast Venison

 

Pepper, spikenard, bay-leaf, celery seed, dried onion, fresh rue, honey,

vinegar, Liquamen: add Jerico dates, raisins, and oil.

 

8. Aliter in Cervum Assum Iura Ferventia- Hot Sauce for Roast Venison,

Another Method

 

Pepper, lovage, parsley, soaked <dried> damsons, wine, honey, vinegar,

liquamen, a little oil. Stir with a bunch of leek and savory.

 

Phlip

 

Philippa Farrour

Caer Frig

Southeastern Ohio

 

 

Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 16:40:08 -0500

From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>

Subject: SC - Recipe: Mirrauste de Manzanas

 

Someone asked me for this recipe, so I thought I might as well post it to

the list.

 

Source: Ruperto de Nola, _Libro de Guisados_ (Spanish, 1529)

Translation: Lady Brighid ni Chiarain (Robin Carroll-Mann)

 

MIRRAUSTE DE MANZANAS -- Mirrauste of Apples

 

You must take the sweetest apples and peel off their skin, and quarter

them. And remove the core and the pips, and then set a pot to boil with

as much water as you know will be necessary.  And when the water

boils, cast in the apples and then take well toasted almonds and grind

them well in a mortar.  Dissolve them with the broth from the apples,

and strain them through a woollen cloth with crustless bread soaked in

said apple broth.  And strain everything quite thick, and after straining it

cast in a good deal of ground cinnamon and sugar.  And then send it to

the fire to cook and when the sauce boils remove it from the fire.  And

cast in the apples which remain, well drained of the broth, but see that

the apples should not be scalded, so that you can prepare dishes of

them, and when they are made cast sugar and cinnamon on top.

 

Notes:

 

This is a Lenten version of Mirrauste.  The meat day version has no

apples. It is a sauce made with toasted almonds, broth, bread crumb,

sugar and cinnamon, and is served with roast birds.

 

De Nola always specifies when almonds are to be blanched, so I

assume that these almonds are not.

 

I would be inclined to cook the apples in just enough water to cover, so

as to make a more intensely flavorful broth.

 

The direction not to scald the apples probably means not to overcook

them, so that they will retain their shape and not turn into applemoyle.

 

Brighid, who has the stomach flu right now, and is not going to

redacting anything more interesting than oatmeal for a while...

 

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain

Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

 

 

Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 14:49:35 -0500

From: Christine A Seelye-King <mermayde at juno.com>

Subject: SC - Digby's Horseradish Mustard

 

> Digby has a Ginger horseradish mustard sauce: can someone get that

> for me?

> Caointiarn

 

Here you go -

 

From Sir Kenelme Digby's Closet Opened

"To Make Mustard

 

<snip - see mustard-msg>

 

        And here is another plain horseradish sauce.  

 

"Sauce of Horse Radish

 

        Take Roots of Horse-radish scraped clean, and lay them to soak in

fair-water for an hour.  Then rasp them upon a Grater, and you shall have

them all in a tender spungy Pap.  Put Vinegar to it, and a very little

Sugar, not so much as to be tasted, but to quicken (by contrariety) the

taste of the other."  

 

        Christianna

 

 

Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 20:00:52 -0500

From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>

Subject: SC - Pomegranate sauce

 

Tonight, I made a first try at the pomegranate sauce I mentioned.  Here's an

interim report.

 

Source: Ruperto de Nola, _Libro de Guisados_ (Spanish, 1529)

Translation: Lady Brighid ni Chiarain (Robin Carroll-Mann)

 

SALSERON PARA PERDICES O GALLINAS ASADAS - Sauce for roasted

partridges or hens

 

Grind almonds which are clean, peeled and blanched; and dissolve them with

juice of sour pomegranates; then cast sugar in the mortar, pulverized, and

cinnamon and ginger because its color and flavor should tend almost towards

cinnamon. There is no need to strain it through a hair sieve.

 

Notes:

 

I took 1/4 cup pomegranate concentrate and diluted it with 3/4 water to make 1

cup of juice.  I ran it through the blender with 1 ounce of ground almonds.  

Although the recipe says that straining is not necessary, I dislike the feel of

almond grit in dishes.  I strained the almond "milk" though my new toy -- a

strainer with a very fine metal mesh that I got at a Chinese grocery.  I

sweetened the sauce with 4 tsp. sugar, and spiced it with 3/8 tsp. each of

ground ginger and cinnamon.  Simmered on a medium-low heat until

thickened. Served it over grilled chicken breast.  My lord husband took one

taste of the sauce and said, "Duck".  And, indeed, I think it would go well with

duck. It has a wonderful dark-chocolate color.  Next time, I think I will try just a wee bit more sweetening, a little less ginger, and a little more cinnamon.  I think this one is a winner.

 

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain

Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

 

 

Date: Sat, 20 May 2000 15:23:38 +0200

From: Thomas Gloning <gloning at Mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE>

Subject: SC - Catalan Cooking? (+ recipes)

 

<< what areas in modern Europe do these Catalan and Neapolitan regions

correspond to? >>

 

The catalan recipes in question are 14th/15th century. Catalan was

spoken in (part of?) the kingdom of Aragon (North East of today's Spain;

around Barcelona); "Neap0litan" refers to the region around Naples,

Southern Italy. If I am not mistaken, Naples was a huge kingdom then,

that formed around one third of today's Italy (southern part). In the

mid of the 15th century, the Aragonese were sovereigns of Naples and had

a court there.

 

Here is a recipe for a lemon sauce in four versions (three from Scully,

one from Bostrˆm):

 

I. English translation of Cuoco Neap. #56 (Scully p. 184)

 

56. Lemon Sauce for Chickens or Capons.

Get one or more chickens, capons or cockerels that have been cooked a

little in water; take them out of the water and mount them on a spit;

then get peeled, well ground almonds and temper them with the bouillon

of the chickens; then get lemon juice and mix it all together with good

spices; and put it into a saucepan to cook a little; then pour it over

the roast with a little fat; serve it very hot.

 

II. Original Italian Version of Cuoco Neap. #56 (Scully p. 55)

 

56. Limonata a galine ho ha caponi

Piglia galine ho galina, caponi ho capono ho pullastri, che siano cotti

uno pocho in aqua; poi cazali dal aqua he metali in spito; poi piglia

amandole mondate ben piste he stemprale cum lo sabrero de le galine; poi

piglia sugo de limoni he miscola cum bone specie, ogni cosa insieme, he

mette in una pignatella a cocere uno pochetto; he da poi getta de sopra

de questo rosto, he cum pocho de grasso, he caldo caldo manda in tavola.

 

III. Catalan version of the recipe: from the 'De apereylar bÈ de menyar'

(Scully p. 250)

 

31. Si vols fer limonia.

Prin los pols o galines ho capons, qui sien primerament cuyts .i. poc en

aygue. Puys trets-los de l'aygua, e mit-les en [ms: e] ast.

E ayes amenles perades, e destempre-les ab lo sebrer dels capons. E

d'altre part prin del suc dels limons, e met-ne ab la [ms: le] polvora

de les species, e puys passa-o [ms partly unreadable] tot sobre les

brases, e estia tro que sia be espÈs, empero primerament hi deu hom

metre del lart del porc en la caÁola. E sie donat per tayladors.

A .xx. persones .iiii. llibres d'amenles.

 

IV. Lean version: lemon sauce to fish

This version is mentioned by Scully in his comentary to be found in

Anonimo Meridionale A #66. Here it is from Bostrˆm's edition:

 

66 LXIIII

Affare brudo de pescie marini [ms: martini] grandi lava lo pescie et

talglialo et soffrigelo con olio non multo. Tolli agmandole non mondate,

pistale et colale, et la colatura micti colli dicti pisci abbollire.

Mictice donde spetie senza saffarana, nanti che tu lo tolli dal foco, et

mictice suco de citrangoli o de lumone. Quisto civo si fi dicto limonia

de pescie. (Bostrˆm p. 17)

 

Thomas

 

 

Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 10:10:18 -0400

From: margali <margali at 99main.com>

Subject: SC - Neat website

 

http://www.ruralwales.org.uk/powysfayre/apicius/prodrnge.htm

 

They claim to use period recipes to produce their sauces...

 

margali

 

 

Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2000 11:54:00 -0400

From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>

Subject: Emulsified sauces (was Re: SC - Adamantius in Error)

 

And it came to pass on 17 Sep 00,, that Philip & Susan Troy wrote:

 

[snipped lengthy discussion of the composition of Miracle Whip]

> Regarding thick oil-based, emulsified sauces, it's possible they were

> known in the Hellenic world. It's also possible that some of the Apician

> sauces, that call for various ingredients to be pounded together, with oil

> added, are intended to be emulsified sauces. Examples of thickish sauces

> and purees that have oil beaten in via a mortar and pestle include pesto,

> brandade, skordalia, aioli, rouille, and many others, and while not all of

> these are very old, some of them could be, in one form or another. My

> guess is that Smith has found a reference to a sauce of pounded

> ingredients which contains oil, and has interpreted it as an emulsified

> sauce, rightly or wrongly. I remember seeing a reference to what appears

> to be an emulsified garlic sauce in, IIRC, either Libro del Coch, or the

> Libro Sent Sovi. This would appear to be something similar to aioli and

> skordalia, whch in turn have some similarity to mayonnaise. And, if they

> have almost no egg yolks, to MW as well. ;  )  

 

> Adamantius

 

As it happens, I was looking at _Sent Sovi_ last night.  (The _Libre de

Sent Sovi_ is a 15th century Catalan cookbook, which is a precursor of

the Spanish text I've been working with.)  I was working on footnoting

"almodrote", which is a garlic-cheese sauce.  Here's the relevant part

It's the sauce part of a more complex recipe):

 

and then grate good cheese of Aragon that is fine, and take two whole heads

of garlic roasted between the coals and then peel them very well and cleanly

and grind them in a mortar, and then put the cheese in the mortar, and resume

grinding it all together, and while you are grinding them cast a good spoonful

of butter into the mortar, with some egg yolks, and grind it all together, and

when it is all well ground, dissolve it with good mutton broth that is half

cooled, because if it were very hot it would consume the cheese....

 

I have cooked this, and it is very thick and garlicy and tasty.

 

There are a couple of recipes in _Sent Sovi_ for almedroc, the Catalan

equivalent. Some versions have oil and/or eggs.  In the Florilegium,

there are a few messages from Stephen Bloch, who translated a couple

of the recipes and discussed them.

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/rialto/sauces-msg.html

 

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain

Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

 

 

Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 15:49:02 GMT

From: "Vincent Cuenca" <bootkiller at hotmail.com>

Subject: SC - Re: historical liver

 

As far as I can tell, the Spanish corpus

>uses the livers of most edible creatures.  There are a lot of recipes

>for roast fowl which use the bird's liver in a sauce.

 

The technique still survives in modern Catalan cooking.  Liver and nuts are

ground into a paste, thinned with broth or wine or water, and then added to

the sauce both as a thickener and a flavoring agent.  The technique is

called "picada", and can also include breadcrumbs, herbs and spices, peppers

and chocolate, depending on the sauce.  De Nola uses the technique over and

over again, but does not give it a name.

 

Vicente

 

 

Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 12:36:57 -0400 (EDT)

From: Jenne Heise <jenne at mail.browser.net>

Subject: Re: SC - OOP - Black Food

 

> I was wondering if anyone can suggest some other black foods and

> beverages. Several key guild members are vegetarians, so no meat or

> gelatin, although eggs and dairy are ok. And i really really really

> dislike licorice, so none of that (heck, i never even ate one of

> those "black wafers", the frosting smelled so unpleasant to me)

 

The Black pepper sauce given in _The Medieval Kitchen_ is delicious...:

"Black poivre. Crush ginger and charred bread and pepper, moisten with

vinegar and verjuice, and boil (VT BN Scul 227)"

- --

Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise              jenne at tulgey.browser.net

 

 

Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 00:09:28 -0500

From: harper at idt.net

Subject: SC - Recipe: cider sauce

 

For many of us, apple cider is widely available right now, so here's

a period recipe that uses it.  It has the texture of honey, and a

wonderful sweet-tart flavor.  Note to non-U.S. cooks: sweet apple

cider is a non-alcoholic unfiltered apple juice.

 

I do not know what this sauce was intended to be served with.  It

can be spread like jelly on bread.  I suspect it would go well with

pork or duck.  I also suspect that it would be a good candidate for

canning, though I have no practical experience in that area.  

Refrigerated, it keeps for at least a month, probably longer.

 

 

CIDER SAUCE

 

Source: Diego Granado, Libro del Arte de Cozina, 1599

Translation & Redaction: Lady Brighid ni Chiarain

 

 

               Para hacer salsa de zumo de manzanas

               To make sauce of the juice of apples

 

Take the apples, and without peeling them, grate them and extract the

juice from them, as we said of the quinces; adding a little vinegar, and

white wine, and take the clearest part, and for each pound of juice, put

eight ounces of sugar, and cook it like the juice of the quinces, with the

same spices.

 

 

And two related recipes:

 

                      Para hazer salsa real

                       To make royal sauce

 

Take three pounds of fine sugar, and two quarts of white vinegar without

roses, and a quart of white wine, a little whole cinnamon, and make it boil

all together in a new glazed pot until it is cooked, and have the pot

covered, so that it cannot exhale, and to know if it is cooked, the sign will

be that, in falling, a drop will congeal, so that touching it with your hand

does not make it come apart.  Serve it cold, and take care that it does not

burn. When you cook it, you can add nutmeg, and cloves, and in place

of the pot, you can make it in a casserole.

 

 

              Para hazer salsa de zumo de membrillos

              To make sauce of the juice of quinces

 

Grate the quince lightly with a grater, without peeling it, and put it inside

the woolen cloth, and press it until it has yielded all the juice, and put it

in a flask until the thickest part goes to the bottom, and take the clearest

part, and put it in a glazed casserole or pot, and for each pound of juice

put eight ounces of sugar, and two ounces of vinegar, and one ounce of

wine of San Martin, and cook it in the manner that the Royal Sauce is

cooked, as described above, with a quarter [ounce] of whole cinnamon,

half a nutmeg, and four cloves.

 

 

Apple Cider Sauce

 

2 cups        sweet apple cider

8 ounces      sugar

1/4 cup              white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons       white wine

1/2 ounce   cinnamon sticks

1/2            whole nutmeg

4              whole cloves

 

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and simmer over medium-low heat

about 45 minutes, until the volume is reduced by half and a candy

thermometer reads 220F (105C).  Strain through cheesecloth.  Pour into a

clean glass jar.  Refrigerate.  Makes about 1 cup.

 

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain

Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

 

 

Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2000 18:50:23 -0500

From: harper at idt.net

Subject: SC - Sauces

 

I went to a baronial potluck today.  As a contribution, I brought a

loaf of bread, sliced roast beef, and three sauces.  One was the

Cider Sauce from Granado which I posted recently.  Another was

the horseradish sauce from Nola, and the third was a garlic sauce

from Granado.  They were all well received, though the Cider Sauce

was probably the most popular.

 

I've posted the translation for the Horseradish sauce before, but

here's the redaction:

 

                    *  Exported from  MasterCook  *

 

                        Horseradish-Honey Sauce

 

Recipe By     : de Nola #157

Serving Size  : 20   Preparation Time :0:05

Categories    : Sauces                           Spanish

               Vegan                            Vegetarian

 

Amount  Measure       Ingredient -- Preparation Method

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

   1      slice         italian bread -- toasted lightly

   4      oz            horseradish -- finely grated

   1/2  cup           honey

   1/4  cup           water

   1/2  teaspoon      black pepper

   3      tablespoons   white wine vinegar

 

Peel and finely grate the horseradish root.   Place in the container

of a blender or food processor.  Soak the toasted bread in the

vinegar. Add to the horseradish.  Blend a moment until mixed.  

Add the remaining ingredients, adjusting as necessary for taste.

Add just enough water to make a smooth sauce that is not too thin.

 

CAUTION: avoid breathing in the fumes from the sauce.

 

Just before serving, heat the sauce on low heat until warm.  Do not

boil.

 

For a hotter sauce, wait 3 minutes before adding the bread and

vinegar to the horseradish.  For a less fiery sauce, add the vinegar

promptly after grating the horseradish.

 

If fresh horseradish root is unavailable, take a 6-oz jar of prepared

horseradish. Empty the contents into a mesh sieve, and press

lightly with a spoon to drain off the excess liquid.  Reduce added

vinegar to 1 tablespoon.  Proceed as above.  However, this method

produces a much milder sauce.

 

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

 

The garlic sauce from Granado was milder than I expected, even

though I used 2 large cloves of garlic.  Next time I think I will

increase the garlic to 3 or 4 cloves.

 

The recipe is:

 

PARA HAZER AJADA CON NUEZES TIERNAS, Y ALMENDRAS

To Make Garlic Sauce with Tender Walnuts and Almonds

 

Take six ounces of tender peeled walnuts, and four [ounces] of

fresh sweet almonds, and six cloves of boiled garlic, or one and a

half raw, and grind them in the morter, with four ounces of a

crustless piece of bread soaked in broth of mutton, or of fish which

is not very salty, and once they are ground put in a quarter [ounce]

of ground ginger.  If the sauce is well ground, it is not necessary to

strain it, but just thin it with one of the abovementioned broths, and

if the walnuts were dried, let them be soaked in cold water, until

they soften again, and can be cleaned.  With the abovementioned

sauce, you can grind a little bit of turnip, or of crisp-leaved cabbage

well-cooked in good meat broth, if it is a day for it.

 

Redaction:

 

                    *  Exported from  MasterCook  *

 

                 Garlic Sauce with Walnuts and Almonds

 

Recipe By     : Diego Granado

Serving Size  : 24   Preparation Time :0:00

Categories    : Sauces                           Spanish

 

Amount  Measure       Ingredient -- Preparation Method

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

   6      ounces        walnuts

   4      ounces        almonds, blanched

   4      ounces        bread -- crusts removed

   1/4  ounce         ground ginger

   1 1/2  cloves        garlic cloves

   1-2      cups         lamb broth

 

Soak the nuts in cold water overnight, or at least several hours.  

Drain, and grind finely in a food processor.  Add the bread soaked

in broth, ginger and garlic.  Blend until smooth.  If necessary, add

more broth and/or water to adjust the consistency of the sauce.  

Makes about 3 cups.

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

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain

Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

 

 

Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2000 15:20:10 -0500 (EST)

From: Jenne Heise <jenne at mail.browser.net>

Subject: Re: SC - Sauces

 

> >Any other sauces that anyone would recommend with pork? We'll be

> >roasting it with garlic and not much else - it was scrumptious last

> >year under a different Kitchen Steward, who's now out of the country.

 

When we ran the taste-test for the sauces we used in the dayboard I just

did, we found that all the sauces were good with pork. However, the ones

we liked best with it were the green sauce, the Tournai cameline, the

black (pepper) sauce, and the black grape sauce (best of all! it has that

sweet/sour thing going).

 

Recipes and redactions follow.

- -------

Black Sauce: (3x)

Original: "Black poivre. Crush ginger and charred bread and pepper,

moisten with vinegar and verjuice, and boil (The Viander of

Taillevent,edited by Scully, 227, translated in The Medieval Kitchen,

Redon et al.)"

   6 slices dark bread, burnt (I used rye with caraway)

   Equal parts cider vinegar and cider (1c.?) approximation for verjuice

   1 c. wine vinegar

   6 Tb pepper

   4 1/2 Tbsp powdered ginger

   3 tsp salt

Crush up the charred bread into bread crumbs, grind up the pepper (use

fresh-ground) and mise with powdered ginger. Mix this with the vinegars

and add salt. Bring to a boil in a saucepan. Remove from heat. Keeps at

least a week refrigerated.

- -----

Black-Grape Sauce

Original: "Grape Sauce: Take good black grapes and crush them very well

into a  bowl, breaking in a bread or half a bread depending on the

quantity you wish to prepare; and add a little good verguice or vinegar so

that the grapes will not be so sweet. And boil these things over the fire

for half an hour, adding cinnamon and ginger and other good spices.

(Maestro Martino, Libro de arte coquinaria, 155, translated in The

Medieval Kitchen, Redon et al.)"

   3/4 to 1 lb black grapes

   1 slice bread (I used rye with caraway)

   3 tbsp red wine vinegar

   1 1/2 tsp ground cassia

   1/2 tsp real cinnamon

   1 blade mace

   5-10 pods cardamom

   1 tsp ground ginger

   long pepper to taste

   trace of nutmeg

Buy seedless black grapes. Strip them from the bunches and wash them. In a

food processor, process until you get a thick mash. Pour into a pot, add

breadcrumbs and vinegar (depending on how sweet the grapes are, you may

need more or less vinegar). Bring to a boil and add spices. Boil for half

an hour: it will be thick and dark purple/magenta. Cool and serve. Keeps

for at least a week refrigerated.

 

- ----

Tournai-style Cameline sauce (3x)

 

<snip - See the file camilne-sauce-msg. - Stefan>

 

- ---

Tournai-style Cameline sauce (3x)

 

<snip - See the file camilne-sauce-msg. - Stefan>

--

Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise              jenne at tulgey.browser.net

 

 

Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 18:48:33 -0500

From: harper at idt.net

Subject: Re: SC - Cider Sauce, Arte de Cozina

 

And it came to pass on 30 Nov 00, , that lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:

> I plan to serve Robin's Cider Sauce with Roast Pork Loin - about 35

> lb for 80 people - in the Second Course.

 

Warning, Will Robinson!  Danger!  Danger!  I hope you're not

planning to make one huge batch of sauce.  The cider sauce really

has to be made in small batches.  You can double the recipe (and

it will take about 1-3/4 hours to boil down) but anything more than

that, and you're likely to have problems.  The good news is that it

keeps for weeks in the refrigerator, so you can do a little each day.

 

> I've more-or-less multiplied up the recipe that Robin sent to the

> list, but it sure seems like a lot of sugar and whole nutmegs. Did

> i do my math wrong?

 

I don't think so.  Keep in mind that this is basically a cider jelly.  

You're boiling it down to about half volume, and the sugar provides

the thickening, along with the pectin in the cider.  The vinegar

keeps it from being *too* sweet.  The whole nutmegs are removed

after cooking, and do not flavor the sauce as much as ground

nutmeg would.

> Apple Cider Sauce (Diego Granado, Libro del Arte de Cozina, 1599)

> As redacted by Lady Brighid ni Chiarainmka/Robin Carroll-Mann

> To make 1 cup:

> 2 cups sweet apple cider

> 1/2 lb. sugar

> 1/4 cup white wine vinegar

> 1/8 cup white wine

> 1/2 ounce cinnamon sticks

> 1/2 whole nutmeg

> 4 whole cloves

>

> Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and simmer over medium-low heat

> about 45 minutes, until the volume is reduced by half and a candy

> thermometer reads 220F (105C).  Strain through cheesecloth.  Pour

> into a clean glass jar.  Refrigerate.

>

> My version multiplied by 40, intended to make about 40 cups/10 quarts/2.5 gal.

> 5 gallons sweet apple cider

> 20 lb. sugar (1 lb per 4 people?!?)

> 2-1/2 quarts white wine vinegar

> 5 cups white wine

> 1 lb cinnamon sticks

> 20 whole nutmegs

> 160 whole cloves

>

> This just doesn't look right to me... Help!

 

Ummm... are you really planning to make 1/2 cup per person?  It's

strongly-flavored stuff, and a little goes a long way.  I wouldn't serve

more than 1/4 cup per person.

 

> Thanks - the Feast is on Sunday December 10,

 

If you have not already planned to do this: start now.  Make small

batches, perhaps a double batch on each burner, or farm some of

them out to co-cooks.  Once cooled, they can be dumped into a

larger container in the fridge.  Do *not* try to do a giant batch; it will

take forever or a little longer.  If any of the sauce starts to

crystalize and become grainy, you can treat it like honey -- nuke it,

or place a jar in a pot of hot water until it clears up.

 

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain

Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

 

 

Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 22:52:08 -0800

From: lilinah at earthlink.net

Subject: SC - Cider Sauce Experiments

 

Robin Carroll-Mann shared her recipe for Spanish cider sauce with the list:

 

CIDER SAUCE

Source: Diego Granado, Libro del Arte de Cozina, 1599

Translation & Redaction: Lady Brighid ni Chiarain

 

Apple Cider Sauce

2 cups sweet apple cider

8 ounces sugar

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons white wine

1/2 ounce   cinnamon sticks

1/2 whole nutmeg

4 whole cloves

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and simmer over medium-low heat

about 45 minutes, until the volume is reduced by half and a candy

thermometer reads 220F (105C).  Strain through cheesecloth.  Pour

into a clean glass jar.  Refrigerate.  Makes about 1 cup.

 

=====================

 

What i did:

 

1.) Being an American without a kitchen scale, i consulted "The Joy

of Cooking" which said that 1 pound of sugar equaled approx. 2 cups.

 

2.) Although apples grow here in northern California, i do not live

in a fresh cider area. Yes, they sell it around here, and i found it

for around 8 dollars a gallon. To make enough sauce i needed 2.5

gallons and $20 dollars was more than i wanted to spend for the

sauce, considering i had already purchased about $60 spices. So i am

cheating. I bought a frozen natural unsweetened apple juice

concentrate, which makes a gallon for under $4.

 

3.) Where i was shopping the white wine vinegar was only in little

bottles, so it was mongo expensive, but there was a big bottle of

champagne vinegar that was reasonable, so i got that. More suitable

than red wine vinegar, i reasoned.

 

4.) As for wine, i am an ignoramus. But i found a 2 liter bottle of

white Chardonnay for $8, so what the hey... I tasted it before using

it and it was definitely drinkable, not bad even.

 

EXPERIMENT ONE

enough concentrate to make one quart of juice

1/2 as much water as needed to reconstitute

2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup champagne vinegar

1/4 cup white wine

1 oz cassia sticks - yes i know they taste different than true

cinnamon, which is much more delicious

1 whole nutmeg, cut in quarters

8 whole cloves

 

I put them all together in a pan, brought to a simmer and cooked

until reduced by half. I think i was cooking on too low a fire, so

for the last, uh, i don't know, maybe 1/2 hour or 45 min, i brought

the heat up to a faster simmer, but not a rolling boil. I don't own a

candy thermometer, so i gauged by feel - the liquid was definitely

thickened, and i measured it until it was reduced to 2 cups. This

took about two hours. I didn't stand over the pot, just went in and

stirred every 15 min. or so until near the end, when i checked every

five minutes or so, then stood there for the last 10 minutes of

cooking. I removed the spices, but did not strain, as the sauce is

clear. Then I cooled it, 2 cups worth.

 

It is the color of cherry amber. It never jelled, not even in the

fridge - probably pectin was removed in the commercial processing -

but it is a VERY thick syrup. The flavor is interesting - the wine

and wine vinegar help cut the sweetness of the juice and sugar and

add a nice fruity tang. There is a clear flavor of spices, although

i'd like them stronger, and of apple.

 

EXPERIMENT TWO

Same ingredients as Experiment One, except i fully reconstituted the

juice and kept the fire higher during the process. It took only a

little longer, because i had the heat higher. But even though i

reduced it by half, it was more liquid than the first batch. It is a

moderately thick syrup. It seems sweeter than the first, although

with a slightly stronger spice flavor.

 

Although this is probably not what the Spanish made and may not be as

delicious as sauce made from fresh cider, it is very good. I think it

will be a success.

 

Well, just 4 more potsful to go. This time i'll have two pots going

at once in two sessions. Gee, this is easy :-)

 

Thanks Robin/ Lady Brighid

 

Anahita

 

 

Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2000 12:10:55 -0600

From: "Michael F. Gunter" <michael.gunter at fnc.fujitsu.com>

Subject: non-member submission - Re: SC - Cider Sauce Experiments

 

I also have experimented with the Cider sauce for a Birthday party for

the Baron of Bryn Madoc (it wasn't

really his birthday, but it is his perogative to have a party whenever

he wishes <g>).  IT came out quite nicely,

and I'll offer my comments along with these.  I made a double batch that

came out to two liquid US cups (16 fl. ounces).

 

My recipe:

4 cups sweet apple cider (plain store brand stuff . . . Thrifty Maid)

1 lb. sugar

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1/3 cup dry hard cider (Woodchuck Granny Smith Apple)

1 ounce cinnamon sticks (zeylanicum)

1 whole nutmeg (cut into 8 pieces)

8 whole cloves

 

1) I used a kitchen scale for everything, so cannot speak to volumes

except that 2 cups to the pound (US measure) is pretty much standard.

 

2) I thought that apple cider vinegar would be even more appropriate,

though I just have used white wine vinegar if that was all that was on hand.

 

3) For wine, I figured a white would be better, but I didn't have one

in house.  SO, I used the hard cider.  I believe it was Woddchuck Granny Smith Apple.  It was a little fizzy, so I let it go flat in the heated pan before use.  That way I got the full measure.  It changed the original recipe, but came out quite nice.  For a white grape based wine, I suggest one not bone dry that has some fruity character left to it.

 

4) I used zeylanicum sticks for cinnamon.  they tended to splinter in

the boil, but they  were all strained out at the end anyway.  The character was noticeable in the sauce . . .bright, sweet and spicy rather than the

darker, earthier taste the cassia would tend to add.

 

5) My boil was as high as I could get and not get a boilover.  I was

impatient, and also wanted to add a little

caramalization in the boil.  I also did not use a candy thermometer as

that would not have been available to them.

It took about 70 minutes to get the half volume.  If I had done a single

batch in the same pan, I figure the time

would have cut down a bit.  A saucier would be even better with the

shallower and wider configuration . . . more

surface area to evaporate.  More stirring toward the end so it didn't

stick and scorch.  I just went until it looked to be half and was syrupy

on my wooden spoon.

 

6) I strained it through a cheesecloth to get the spices out.  Lost

some of the sauce to the cloth, but not so much

that it was worth crying over.  It did give me a less 'chunky' product.

Nutmeg was chopped, cinnamon broke up and the cloves did a little as

well. I got the same cherry amber color reported by others.  It did not

jell, but certainly was thickened and syrupy.   Had I used a fresh

pressed cider, I suspect a little more thickening from pectins.  Though

maybe not whole lot more.  I plan to try that soon . . . North GA has

great ciders available.  I'll also play with the sugar/vinegar

proportions to see what they do to the consistency and flavor.

 

The sweet/sour flavor was nicely punctuated by the bright spicing of the

zeylanicum and other spices.  Breaking up the nutmeg, I believe made a

big difference.  Grating it all down may have been too much, so I'm

going to stick with the broken up.  The apple flavor I got was very

clearly there.  Maybe the cder instead of wine helped that a little.

The leftovers are aging nicely in the fridge.  I plan to use it to

marinade a pork loin roast overnight and then slow grill this weekend .

. . lucious visions are jumping in my taste buds.

 

<<<<<<<<<I should point out that I don't know if my redaction with fresh

cider

is exactly what the Spanish made.  Granado says to start out with

whole unpeeled apples and crush them.  Then let the juice stand

and take the clearer part.  I don't know if apples treated this way

would result in something closer to cider or to filtered apple juice --

perhaps something in the middle.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Modern and even historical Cider is made by pulping the apple in a sort

of monster toothed roller item and then piling it into a cheesecloth (the pulp is called cheese!) and pressed for cider.  We press ours in house by

freezing the apples whole until rock solid, thaw them out and press with

12 ton hydraulic press.  the freezing makes them almost mush in the skins.  We get nigh on 85% juice out of the apple.  the rest is a dried out hull.

 

I want to thank Brighid for making this available.  I needed a fruit

sauce to play with during the holdays, and this is a grand one so far.  It was quite popular for the crowd who had it.

 

niccolo difrancesco

 

 

Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 19:22:07 –0400

From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" rcmann4 at earthlink.net

Subject: Re: Dansk kogebog A: haerrae salsae (was: SC - On topic)

 

On 17 Apr 01,, UlfR wrote:

> I recently got my hands on a (borrowed) copy of Veirups "Til taffel hos Kong

> Valdemar" (Systime A/S, Viborg, Denmark, 1994). This is supposedly the

> oldest surviving European cookbook (dated to 1300). Any comments?

>

> In particular I'm looking at the camelina recipie (though it calles it

> "hÊrrÊ salsÊ" -- "lords sauce" -- it is to my mind pretty clearly a

> camelina). Apart from the usual camelina spices (cloves, nutmeg, pepper,

> cinnamon, and ginger) it also has cardamons. Has anyone seen that in any

> other camelina recipie?

 

The Catalan "Libre de Sent Sovi" has a recipe, not for cameline sauce, but for "Polvora de Duch".  It contains 1/2 oz. cinnamon, 3/4 oz. ginger, and 1/4 oz. total of cloves, nutmeg, galingale, and cardamon.  This is mixed with a pound of sugar.  It is the only mention of cardamon in that cookbook.

 

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain

Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

 

 

Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 14:36:18 -0500 (CDT)

From: "Pixel, Queen of Cats" <pixel at hundred-acre-wood.com>

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Need the wording for Garlic Jance

 

On Mon, 4 Jun 2001, Olwen the Odd wrote:

> So it goes well with pork eh?  How about whole roasted pig?  That's pork.  I

> may make up a batch of this for Pennsic.

> Olwen

 

For that matter, Sauce piquant, ostensibly for bunnies, from Du fait de

cuisine, is really quite tasty on pork. Better on bunny, but good on pork.

 

Margaret FitzWilliam

 

 

Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 12:56:22 +0200

From: tgl at mailer.uni-marburg.de

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] blue food

 

<< Here is a blue sauce from Epulario (Falconwood Press edition.  Anyone

have the original?):

"To make a skie colour sauce in summer.  Take wild mulberies which grow

in the Hedges, and a few stamped Almonds with a little Ginger, temper

all this with Veriuice and straine it." >>

 

"Per fare sapore celestro nel tempo de estate.

PJglia de le more saluatiche che nascono nelle fratte: & vn poco de

mandole bene piste con vno puoco de gengeuere: & queste cose

distemprarai con agresto: & passaralo per la stamegna."

(Opera noua chiamata Epulario ... Venetia 1518, xx)

 

Here is a Maestro Martino version:

 

"Sapor celeste de estate.

Piglia de li moroni salvatiche che nascono in le fratte, et un poche

de amandole ben piste, con un pocho di zenzevero. Et queste

cose distemperarai con agresto et passarale per la stamegnia."

(Faccioli 156; the other Martino versions are slightly different)

 

Th.

 

 

From: "ruadh" <ruadh at home.com>

To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] blue food

Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 09:58:26 -0400

 

> I *think* it's Barbara Santich's book that lists the blue sauce, and says

> it's a "lovely midnight-blue jelly", but that recipe calls for American

> blackberries. Which, if nothing else, are not in season and not easily

> available frozen around here. Even if I were going to use her redaction,

> which I'm not.

> Margaret, who has the other colors pretty much figured out

 

103. Summertime Cerulean Blue Sauce

Sky-blue sauce for summer

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/706842.html

 

Take some of the wild blackberries that grow in hedgerows and some

thoroughly pounded almonds, with a little ginger. And moisten these things

with verjuice and strain through a sieve.

Toward the end of summer, when blackberries are at their best, this cerulean

blue sauce will add zest to your September meat dinners. The pectin in the

berries helps the sauce set to a lovely midnight-blue jelly that is a visual

foil and a delicious accompaniment to white meats such as veal and chicken.

1 quart (1 liter) blackberries

1/3 cup (50 g) unblanched almonds

2/3 cup verjuice, or a mixture of two parts cider vinegar to one part water

1/4-inch slice ginger, peeled

salt

Puree the blackberries in a food processor or food mill, and strain the

juice, pressing to extract as much liquid as possible. In a mortar or in a

blender, grind the almonds and ginger, then mix with the blackberry juice.

Contact with the air will turn the mixture a dark blue.

   Add the verjuice and strain once more. Season with salt to taste.

 

 

From: "Irmele von Gruensberg" <irmele at thebartholomews.com>

To: "Sca-Cooks" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 21:16:40 -0700

Subject: [Sca-cooks] yellow sauce

 

I just made Yellow Sauce (Poivre Jaunet or Aigret) as redacted

from Menagier de Paris in The Medieval Kitchen (recipe 109).  It

was good but I didn't really know what to expect.

 

The sauce is quite yellow and has strong flavor of saffron, but I

may have overdone it a bit -- it's so hard to tell because the

quality varies. The ginger gives a bite but the flavor is well

balanced by the saffron and white wine vinegar, once I added

about 25% more vinegar (it was too bland at first tasting).

 

Irmele

 

 

From: lilinah at earthlink.net

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 16:55:12 -0700

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Subject: [Sca-cooks] Seville Orange Juice

 

There's a 16th c. recipe for Seville Orange Juice Sauce, in Marx

Rumpolt's Ein New Kochbuch, that calls for the fresh juice of

Sauerpomeranzen (Seville oranges), sugar, and cinnamon, uncooked. I'd

like to serve it with roast pork legs at the Boar Hunt Feast.

However, fresh Seville Oranges are hard to find any time of year. I

have seen them at a local market, but they are only briefly

available, and aren't around now.

 

Anyone have any idea what I can use instead?

 

I have thought of:

diluted strained orange marmalade (since it's made of Seville oranges)

fresh orange juice and fresh grapefruit juice mixed

fresh orange juice in which orange peels have been soaked

 

Thanks for any suggestions,

Anahita

 

 

From: "Karen O" <kareno at lewistown.net>

To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] HELP!!!!

Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 17:06:04 -0600

 

   Gyric asked:

> I'm trying to cook Venison Medalions, and I need a recipe that comes with

> a heavy gravy/brown sauce.

 

   I have an answer, only coz I've been looking for sauces to accompany

venison as well.  _Pleyn Delit_ has 2 such entries:   "Venysoun Y-roste with

Piper Sauce" and "Steykys of Venison or Bef"  {# 71 & 72 respectively}

Basically pepper & cinnamon sauce(s).

 

       Caointiarn

 

 

Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 16:53:22 -0500

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

From: "Cindy M. Renfrow" <cindy at thousandeggs.com>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re:  medieval xmas foods, was: Computers

 

> ObFoodContent: what medieval food can be discretely introduced into

> modern christmas dinners?

 

I'm sneaking in 'Pikkyll pour le Mallard'  - fried spiced onions - to go

with the chicken condon bleu & rice.

 

Harleian MS. 4016

36 Pikkyll pour le Mallard.  Take oynons, and hewe hem small, and fry hem

in fressh grece, and caste hem into a potte, And fressh broth of beef,

Wyne, & powder of peper, canel, and dropping of the mallard/  And lete hem

boile togidur awhile; And take hit fro [th]e fyre, and caste thereto

mustard a litul, And pouder of ginger, And lete hit boile no more, and salt

hit, And serue it forthe with [th]e Mallard.

 

Cindy

 

 

From: "Ann and Les" <sheltons at sysmatrix.net>

To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 23:42:54 -0500

Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Fennel

 

There is a simple sauce recipe in the "Cuoco Napoletano" that uses fennel as

an ingredient.  I did a redaction for a University class I taught on Sauces.

People liked it well enough that it was one of the three sauces I sent to

feed the 600 folks at Atlantian 20 Year.

 

119. Verjuice With Garlic

 

Get a little garlic, fresh fennel and basil, grind this with a little pepper

and distemper it with good verjuice.

 

John le Burguillun

 

 

From: "Generys ferch Ednuyed" <generys at blazemail.com>

To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Hot Peppers

Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 11:56:15 -0400

 

>>> 

> Yeah, I made a ginger/pepper/garlic sauce for the feast I did yesterday

> (full report to come as soon as I get the pictures webbed)... anyway, due to

> something of a heavy hand when I was making it, it turned out basically

> like ginger wasabi - thick, good, but HOT... :-)

> Generys

 

> was that the brown stuff served with the lamb, etc? it was really

> tasty, but, yes, *very* hot!

> -Irmgart

 

Recipe, please?

 

Phlip

<<< 

I used to have documentation written up for this, but I lost it when my laptop got stolen - it is a mostly period recipe, I just can't tell you the original until I find it again - I'm ALMOST sure it was in the Medieval Kitchen though - unfortunately I haven't seen that book in my house for  a few months, so...

 

However, my redaction was:

 

Take 3 medium bulbs of garlic, and 1 stem of fresh ginger (about 6  inches worth?) - peel both, and place in Cuisinart (my newest cooking toy, I LOVE that thing...). Process until almost pureed.  Add 1/4 cup or so fresh ground pepper (I ground mine in a molcajete, so it was very coarsely ground -  which gave the sauce an interesting texture) 2 handfuls of bread crumbs (I have small hands, if that helps), about 3 ounces of red wine vinegar, and  some olive oil, continue to process until it makes a thick sauce - it was  about the consistency of commercial horseradish, just without the tendency to separate.  Warning - this stuff WILL be very, very, hot.  It's kind of like Wasabi made from ginger, lol.

 

 

Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 13:15:06 -0400

From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Hot Peppers

 

Generys ferch Ednuyed wrote:

> I used to have documentation written up for this, but I lost it when my

> laptop got stolen - it is a mostly period recipe, I just can't tell you the

> original until I find it again - I'm ALMOST sure it was in the Medieval

> Kitchen though - unfortunately I haven't seen that book in my house  

> for a few months, so... However, my redaction was:

> Take 3 medium bulbs of garlic, and 1 stem of fresh ginger (about 6  

> inches worth?) -

 

How about the Garlic Sauce recipe 99 from

The Medieval Kitchen?

 

Garlic sauce for all meats: take the garlic and cook it in the

embers, then pound it thoroughly and add raw garlic and crumbs of bread

and sweet spices, and broth; and mix everything together and boil

it a little and serve hot. Source is Libro di Cucina del Secolo XIV.

Their adaptation calls for ginger, cinnamon, and cloves.

 

Johnnae llyn Lewis   Johnna Holloway

 

 

Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 13:42:33 -0400

From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Hot Peppers

 

Generys ferch Ednuyed wrote:

> That doesn't sound like it, because I remember the recipe specified the

> bread was supposed to be toasted until black... :-(

> Generys

 

It's this one then.  number 108 Black Sauce

Black Poivre. Crush ginger and charred bread and peppers, moisten

with vinegar and verjuice and boil.  This one is from Scully's  

Viandier.

 

I didn't consider it a possibility as it didn't include the garlic and  

The other did.

 

Johnnae llyn Lewis

 

 

From: "Generys ferch Ednuyed" <generys at blazemail.com>

To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Hot Peppers

Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 13:44:32 -0400

 

Yep, that's it - when I first used this recipe, I think I had another

similar recipe that did include both garlic and ginger, and was kind of

combining the two... not the greatest of documentation, I know, but it  

did taste good...

 

Generys

 

 

Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 14:16:22 -0400 (EDT)

From: <jenne at fiedlerfamily.net>

To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Hot Peppers

 

> Yep, that's it - when I first used this recipe, I think I had another

> similar recipe that did include both garlic and ginger, and was kind of

> combining the two... not the greatest of documentation, I know, but it  

> did taste good...

>> It's this one then   number 108 Black Sauce

>> Black Poivre. Crush ginger and charred bread and peppers, moisten

>> with vinegar and verjuice and boil. This one is  from Scully's

>> Viandier.

 

Well, except the other one might have been:

 

Sauce alapeuere. Take fayre broun brede, toste hit, and stepe it in

vinegre, and drawe it (th)urwe a straynour; and put (th)er-to garleke  

smal y-stampyd, poudre piper, salt, & serue forth.

from Ashmole MS. 1439

 

In which case, I think it's not unreasonable to combine the two.

 

-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa   jenne at fiedlerfamily.net

 

 

From: "Barbara Benson" <vox8 at mindspring.com>

To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 12:12:05 -0400

Subject: [Sca-cooks] (was hot peppers) now de Nola freaks - Horseradish

 

156. PARSLEY

 

PEREJIL

 

You must take the parsley and remove the roots, and strip off the leaves very well and clean it; and grind those leaves a great deal in a mortar; and after it is well-ground, toast a crustless piece of bread, and soak it in white vinegar, and grind it with the parsley; and after it is  well-ground, cast a little pepper into the mortar, and mix it well with the parsley  and the bread. And then cast in honey, which should be melted, in the mortar, stirring constantly in one direction until the honey incorporates itself with the sauce in the mortar; and if the sauce should be very thick, thin it with a little watered vinegar, so that it should not be very sour; and having done that, take two smooth pebbles from the sea or river, and  cast them in the fire; and when they shall be quite ruddy and red, cast them  with some tongs in the mortar in such a manner that they are quenched there;  and when all this is done, taste it for flavor. And make it in such a manner that it tastes a little of pepper, and a little sweet-sour, and of  parsley; and if any of these things is lacking, temper [the dish] with it.

 

 

157. Sauce of Horseradish and of Clary Sage

 

SALSA DE RABANO VEXISCO Y DE GALLOCRESTA

 

In the same manner as the parsley, you can also make sauce from the root of the horseradish. And the same from the leaves of clary sage.

 

Serena da Riva

freaky on just about everything

 

 

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 16:15:20 -0400

From: "Phi Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius at verizon.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Summer is Here

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 

On Monday, June 30, 2003, at 11:11  AM, Huette von Ahrens wrote:

> What sauce book is this?

 

Opusculum [de] Saporibus, I assume. IIRC, early 14th Century Milanese.

Maynero de Milano, or something close to that, the author... Sculy has

an article about this, and there's also a good, but much older, article

in Speculum from, I think, 1939, called, "A Medieval Sauce-book". It

might not be hyphenated. That article also contains a loose translation

from Latin.

 

Adamantius

 

 

Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 09:48:56 -0400 (EDT)

From: jenne at fiedlerfamily.net

To: sca-east at indra.com

Subject: [EK] sauces/spreads from war camp

 

A couple people asked me for the recipes for this stuff, so here they are.

 

Dilled cream cheese: <see spreads-msg –Stefan>

 

Sauce for Pigeons (the salsa stuff):

Original:

Sauce for Peiouns.  Take percely, oynouns, garleke, and salt, and mynce

smal the percely and the oynouns, and grynde the garleke, and temper it

with vynegre y-now; and mynce the rostid peiouns and cast the sauce

ther-on a-boute, and serve it forth.

(Ashmole M.S. 1479, quoted in Take a Thousand Eggs by Cindy Renfrow)

 

    * Snip parsley leaves from 3 large bunches off stems (I used a mixture

of curly and flat parsley).

    * Grind about 3 cups of leaves in a food processor until seriously

minced; remove from food processor.

    * Cut up about 4 medium onions into chunks and mince in food

processor.

    * Add a handful of peeled garlic cloves.

    * Remove and mix with minced parsley.

    * Add red wine vinegar (about a cup) and mix so that the result is

moist with vinegar and salsa-like in texture.

(Can be made the night before and refrigerated. Should be let stand at

least 1/2 hour before serving in any case.)

 

Brown Mustard from Rumpolt:

 

Cinnamon Mustard:

 

<see mustards-msg –Stefan>

 

Tournai-Style Cameline:

 

<see camelne-sauce-msg - Stefan>

 

Spicy Green Sauce (the pesto-like stuff):

<see green-sauces-msg -Stfan>

 

Prune Sauce:

 

Original: "Take prunes and put them to soak in red wine and remove the

pits, pound them very well with a few unskinned almonds and a little

roasted or grilled bread soaked in the wine where the prunes had been. And

pound all these things together with a little verjuice and the

abovementioned wine, and a little boiled grape must, or sugar, which would

be much better; mix and strain, adding good spices, especially cinnamon."

 

1 lb prunes, soaked in burgundy wine to cover. (about 3 cups)

2-3 tablespoons ground unskinned almonds

one slice of toasted bread

1/2 cup water with a few teaspoons lemon juice (fake verjuice)

2-3 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

long pepper, ginger and cardamom to taste

 

Soak the prunes, run them through a food processor, and add the bread, the

almonds, the wine and the water. Food process some more. Add sugar and

spices. Strain.

 

Black pepper sauce:

riginal: "Black poivre. Crush ginger and charred bread and pepper, moisten

with vinegar and verjuice, and boil (The Viander of Taillevent,edited by

Scully, 227, translated in The Medieval Kitchen, Redon et al.)"

    * 6 slices dark bread, burnt (I used rye with caraway)

    * Equal parts cider vinegar and cider (1c.?) approximation for

verjuice

    * 1 c. wine vinegar

    * 6 Tb pepper

    * 4 1/2 Tbsp powdered ginger

    * 3 tsp salt

Crush up the charred bread into bread crumbs, grind up the pepper (use

fresh-ground) and mix with powdered ginger. Mix this with the vinegars

and add salt. Bring to a boil in a saucepan. Remove from heat. Keeps at

least a week refrigerated.

 

-- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika

 

 

Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 12:38:00 -0400

From: "Sayyida Halima al-Shafi'i of Raven's Cove" <lkuney at ec.rr.com>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] galantyne, was galangale

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

 

Galantyne is a sauce made from vinegar thickened with bread crumbs and

flavored with galangale, ginger and cinnamon.  I used red wine vinegar,

red wine, and some stock, as it was sharper than modern tastes are

accustomed to consuming.

 

Halima al-Shafi'i

Stronghold of Raven's Cove

 

 

Date: Sat, 5 Jun 2004 17:09:54 -0700

From: lilinah at earthlink.net

Subject: [Sca-cooks] Swallenberg Sauce

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

 

Quite a long time ago, we discussed here

Swallenberg Sauce from "daz Buch von guter Spise".

 

It seems that there was an error in the

translation in a version of the a recipe commonly

available on the Internet, one which many of us

cooks have perpetuated. In fact, i did it myself.

 

I would like to correct the error on my website.

That is, while i cannot change what i did at a

feast a few years ago, i'd like to add a

corrected translation and some notes.

 

However, with the death of my hard drive in

February, all my personal archives are lost,

including about 5 years of messages from this

list... so i can't find our previous discussion.

Here i am sort of resurrecting it - albeit we no

doubt have some different listees now.

 

Hee's a version of original recipe:

49. Ein gut salse

Nim win und honigsaum. setze daz uf daz fiur und

laz ez sieden. und tu dar zu gestozzen ingeber me

denne pfeffers. stoz knobelauch. doch niht al zu

vil und mach ez stark. und ruerez mit eyer

schinen. lazez sieden biz daz ez [word in

dispute: brünnien (Atlas) brinnen (Adamson)]

beginne. diz sal man ezzen in kaldem wetere und

heizzet swallenberges salse.

(Alia Atlas, http://cs-people.bu.edu/akatlas/Buch/recipes.html )

(Melitta Weiss Adamson, page 77 (see blow for ref.)

 

Here's the Atlas translation:

49. A good sauce.

Take wine and honey. Set that on the fire and let

it boil. And add thereto pounded ginger more than

pepper. Pound garlic, but not all too much, and

make it strong and give it impetus with egg

whites. Let it boil until it begins to become

brown. One should eat this in cold weather and is

called Swallenberg sauce.

 

Here's the Adamson translation:

49. A good sauce.

Take wine and honey, put that on the fire, let it

boil, and add ground ginger more than pepper.

Pound garlic, not too much, however, make it

strong, and stir with a stick. Let it boil until

it starts smoking. This you should eat in cold

weather, and is called Sauce a la Swallenberg.

 

The two biggest differences, beyond mere turn of phrase are:

(1) Original: und ruerez mit eyer schinen

(1a) Atlas: and give it impetus with egg whites.

(1b) Adamson: and stir with a stick.

 

The first (1) changes the ingredients.

 

(2) Original, Atlas: laz ez sieden biz daz ez brunnien beginne.

Original, Adamso: laz ez sieden biz daz es brinnen beginne.

(2a) Atlas: Let it boil until it begins to become brown.

(2b) Adamson: Let it boil until it starts smoking.

 

The second (2) changes the cooking. Atlas appears

to have changed the first "i" to a "u", which

seems o change the meaning of the German word.

Adamson acknowledges removing the "i" in the

second syllable. However, in Adamson footnote 26,

page 103, that Lemmer/Schultz, 65, translate

"brinnien" as "glasig werden", a term used for

fried onions or garlic justbefore they turn

golden brown. This looks to me like "becomes

glassy", i.e., translucent... Or am i way off

here, German speakers? Anyway, based on the foot

note in Adamson, i would cook it as Atlas

recommends.

 

So, ultimately, it appears to me that some

combined version of the two is more accurate -

leaving out the egg white (which made the sauce

an interesting green color, but otherwise didn't

seem to alter it exceedingly) and NOT bringing it

to the stage where it "smokes" - unless "smoking"

here implies that one can see vapors escaping...

 

What think you all?

 

Anahita

 

--- Bibliographic Reference ---

Melitta Weiss Adamson

Daz bouch von gouter spise (The Book of Good Food)

A Study, Edition, and English Translation of the Oldest German Cookbook

Medium Aevu Quotidianum

Herausgegaeben von Gerhard Jaritz

Sonderband IX

Krems (Oesterrich) 2000

ISBN 3-90 1094 12 1

 

Purchased from Devra of Poison Pen Press

 

 

Date: Sun, 08 Aug 2004 08:19:30 -0700

From: "Laura C. Minnick" <lcm at jeffnet.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pork ribs

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 

> So, since BBQ sauce isn't period, what are your recommendations on pork

> ribs? (besides the ubiquitous cameline sauce)

 

Try Poivre Jaunet. I made some last February for Regina's birthday party

(She yurend 57, so we had steaks and a variety of sauces!).

 

You can find it at http://www.godecookery.com/goderec/grec67.htm USE THE

PERIOD RECIPE not the redaction. Read them through and you'll know why.

 

Make it up a day or two ahead. It can pack a punch, but the flavors mellow

and blend a bit after a day or so and it is really, really good. I think it

would be delicious on your ribs! (But be sure to take your tunic off before

putting it on your ribs... uh... well...

 

Move along, Gracie...

 

'Lainie

 

 

Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2004 12:21:35 -0400

From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"

        <adamantius.magister at verizon.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pork ribs

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 

Also sprach Laura C. Minnick:

>> So, since BBQ sauce isn't period, what are your recommendations on  

>> pork ribs? (besides the ubiquitous cameline sauce)

> Try Poivre Jaunet. I made some last February for Regina's birthday

> party (She yurend 57, so we had steaks and a variety of sauces!).

> You can find it at http://www.godecookery.com/goderec/grec67.htm USE

> THE PERIOD RECIPE not the redaction. Read them through and you'll

> know why.

> Make it up a day or two ahead. It can pack a punch, but the flavors

> mellow and blend a bit after a day or so and it is really, really

> good. I think it would be delicious on your ribs! (But be sure to

> take your tunic off before putting it on your ribs... uh... well...

 

I can attest to the poivre jaunet kicking butt. I made it with white

wine vinegar as the basis for a veal stew, as Taillevent speaks of

veal in yellow pepper sauce but doesn't say how to make it as a

fusion dish, so to speak). Mine was probably less tangy than

'Lainie's appears to be, but this is presumably due to dilution with

veal broth.

 

My favorite sauce for things like this is the Rich Pepper Sauce found

in the 13th-century Anglo-Norman recipe manuscripts published in

Speculum in, I believe, the 80's, a copy of which, at the moment, I

have inaccessibly buried. It involves grapes pounded in a mortar and

strained to get must, a thickening of fresh white bread crumbs,

ginger, and lots of freshly ground black or long pepper. I don't

recall whether it calls for a pinch of salt but adding one helps.

Initially I made it with frozen grape juice, and that works quite

well, and you can get it to be a rather bright, but deep, purple, and

the sweetness goes well with pork. It's also great with rare venison

cutlets, which are slightly purple anyway...

 

Adamantius

 

 

Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2004 17:49:41 -0400

From: Daniel Myers <edouard at medievalcookery.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pork ribs

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 

On Aug 8, 2004, at 11:07 AM, Patrick Levesque wrote:

> So, since BBQ sauce isn't period, what are your recommendations on pork

> ribs? (besides the ubiquitous cameline sauce)

 

"Carolina" honey-mustard BBQ sauce is period (sort of).

 

Source [Curye on Inglish, Constance B. Hieatt & Sharon Butler (eds.)]:

LUMBARD MUSTARD. XX.VII. V. Take Mustard seed and waishe it & drye it

in an ovene, grynde it drye. farse it thurgh a farse. clarifie hony

with wyne & vynegur & stere it wel togedrer and make it thikke ynowz. &

whan thou wilt spende therof make it tnynne with wyne.

 

- Doc

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

   Edouard Halidai  (Daniel Myers)

   http://www.medievalcookery.com/

 

 

Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2004 18:21:36 -0700 (PDT)

From: Pat <mordonna22 at yahoo.com>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] Pork Ribs

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

 

I'm kinda partial to basting them liberally while roasting with  

Cormarye sauce:

 

Curye on Inglysch p. 109 (Forme of Cury no. 54)

 

Take colyaundre, caraway smale grounden, powdour of peper and garlec  

ygrounde, in rede wyne; medle alle + ise togyder and salt it. Take  

loynes of pork rawe and fle of the skyn, and pryk it wel with a knyf,  

and lay it in the sawse. Roost it whan + ou wilt, & kepe + at fallith +  

erfro in the rostyng and see+ it in a possynet with faire broth, and  

serue it forth wi+ + e roost anoon.

 

My translation:

Take coriander, caraway ground small, powder of pepper and ground  

garlic in red wine.  Mix all this together and salt it.  Take raw loins  

of pork and remove the skin, and prick it well with a knife and lay it  

in the sauce.  Roast it when thou wilt, and save the drippings.  Boil  

the drippings in a pan with good broth and serve it with the roast.

 

My recipe:

 

1 TBS whole coriander seed

1 TBS whole caraway seed

1 TBS minced garlic

1 tsp. Ground black pepper

1 tsp. Salt

2 cups sweet red wine

 

Marinate pork in sauce several hours, or overnight, then baste  

frequently while roasting.  Save the drippings to mix with 2 cups of  

chicken broth.  Boil until reduced by half, and serve with the pork.

 

Pat Griffin

Lady Anne du Bosc

known as Mordonna the Cook

www.mordonnasplace.com

 

 

Date: Sun, 08 Aug 2004 22:40:00 -0400

From Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pork ribs// Rich Pepper Sauce

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:

> My favorite sauce for things like this is the Rich Pepper Sauce found

> in the 13th-century Anglo-Norman recipe manuscripts published in

> Speculum in, I believe, the 80's, a copy of which, at the moment, I

> have inaccessibly buried. It involves grapes pounded in a mortar and

> strained to get must, a thickening of fresh white bread crumbs,

> ginger, and lots of freshly ground black or long pepper. I don't

> recall whether it calls for a pinch of salt but adding one helps.

> Initially I made it with frozen grape juice and that works quite

> well, and you can get it to be a rather bright, but deep, purple, and

> the sweetness goes well with pork. It's also great with rare venison

> cutlets, which are slightly purple anyway...

> Adamantius

 

Rich Pepper Sauce.

A sauce called rich pepper. Take a bunch of grapes and put them in a morta[r] with a little salt; crush the fruit well, then pour off the juice: put ginger

and pepper and a little bread in a mortar and grind well, then mix with the

juice, etc. [etc. here means "and serve it."]  page 876

Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections. Hieatt and Jones. Speculum 61. 1986.

 

Just happened to have it available and at the ready.

 

Johnnae

 

 

Date Sun, 08 Aug 2004 22:56:10 -0400

From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pork ribs// Rich Pepper Sauce

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 

It's late and I can't type well anyway... put it in mortar of course.

It's recipe 19 for those interested in recipe collection A.

Pevre gresse in the original. The notes suggests additional recipes

of like ingredients

in Menagier de Paris, a couple of versions of Le Viandier, and

CI.1.39 which the Diversa Cibaria or Diuersa Cibaria where

recipe 39 is A Sauce (th)at hatte peyuere egresse. It calls for salt by  

the way.

 

Johnnae

 

Johnna Holloway wrote:

 

> RichPepper Sauce.

> A sauce called rich pepper. Take a bunch of grapes and put them

> in a mortat with

 

 

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 16:13:57 -0600

From: "caointiarn" <caointiarn1 at juno.com>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] Pork ribs

To: "Coos within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 

> So, since BBQ sauce isn't period, what are your recommendations on pork

ribs? (besides the ubiquitous camelne sauce)<

 

     Cider Sauce!  from Brighid's or Vincent's translations . . . .yummy

stuff!

 

Apple Cider Sauce (Diego Granado, Libro del Arte de Cozina, 1599)

As redacted by Lady Brighid ni Chiarainmka/Robin Carroll-Mann

To make 1 cup:

2 cups swee apple cider

1/2 lb. sugar

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

1/8 cup white wine

1/2 ounce cinnamon sticks

1/2 whole nutmeg

4 whole cloves

 

  Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and simmer over medium-low heat about

45 minutes, until the volume i reduced by half and a candy thermometer

reads 220F (105C).  Strain through cheesecloth. Pour into a clean glass

jar.  Refrigerate.

 

     Caointiarn

 

 

Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 19:09:20 -0400

From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <rcmann4 at earthlink.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pork ribs

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 

On 9 Aug 2004, at 16:13, caointiarn wrote:

>> So, since BBQ sauce isn't period, what are your recommendations on

>> pork ribs? (besides the ubiquitous cameline sauce)<

>     Cider Sauce!  from Brighid's or Vincent's translations . . .

 

(This particular translation is mine.  Vincente translated de Nola, but I don't

believe he's worked with Granado.)

 

> .yummy stuff!

 

I'm embarrassed that I didn't think of this.  The honey-horseradish

sauce from de Nola would also be a possibility.

http://www.florilegium.org/files/PLANTS/horseradish-msg.text

 

Brighid, who really ought to be sewing or packing or cleaning

 

Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann

Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom

 

 

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 12:02:27 +0000

From: ekoogler1 at comcast.net

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pork ribs

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 

I believe that this is the recipe I tried a couple of years back...it  

was wonderful on pork or chicken.  In fact, it was so good, I bottled  

it and gave it out as Twelfth Night gifts!

 

Kiri

 

>     Cider Sauce!  from Brighid's or Vincent's translations . . . .yummy

> stuff!

>> Apple Cider Sauce (Diego Granado, Libro del Arte de Cozina, 1599)

>> As redacted by Lady Brighid ni Chiarainmka/Robin Carroll-Mann

>> To make 1 cup:

>> 2 cups sweet apple cider

>> 1/2 lb. sugar

>> 1/4 cup white wine vinegar

>> 1/8 cup white wine

>> 1/2 ounce cinnamon sticks

>> 1/2 whole nutmeg

>> 4 whole cloves

>> 

>  Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and simmer over medium-low heat about

> 45 minutes, until the volume is reduced by half and a candy thermometer

> reads 220F (105C).  Strain through cheesecloth.  Pour into a clean glass

> jar.  Refrigerate.

>     Caointiarn

 

 

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 13:51:58 -0400

From: "grizly" <grizly at mindspring.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pork ribs

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 

> I'm embarassed that I didn't think of this. The honey-horseradish sauce from

> de Nola would also be a possibility.

> http://www.florilegium.org/files/PLANTS/horseradish-msg.text

> Brighid, who really ought to be sewing or packing or cleaning

 

You might also look at an olde favorite, Egurdouce.  It makes a mighty fine

basting sauce, and can be used as the marinade ahead of time, then a  serving

sauce afterword.  It would be a bit of variation from original recipe, but

been done before.

 

http://franiccolo.home.mindspring.com/

olde_eng_fest_recipes.html#egurdouce

 

Make the c\sauce and marinate meat.  Grill and capture drippings for sauce

enrichment.  Simmer sauce and serve with meat.

 

niccolo difrancesco

 

 

Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 18:29:33 -0800 (PST)

From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] Sauces, was:  Pillsbury pie crusts

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 

--- Phlip <phlip at 99main.com> wrote:

> Actually, I was thinking of working on emulsions shortly, specificly

> home-made mayonnaise and the Hollandaise family of sauces.

> Anybody got any recipes they'd suggest? I can usually get them right, but I

> still break a few, and I'd like to get it down to perfection...

 

Here is a book that I consider a definitive book on the subject of sauces:

 

Peterson, James.

   Sauces : classical and contemporary sauce

making / James Peterson.  2nd ed.

New York : Van Nostrand Reinhold, c1998.

xxv, 598 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 27 cm.

ISBN: 0442026153

 

It has a huge amount of sauces in one book, it

is easy to read and understand,  I have used it

many times and think it well worth the money.

The first edition of this book received the

James Beard Cookbook of the Year Award for 1991.

 

Huette

 

Here is a review of the book:

 

Back in 1991, when the first edition of Sauces

was published, it's as though James Peterson

said, "Okay, this is what we know so far. Where

do you want to go from here?" The "what we know

so far" part started with the Greeks and Romans,

moved through the Middle Ages, into the

Renaissance, through the 17th and 18th centuries,

and right on into time as we know it, time that

can be tasted in the sauce.

 

The "where do you want to go" part continues to

evolve, as it always will, but remains just as

evident in the way we sauce our creations, both

elegant and fundamental. In the second edition of

Sauces, released seven years after the first, the

"we" has expanded beyond Frenchmen and their

disciples, and now includes the broader range of

flavors experienced by Italians as pasta sauces,

as well as New World cooks and their counterparts

in the Middle East and throughout greater Asia.

The solid base from which all this grows,

however, remains the lessons learned in the

French kitchen--and a better kitchen for such

lessons has never been developed.

 

To cook is one thing, to sauce another. The right

sauce lifts the right dish to a wholly different

plateau of dining than would be the case if the

cook didn't bother. This can be a humble pasta

sauce created as a perfect balance of ingredients

on hand, or a carefully considered sauce the

ingredients of which have been developed at the

stove over days, not mere hours.

 

In the sauce can be seen the reflection of the

cook. There is no room to hide. In the

well-crafted sauce can be found the ultimate

expression of simplicity, which leaves even less

room to hide. It is James Peterson's great talent

that he can draw the home cook and professional

cook into his dialogue on sauces, and teach them

both how to stay afloat in such shallow waters.

 

Peterson gives the reader--in close to 600 pages,

mind you--the continuum on which sauces have been

based in culinary history. He gives the reader

the kitchen science that allows sauces to work.

He gives the reader the techniques necessary to

follow along where many a cook has already

whisked up a splendid creation. But most of all,

he gives the reader permission to go ahead and be

creative, to cut loose with knowledge and

technique in hand and discover for oneself the

way an inkling of a flavor idea can find its way

to a dish and make the combined ingredients lift

off the plate. Or not. Finding out what doesn't

work can be just as important.

 

This is a book that can be taken to bed and

savored, page by page, sauce by sauce. It is a

book that should be on the shelf in any kitchen,

professional or homebody alike. It is not a book

to ever gather dust and need dusting. --Schuyler

Ingle

 

 

Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 16:03:40 EST

From: Bronwynmgn at aol.com

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Gunthar Updates

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

 

ahrenshav at yahoo.com writes:

<<> :Stewd Beef (Short Ribs braised in a broth of onion, currants, red wine,

> vinegar and spices)

> :Sauge or Hen with Sage Sauce (Roasted chicken with a sauce of ginger,

> galingale, cloves, red wine vinegar, sage and topped with hard boiled egg)

 

Both these items use red wine vinegar or red

wine and vinegar.  Since you don't say how much

you are using I am making an assumption, do you

really want two sharp tasting dishes in the same

course?>>

 

Having done Sauge myself, I can vouch for the fact that the use of the sage

and the hard-boiled eggs makes for a VERY different tasting sauce than what you

would get from stewed beef.  They are both sharp, but not sharp in anything

resembling the same way.

 

Brangwayna

 

 

Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 09:14:52 -0800 (PST)

From: Alexa <mysticgypsy1008 at yahoo.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] wine vinegar

To: jenne at fiedlerfamily.net, Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 

--- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise <jenne at fiedlerfamily.net> wrote:

> Hm... can you post the recipe? Then you'll get lots

> of advice... :)

 

Sure! Here it is, and thanks for the help!

Alexa

 

Sauce Alapeuere

PERIOD: England, 15th century | SOURCE: Ashmole MS

1429 | CLASS: Authentic

DESCRIPTION: Pepper and Garlic Sauce

 

ORIGINAL RECEIPT:

Take fayre broun brede, toste hit, and stepe it in

vinegre, and drawe it thurwe a straynour; and put

ther-to garleke smal y-stampyd, poudre piper, salt,

and serue forth.

- Austin, Thomas. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books.

Harleian MS. 279 & Harl. MS. 4016, with extracts from

Ashmole MS. 1429, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS 55. London:

for The Early English Text Society by N. Trübner &

Co., 1888.

 

MODERN RECIPE:

1 C wine vinegar

1/2 C toasted brown bread crumbs

6 or more cloves of garlic, crushed

1/2 tsp salt, or to taste

2 T black pepper, or to taste

 

1. In a bowl combine vinegar, garlic, salt, and pepper.

2. Stir in bread crumbs and allow to sit for about

fifteen minutes. Whisk the sauce to smooth it out. Add

more vinegar if it gets too thick. Serve with meat or fowl.

 

Yields one cup of sauce.

 

NOTES ON THE RECIPE:

This is a strong and easy sauce that goes well with

beef or fowl.

 

 

Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 13:12:17 -0400

From: "Micyalah" <dy018 at freenet.carleton.ca>

Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] OOP Strawberries

To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 

Favourite savoury strawberry sauce (and you can freeze it!).......

 

TATEOM, v.1, pg 206 - thanks Cindy :)

 

Micaylah

 

 

Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 07:58:12 +0100

From: Volker Bach <carlton_bach at yahoo.de>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Apple cider

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 

Am Freitag, 11. November 2005 04:06 schrieb Robin:

> Sheila McClune wrote:

>>  Is apple cider period? How about mulled cider?

>> 

>> Arwen

>>  Outlands

 

> Hard cider is certainly period.  I don't know if sweet (non-alcoholic)

> cider is period.

 

As a cooking ingredient it is - at least in Germany. It features in  

sauce in the Königsberg MS. But I can't prove anyone drank it ATM.

 

Giano

 

 

Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 12:13:47 -0500

From: Robin <rcmann4 at earthlink.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Apple cider

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 

Volker Bach wrote:

>> Hard cider is certainly period.  I don't know if sweet (non-

>> alcoholic) cider is period.

> As a cooking ingredient it is - at least in Germany. It features in  

> sauce in the Königsberg MS. But I can't prove anyone drank it ATM.

> Giano

 

Likewise, there is a recipe for a sauce made with apple juice and spices

in Granado (1599).  Alonso de Herrera's agricultural manual (1551 ed.)

has a section on apple trees.  He says that wine made from apples is

called cider, and that they make a lot of it in Vizcaya (region of

northern Spain).  It is a beverage that quenches thirst well.  He also

comments that sour apples can be used to make vinegar.  No mention of

drinking the unfermented juice.

 

I can't see that it would be a practical beverage.  Unpasturized apple

juice doesn't last long without spoiling or fermenting.  There are

descriptions of keeping apples, packed in straw, in a cool place, but

apples are not a good choice for juicing in small quantities.

 

There are descriptions of spiced honey-water, if someone is looking for

a spiced non-alcoholic beverage, but it is intended to be served cold,

in the summer.

--

Brighid ni Chiarain

Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom

 

 

Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 03:54:55 -0700 (PDT)

From: <tom.vincent at yahoo.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] OOP: Frozen sauces

To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

 

Well, as the subject indicates, it was an OOP discussion.

 

However, the period strawberry sauce I did was from 'Take a Thousand  

Eggs'.

 

Here a brief portion of my docs from many years ago:

 

Strawberry Sauce

Take Strawberries, & wash them in time of year in good red wine; then  

strain though a cloth, & put them in a pot with good Almond milk, mix  

it with White flour or with the flour of Rice, to make it thick and  

let it boil, and put therein Raisins of Corinth, Saffron, Pepper,  

Sugar great plenty, powdered Ginger, Cinnamon, Galingale; point it  

with Vinegar, & a little white grease put thereto; color it with  

Alkanet, & drop it about, plant it with the grains of pomegranate, &  

then serve it forth. < 1 >

- Harleian MS. 279

   (published approx. 1420)

The original recipe, shown above, has no measurements and no timing.  

The medieval chef was assumed to know the proper quantities and  

cooking times.  My adaptation is as follows:

Ingredients

1 lb. frozen strawberries

1 cup red wine

1 cup strained almond milk (1/2 cup blanched almonds, 1 cup water, 1  

T date sugar)

2 T rice flour

1/2 cup currants

dash white pepper

1/2 cup sugar

2 t ginger powder

1 t cinnamon

1/2 t galingale

4 T red wine vinegar

1 T butter

pinch saffron

pomegranate seeds

 

Instructions

 

The almond milk was made according to a medieval recipe < 2 > .

The strawberries, red wine, and almond milk were blended together  

using a blender.  The mixture was brought to a boil in a saucepan,  

then the rice flour was added to thicken.

The currants, red wine vinegar, butter, and spices were added and  

cooked for about 5 minutes.

I decided to serve it over roast chicken in order to show the sauce  

in use.

 

Summary of Ingredients

The almonds, white pepper, galingale, ginger, cinnamon, saffron and  

sugar were quite expensive during the time period.  Each of these  

items came from either a very far distance away (white pepper,  

galingale, ginger, cinnamon, and almonds) or were time-consuming in  

acquiring (saffron and sugar).

Although the original recipe calls for Alkanet, I decided to not add  

it, as it is merely used to give even more of a red color to the  

sauce, and because it can be toxic.

Historical Reference

This recipe came from a collection of recipes written about 1420 in  

England. As the only written recipes from that time period were  

those of royalty or nobility, this collection is thought to have been  

from the chef or chefs of some great family of the time.

Strawberries were mentioned as having been served at a feast in three  

courses in a manuscript dated 1450. < 3 >

Who it was made by

At such a prestigious event as a feast, the chef of the host  

(normally a nobleman, priest, or royalty) would be in charge of the  

preparation.   The mere existence of this recipe, from a 1420  

manuscript, points to the nobility of the dish.

 

1)

Take A Thousand Eggs Or More, Renfrow, pp. 206-207

2)

Take A Thousand Eggs Or More, Renfrow, pp. 222-223

3)

Take A Thousand Eggs Or More, Renfrow, pg. 341

4)

Unless otherwise notes, ingredients descriptions are taken from  

Software Toolworks Multimedia Encyclopedia CD-ROM

5)

Take A Thousand Eggs Or More, Renfrow, pg. 228

6)

Spices and Natural Flavorings, Mulherin, Pg. 78

 

 

Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 22:03:42 -0400

From: Daniel Myers <eduard at medievalcookery.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] OOP: Frozen sauces

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

On Jun 2, 2006, at 6:54 AM, <tom.vincent at yahoo.com>

<tom.vincent at yahoo.com> wrote:

> However, the period strawberry sauce I did was from 'Take a

> Thousand Eggs'.

> Here a brief portion of my docs from many years ago:

> Strawberry Sauce

> Take Strawberries, & wash them in time of year in good red wine;

> then strain though a cloth, & put them in a pot with good Almond

> milk, mix it with White flour or with the flour of Rice, to make it

> thick and let it boil, and put therein Raisins of Corinth, Saffron,

> Pepper, Sugar great plenty, powdered Ginger, Cinnamon, Galingale;

> point it with Vinegar, & a little white grease put thereto; color

> it with Alkanet, & drop it about, plant it with the grains of

> pomegranate, & then serve it forth. < 1 >

> -  Harleian MS. 279

 

A minor concern here.  From looking at the original source, I don't

see anywhere that it suggests this be used as a sauce.  It reads more

like a sort of pudding, similar to applemuse.  It is listed in "Take

a Thousand Eggs" in the section on sauces, but I believe this is in

error.

 

- Doc

 

 

Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 20:32:17 -0700

From: "Laura C. Minnick" <lcm at jeffnet.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] OOP: Frozen sauces

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

At 08:19 PM 6/2/2006, you wrote:

> You mean other than the name?

> Duriel

>> 

>> A minor concern here.  From looking at the original source, I don't

>> see anywhere that it suggests this be used as a sauce.  It reads more

>> like a sort of pudding, similar to applemuse.  It is listed in "Take

>> a Thousand Eggs" in the section on sauces, but I believe this is in

>> error.

 

Duriel, in the original text (_Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books_, which

is open on my lap at the moment) the word 'sauce' is not used. The dish is

simply called 'Strawberye', and is grouped with 'Potage Dyvers'. It was the

editors of _1000 Eggs_ that added the 'sauce' to the title.

 

'Lainie

 

 

Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 08:17:21 -0500

From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] mayo questions

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

The theory is based on the idea that Marie Antoine Careme would have known

the origin of the name if mayonnaise had been created as late as 1756, ergo

the name must be older than it appears.  Since the word first appears in

English in (IIRC) Thackery's Memoirs of a Gormand (1841), I find the earlier

dates a little questionable as to the origin of the name.  The most commonly

accepted version of the naming relates to the sauce being prepared in

celebration of the capture of Mahon on the island of Minorca.

 

The sauce is another matter.  A version of allioli, the Catlan garlic and

oil sauce appears in Pliny.  The Provencal version, aioli, is made with eggs

and is essentially a garlic mayonnaise.  If we accept the sauce served after

the capture of Mahon in the Balaeric Islands was a local version of

mayonnaise, then we have three points of geographic commonality that suggest

mayonnaise is a regional sauce of Mediterranean France and Spain with a long

history of developement that probably made it one of the first emulsified

sauces. !6th Century, maybe.  17th Century, almost certainly.

 

BTW, Mayenne was created as a department of France in 1790, replacing the

old County of Maine, which left me puzzled as to why the Comte de Maine

would be referred to as the Duc de Mayenne.  The title of Duc de Mayenne was

created in 1573 for a cadet branch of the de Guise family headed by one

Charles de Guise or Charles de Lorraine.

 

Bear

 

> So I was wondering about sauces in period and started surfing around looking

> at information.  I've always assumed that mayo was/is a modern (for our

> purposes) invention and then I found this:

> "There is also the theory that the sauce was unnamed until after the Battle

> of Arques in 1589. It was then christened ?Mayennaise? in memory of Charles

> de Lorraine, duc de Mayenne, because he took time to finish his   meal of

> chicken with cold sauce before being defeated in battle by Henri IV."

> Granted it DOES say theory and I found it here:

> http://www.foodhistory.com/foodnotes/leftovers/mayo/info/

> So, I am wondering what everyone here has to say about mayonnaise.

> Hedwig

 

 

Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 18:41:53 -0600

From: Michael Gunter <countgunthar at hotmail.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Sauces for Caerthe's (in the Outlands) 12th

        night feast

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

For beef, I really like Sauce Aliper (Garlic-Pepper Sauce).

For fowl you can try black sauce made from the innards. It's tastier  

than it sounds.

Strawberry Sauce is also very good.

 

Check out Pleyn Delit for some wonderful sauces.

 

Gunthar

 

 

Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:18:53 +0000

From: Olwen the Odd <olwentheodd at hotmail.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Late Italian feast

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

Barbe Robert

 

(From The Vivendier)

 

Firstly, to make a Barbe Robert.  Get a little clear water and set it  

to boil with some butter; then add in wine, mustard, verjuice and  

such spices and as strong as you like, and let everything boil  

together. Then get your pieces of chicken, put them in and let them  

boil only briefly; then roast them.  Watch that there is a reasonable  

amount of broth.  It should be colored a little with saffron.

 

In le Grand Cuisinier (1583) there is a mention of a sauce Barbe  

Robert, sauce already found in le Viandier under the name "taillemasl?

e" (fried onions, verjus, vinegar, mustard) for roasted rabbit, fry  

fish and fry egg.

 

Francois Rabelais (Circa 1483-1553)in le Quart-Livre, mention:  

"Robert, the one who invented the sauce Robert indispensable for  

roast, rabbits, duck, pork, poached eggs..."

 

la Varenne (1651, French), who uses capers to jazz up the common  

medieval Sauce Robert. Yum! Mustard, vinegar, capers, green onions  

and butter, whisked till smooth. Taillevent and friends use it on  

fish, la Varenne recommends it on boar and other meats.

 

Olwen

 

 

Date: Fri, 09 May 2008 03:32:42 -0400

From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Need Advice on cookbooks

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

jwills47933 at aol.com wrote:

<<< Okay I am doing a sauce project and I need to find cookbooks and I am not having any luck. snipped

 

Morvran >>>

 

Searching under "medieval sauces" in Google turns up these papers

that have already been done in the SCA-- many in fact by members of this

list.

 

   *Medieval Sauces*

   <http://falseisle.antir.sca.org/temp/Medieval_Sauces_2006_10_21.pdf>;

 

*Medieval Sauces*. An Introduction. Taught by Her Ladyship Elena de

Maisnilwarin. Page 2. *Medieval Sauces*. Page 2 of 13. Author: Elena de

Maisnilwarin (Elaine *...*

 

Sauces <http://www.gallowglass.org/jadwiga/SCA/cooking/sauces.html>;

 

Making *Medieval Sauces*. A class by Jadwiga Zajaczkowa. This class will

consider the nature of medieval and renaissance sauces, discuss the

theory of humors *...*

 

   Easy *Medieval Sauces* Cinnamon (Cameline) Sauces Black Pepper

   Sauces <http://www.fridayvalentine.com/rafaella/sauce_class2004.pdf>;

 

Easy *Medieval Sauces*. Mestra Rafaella d'Allemtejo, OL *...* Come make

easy *medieval* *sauces* using easy to procure ingredients in easy to

mix applications. *...*

 

"The-Saucebook-art" by L. Allison Poinvillars.

   <http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/The-Saucebook-art.html>;

 

There are another 200 matches under those search terms.

Have you read those papers yet or a selection of those papers?

 

Johnnae

 

 

Date: Fri, 09 May 2008 04:43:44 -0400

From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Need Advice on cookbooks

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

Besides the papers and cookbooks, you should also look at the

various dietaries and works on health.

Perhaps you could start with with:

*Eating Right in the Renaissance by Ken Albala

and

**Medieval dietetics: Food and drink in regimen sanitatis literature

from 800 to 1400 by Adamson

*

Both will lead you into that literature and what it has to say on sauces.*

 

Johnnae

 

 

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:32:19 -0400

From: Gretchen Beck <grm at andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] recipes w/spice

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

Chiquart's Beef in Lamprey sauce uses galangal and grains of paradise.

Here's my reconstruction from several years back:

 

for 3 lbs of cooked beef roast

 

Sauce

 

4 Tbsp Toasted bread crumbs

3/4 cup Red wine

3/4cup Beef Boulion or broth

1-2 Tbsp Red wine vinegar

1/4 - 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp grains of paradise

1/8 - 1/4 tsp pepper

1/16 tsp nutmeg

1/4 - 1/2 tsp galingale

1/4 tsp ginger

1/8 tsp cloves

1/16 tsp mace

 

Mix wine, boullion, and vinegar, soak bread crumbs in the mixture. Grind

spices together into a fine powder and mix into liquid. Put on low heat and

simmer. Cut beef up into stew sized chunks, and simmer in sauce for 15

minutes. Serve it forth.

 

(It's yummy)

 

 

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:30:19 -0400

From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] English Food

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

On Jul 4, 2008, at 9:21 AM, Barbara Benson wrote:

<<< To give a second option on sauces what would you recommend? Maybe a

mustard would be complementary? >>>

 

Mustard is always good, and you can make it up weeks in advance (in  

fact you should, usually) and store it for when you need it. I think  

my favorite period version is a simple semi-wholegrain, semi-coarse  

ground Lombardy honey mustard -- mustard seeds, vinegar, white wine,  

salt, and honey. Kinda like that coarse Dijon with honey?

 

One of the slightly more obscure ones that's always a hit when I serve  

it is from those Two Anglo-Norman Cookery Manuscripts that Hieatt and  

Jones wrote about in Speculum in the 80's. I think it's called Rich  

Pepper Sauce, and calls for the usual fresh-ground black pepper (it is  

sublime with long pepper), bread-soaked-in-vinegar, ginger and salt,  

and for it all to be thinned down with the main ingredient, which is  

strained grape pulp. This is just magnificent on venison, beef, or  

other red meats, and though I've never tried the combination, I can't  

imagine it not being good with pork. I'll see if I can dig out a  

redaction; I must have one somewhere.

 

Another one that's very popular around here is the sauce from what is  

really more of a stew, in this case duck in civey. Here's a  

description of the process in an old post to this list from 2006:

 

Basically, you boil ducks (you can also partially roast or brown  

them in a pan, but we didn't), then boil onions (and lots of them --  

in the same broth?) until they fall into a puree when you look at  

them -- really soft. Puree the onions with some of the duck broth to  

get a slightly thick onion sauce, thicken it with toasted (i.e.  

brown) bread crusts soaked in vinegar and pureed. Season with salt  

and pepper, add more vinegar if necessary, and stir in a little duck  

fat at the end to give it a sheen.

 

For the onions in a bulk setting, I put 10 pounds of whole, peeled  

onions and just under a quart of water in the pressure cooker (using  

the rack in the bottom) and processed them for 45 minutes (which is  

probably akin to boiling them for about 3 1/2 hours in an ordinary  

pot). When the pot was cool enough to open, I took the onions out  

with a slotted spoon and used the same water (now bulked out with  

onion juice) for a second batch of another 10 pounds of onion. The  

second batch oxidized a little in the cooking, not burning by the  

remotest stretch, but producing very soft onions of a sort of  

caramel-cream shade. I pureed it all in a blender with enough of the  

brown syrupy stuff (there's a lot of sugar in those onions if you  

can get the fiber to break down, hence the pressure cooker). The end  

result was a pretty concentrated onion "applesauce".

 

Just a few ideas... If you have people suspicious of sauces, I find  

it's good to give them the name of the sauce, but also tell them what  

it is in familiar terms: garlic cream sauce, onion gravy, etc.

 

Adamantius

 

 

Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:55:30 -0400

From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <rcarrollmann at gmail.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Boiled Cider/Is there a medieval counterpart?

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

There is a sauce in Granado (Spanish, 1599) that is fresh apple cider

boiled-down with spices, wine, sugar, and vinegar.  The recipe doesn't

indicate what it's used for, but (not surprisingly), it goes well with

pork.

 

The translated recipe and a redaction are on my website:

http://breadbaker.tripod.com/sauces.html

 

Brighid ni Chiarain

 

 

Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2008 08:11:33 -0700 (PDT)

From: rene chaisson <renechaisson at yahoo.com>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] trying to refind source

To: Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

 

I made a wonderful lemon wine sauce for carbonados from  Frantz de Rontzier: Kunstbuch von mancherley Essen / Gesotten /

Gebraten / Posteten / von Hirschen / Vogelen / Wildprat / und anderen

Schawessen / so auff Fuerstlichen / und anderen Pancketen zuzurichten

geh?richt ("An artful book of many foods, boiled, roasted, and pastries, of

harts, poultry, venison and other show dishes that are properly prepared for

princely and other banquets"), Wolfenb?ttel 1598, pp. 121-127.

 

I didn't save the web info, but I remember there being over 20 different sauces that could be used and now can't find the link. Can't afford 350$ for the book itself, so shouting out for help.

 

Tia

 

 

Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2008 15:12:17 -0500

From: "Elaine Koogler" <kiridono at gmail.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Ideas for homemade holiday gifts

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

I also made a Cider Sauce that is period:

 

Para Hacer Salsa de Zumo de Manzanas (Cider Sauce)

Diego Granado, Libro del Arte de Cozina, Madrid, 1599

Translated/Redacted by Robin Carroll-Mann (Brighid ni Chiarain)

 

1 quart sweet apple cider (non-alcoholic)

1 lb. sugar

1/2 cup white wine vinegar

1/4 cup white wine (I used an inexpensive dry white wine)

1 ounce cinnamon sticks

1 whole nutmeg, cut in half

8 whole cloves

 

1.   Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and simmer over medium-low heat

about 45 minutes, until the volume is reduced by half and a candy

thermometer reads 220F (105C).

 

2.   Strain through cheesecloth.

 

3.   Pour into a clean glass jar. Refrigerate.

 

Original: Take the apples, and without peeling them, grate them and extract

the juice from them, as we said of the quinces; adding a little vinegar, and

white wine, and take the clearest part, and for each pound of juice, put

eight ounces of sugar, and cook it like the juice of the quinces, with the

same spices.

 

Yield is 2 cups.

 

This is really easy to make and can be canned using the boiling water

method.

 

Kiri

 

 

Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:37:39 -0500

From: ranvaig at columbus.rr.com

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] January 2009 MK Cooks Challenge

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

<<< How are you defining sauce?

 

How did Rumpolt define sauce?

 

This sounds like a fascinating project.

 

Eduardo >>>

 

Rumpolt only uses the word "Salsen" in the introduction.  The various sauces are referenced by name "mit einem s?ssen Pobrat", "in eim schartzen Pfeffer", "mit einem Epffel Gescharb darvnter" without the word sauce.  Usually without giving directions for it, but searching the text finds the sauce elsewhere.  The references are very common, and Rumpolt seems to assume the reader will know what the sauce is.  Like a modern recipe might tell you to add a white sauce without giving  a recipe.

 

When the recipe says "ein Pfeffer" rather than the spice,  it means a pepper sauce, made with blood, onions, spices, sugar, sometimes thickened with bread.  Usually the food is cooked in the sauce.

 

Gesharb sauce has either chopped almonds or apples and onions sauteed in butter, mixed with broth or wine, vinegar, raisins, thickened with flour  It can be yellow or white, sweet or sour.  Food can be cooked with the sauce or the sauce added at serving.  Gesharb can mean a shallow pottery dish and the sauce is named after the dish it is served in, or it can mean shards or fragments and may refer to the coarse texture of the sauce.

 

Pobrat sauce is usually thickened with sugar but sometimes also flour, flavored with spices (saffron, cinnamon, cloves and pepper) and wine, sometimes with stock, sometimes vinegar, and slices of orange or lemon.  It can be yellow, black, or grey (but I don't see how you get the colors). It can be sweet or sour.  Make it without fat if it is to be served cold.  It seems to be something added at plating, rather than cooking the item in it.  The Webster's online dictionary says Pobrat is a Czech word meaning "take all", that might or might not be connected.

 

There are a couple of others, but these were the three mystery sauces.

 

Ranvaig

 

 

Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 08:56:18 -0500

From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] January 2009 MK Cooks Challenge

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

On Jan 14, 2009, at 3:37 AM, ranvaig at columbus.rr.com wrote:

<<< Pobrat sauce is usually thickened with sugar but sometimes also  

flour, flavored with spices (saffron, cinnamon, cloves and pepper)  

and wine, sometimes with stock, sometimes vinegar, and slices of  

orange or lemon.  It can be yellow, black, or grey (but I don't see  

how you get the colors). It can be sweet or sour.  Make it without  

fat if it is to be served cold.  It seems to be something added at  

plating, rather than cooking the item in it.  The Webster's online  

dictionary says Pobrat is a Czech word meaning "take all", that  

might or might not be connected.

 

There are a couple of others, but these were the three mystery sauces. >>>

 

Sauces known variously as Pevorat in English and Poivrade in French  

(among other spelling variants) are quite common medieval variations  

on pepper sauce. I'd be pretty surprised if it didn't turn out that  

those were the source for the name.

 

Adamantius

 

 

 

Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:32:55 -0700

From: "Patricia Collum" <pjc2 at cox.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Tudor Recipe help

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

 

Tonight I cooked the sauce for supper. It's the sauce that we are planning

to serve with roast turkey at the feast. I served it over boneless chicken

breasts that had been baked in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 mins, and then

sliced. I added the vinegar (Thanks for the suggestion) because the oranges

available at the time were probably sour. I'll look for the seville orange

sauce. It won't be hard as I'm now surrounded by hispanic markets including

being the testmarket for the new Supermercado de Walmart. So far the family

all liked it, it was actually a fairly subtle citrusy flavor.

 

The original recipe:

 

Of sauces, and first for a roast capon or turkey

To make an excellant sauce for a roast capon, you shall take onions, and,

having sliced and peeled them boil them in fair water with pepper, salt and

a few bread crumbs: then put unto it a spoonful or two of claret wine, the

juice of an orange, and three or four slices of a lemon peel; all these

shred together, and so pour it upon the capon being broke up. G. Markham-

The English Housewife

 

My version:

 

1 medium yellow onion

1 half cup water

2 tablespoons red wine

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Juice of 1 large orange

zest of one lemon

1 teaspoon unseasoned breadcrumbs

salt and freshground pepper to taste

 

Peel and cut onion in half lengthwise and then slice thinly crosswise. Cook

onions in water on medium heat until just softened. Meanwhile mix wine,

vinegar, orange juice and zest together in a bowl. When the onions are

softened add the orange juice mixture and breadcrumbs. Stir and bring to a

boil and then reduce heat and simmer for 20 mins. Add salt and pepper to

taste and serve warm over sliced roast turkey or chicken. Serves 4.

 

Cecily

 

 

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:14:37 -0700

From: David Walddon <david at vastrepast.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Drizzle of Honey

 

Do you mean this one? French fashion (that is why I remembered Varenne) but

it is from Robert May.

 

To Boil a Capon or chicken with Colliflowers in the French Fashion. (page

85)

 

Cut off the buds of your flowers, and boil them in milk with a little mace

till they be very tender ; then take the yols of 2 eggs, strain them with a

quarter of a pint of sack, then take as much thick butter, being drawn with

a little vinegar and a slic?t lemon, brew them together ; then take the

flowers out of the milk, and put them into the butter and sack : then dish

up your Capon, being tender boil?d, upon sippets finely carved, and pour on

the sauce, and serve it to the Table with a little salt.

 

Eduardo

 

David Walddon wrote:

<<< I think the chicken (or capon) and/or cauliflower in butter sauce is from La Varenne. >>>

 

 

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:28:27 +1300

From: Antonia Calvo <ladyadele at paradise.net.nz>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Drizzle of Honey

 

David Walddon wrote:

<<< Do you mean this one? French fashion (that is why I remembered Varenne) but it is from Robert May.

 

To Boil a Capon or chicken with Colliflowers in the French Fashion. (page 85)

 

Cut off the buds of your flowers, and boil them in milk with a little mace

till they be very tender ; then take the yols of 2 eggs, strain them with a

quarter of a pint of sack, then take as much thick butter, being drawn with

a little vinegar and a slic?t lemon, brew them together ; then take the

flowers out of the milk, and put them into the butter and sack : then dish

up your Capon, being tender boil?d, upon sippets finely carved, and pour on

the sauce, and serve it to the Table with a little salt. >>>

 

Yes, that is the very one! Thank you.

 

I don't remember exactly how I redacted it, but if you cook the egg

yolks and sherry/sack carefully over low heat, adding the butter and

vinegar and whisking as you go, you get something that is thickish,

emulsified and somewhat hollandaise-like.

--

Antonia di Benedetto Calvo

 

 

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:47:31 -0400

From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] emulsifications

 

On Oct 29, 2009, at 11:35 PM, Stefan li Rous wrote:

<<< Gravies are emulisified sauces, right? >>>

 

Not usually.

 

Gravies are usually thickened with something starchy (flour, starch,  

etc.)

 

Emulsified sauces are emulsions; mixtures of liquids that ordinarily  

don't want to mix, like oil and water, say, which, when mixed  

properly, thicken due to surface electrostatic charges on droplets.

 

Emulsions / emulsified sauces include thick vinaigrettes, some honey  

mustards with some oil beaten into them to lighten their texture and  

flavor, mayonnaise, Miracle Whip, Hollandaise Sauce, Bearnaise Sauce,  

Beurre Blanc, Beurre Rouge, and even properly melted chocolate.

 

<<< Is this Mayonnaise-like sauce a roux? Perhaps I should have named  

this file [gravy-msg] around roux(s) or emulsions. What *is* the plural of "roux"? >>>

 

Roux is a preparation, almost a verb. There is no plural, except as  

multiple examples of the technique. It's kind of like, what's the  

plural of photography? You can have more than one batch of roux, or  

more than one use, but roux is roux.

 

More simply, the plural of roux is roux.

 

Adamantius

 

 

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:13:28 -0400

From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] emulsifications

 

On Oct 30, 2009, at 6:47 AM, Johnna Holloway wrote:

<<< Playing librarian, I'd suggest taking a look at

Harold McGee's latest edition of On Food and Cooking.

He includes a chapter on sauces.

 

Or there is an excellent James Peterson volume titled

Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making.

 

It's out in a revised edition from 2008. The original 1991 edition  

won all sorts of awards. The new edition has an addition 150 pages and more recipes. >>>

 

My fave is still Raymond Sokolov's "The Saucier's Apprentice"...

 

Adamantius

 

 

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 06:38:06 -0400

From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Sauces was Drizzle of Honey

 

Harold McGee in his latest edition of On Food and Cooking

mentions a couple of the La Varenne and Pierre de Lune as

"hollandaise like."

 

For La Varenne it's the Asparagus in Fragrant Sauce.

 

For Pierre de Lune it's the Trout in Court Bouillon and Perches in  

Butter Blanc.

 

See page 585 for the recipes in McGee.

 

Johnnae

 

On Oct 29, 2009, at 6:33 PM, David Walddon wrote:

I think the chicken (or capon) and/or cauliflower in butter sauce is  

from La Varenne.

Eduardo

 

On 10/29/09 12:40 PM, "Antonia Calvo" <ladyadele at paradise.net.nz>

wrote:

Although, interestingly enough, there are a couple of recipes from

the Elizibethan corpus that come out not unlike Hollandaise...

 

 

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 23:31:32 -0400

From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Non-SCA food passions?

 

On Jun 18, 2010, at 8:28 PM, Honour Horne-Jaruk wrote:

<<< Otherwise, it's figuring out how to make a halfway tolerable dairy-free white sauce. So far, I've got one that tastes food-like when mixed half-and-half with mayonnaise: but then, I suspect Louisiana gulf water might taste food-like under the same conditions... >>>

 

Somewhere... I think it's in multiple sources, but I suspect Taillevent might be the more comprehensive of them... there is a recipe for leeks in a thick almond milk that is surprisingly like the typical creamed onions that turn up on American tables on chilly holidays...

 

Adamantius

 

 

Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 10:28:00 -0400

From: Sandra Kisner <sjk3 at cornell.edu>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] sauces and humoral theory [OOP]

 

There's a decidedly interesting post at The Old Foodie today about which

sauces are appropriate for which meats, though she's discussing the 17th

century. Quite a list of herbs for sauces humorally hot or cold.

 

http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2010/09/sauces-galore.html

 

Sandra

 

 

Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2010 15:02:33 +0000 (GMT)

From: emilio szabo <emilio_szabo at yahoo.it>

To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

Subject: [Sca-cooks] 'take wine or vinegar', was: Cinnamon ...

 

<< The alternative wine/vinegar is current in humoral theory and dietetics. The choice of wine or vinegar depends on season in the first place. >>

 

< Where would that substitution be justified? >

 

The author is Magninus Mediolanensis (14th century, his work was printed in the 15th century, there are manuscript sources). I quote some passages from Scully:

 

"The liquid base for the green sauce is regular vinegar in summer and a weaker vinegar or wine in winter. [footnote 21] Generally speaking a cook chose among half a dozen liquids to form a base for a sauce. In his preambles in both the 'Opusculum' and Chapter xx of the 'Regimen', Magninus is quite explicit in stating which liquid ingredients may be employed in sauces. These ingredients vary according to the season of the year because of the general principle that in warm weather food is healthier if relatively cool in nature, whereas in cold weather food should be warmer. [footnote 22]  .... In summer the 'materiae' for sauces are verjuice, lime or lemon juice, vinegar, fresh elderberry juice, vine-shoot juice, pomegranate wine, [footnote 23] .... In winter, [footnote 25] permissible 'materiae' include mustard, rocket ... wine, meat broth and a weak vinegar which is close to the nature of wine (that is, warmer than normal vinegar). Vinegar is chosen here as a base for the green sauce because verjuice, the usual alternative, would make the sauce too cold [footnote 26] for winter consumption and would detract from the desired warming effect of the finished sauce upon its meat. Magninus does, however, supply seasonal variations: ...".

Source: Terence Scully in Medium Aevum 1985, page 183.

 

As I am somewhat too lazy at the moment to key in the whole text you might want to have a look at the commentary of Scully on the Opusculum de saporibus and at the other works of Scully.

 

E.

 

 

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 17:39:49 -0500

From: Elaine Koogler <kiridono at gmail.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] yoghurt sauce

 

<<< I've tried making that yoghurt and dill/cucumber sauce used in gyros and

tzatziki, but it always comes out bland, for my taste...anyone have a

really, I don't know, tangy version?

--

Ian of Oertha >>>

 

If you can find goats milk yoghurt, you'll find that it's LOT more tangy!  I

do make a dip that's not actually tsaziki but is very good:

 

3/4 cup labineh or drained yogurt

3/4 teaspoon dried mint flakes, crushed

3/4 tablespoon celery leaves, finely chopped

1 5/8 tablespoons leek, finely chopped

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/4 teaspoon light yellow mustard powder

1/4 teaspoon nigella seed

1 5/8 tablespoons walnuts, ground

4 loaves pita

 

1. Mince mint, leek and celery, put them into a mortar or food processor and

pulse several times

 

2. Turn the greens out onto a paper towel and press (this prevents the

yogurt from becoming  to watery)

 

3. Combine herbs and cheese.  Add salt and mustard and mix well.

 

4. Cover and refrigerate.  Let rest for at least 1 hour.

 

5. Remove from frig, put in a colorful bowl, sprinkle with walnuts and

nigella seed.

 

6. Serve with pita or other ME flat bread.

 

Servings: 8

 

Notes: Take mint, celery leaves and vegetable leeks and strip them all fro

their stalks and cut them up finely with a knife.  throw them in the ortar,

and when they release liquid after pounding, dry the off.  Then mix them

well with shiraz (horgurt drained of its whey).  throw a little salt on it,

as muhc as it will bear and mustard pounded fine and moderate its flavor

with the mustard.  Put it in a vessel and strew its surface with a little

nigella. If you like, put yoghurt called mast and drain it in a skirt of

the water which is in it, and mix it with the mentioned herbs.  If you like,

make it sour, throw in a little Persian yoghurt.  It comes out excellently.

 

Source: Description of Familiar Foods (Mediieval Arab Cookery Book

 

This was redacted by Dame Hauviette d'Anjou.

 

Kiri

 

 

Date: Thu, 12 May 2011 08:55:38 +1200

From: Antonia di B C <dama.antonia at gmail.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] period hard sauce?

 

On 12/05/2011 8:29 AM, Stefan li Rous wrote:

<<< Sprinkle with confectioners sugar or serve with hard sauce. >>>

 

I'm assuming "hard sauce" means a sweet sauce which contains a

distilled alcohol of some type.

 

Do we know of any "hard sauces" in period?  It seems unlikely since we

seem to have a hard time documenting cordials and distilled alcoholic

beverages other than as medicinals, although admittedly the line

between just food/drink and medicinals is blurry.

==================

 

Hard sauce is basically butter with brandy or whiskey and powdered sugar

beaten into it.   AFAIK, it isn't period.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_sauce

--

Antonia di Benedetto Calvo

 

 

 

Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 17:52:14 -0400

From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] op

 

On Jun 19, 2012, at 5:21 PM, Ian Kusz wrote:

<<< anyone know a good book on sauces?  adobo, indian, chinese, etc.?  gravies,

variety? Ian of Oertha >>>

 

You didn't specify an era so how about this classic one s listed on Professor Martha Carlin's website:

Thorndike, L.: A medieval sauce-book. In: Speculum 9 (1934) 183-190. or try

 

Magninus Mediolanensis, Opusculum de saporibus (Latin, c. early 1330s)  A collection of sauce recipes by Maino de' Maineri of Milan, lecturer at the medical school at Paris, which forms part of the author's dietetic treatise, Regimen sanitatis. Edited by Lynn Thorndike (1934) from Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS VIII. D. 35, ff. 52rb-53va.

 

Modern ---

 

Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making (9780470194966) by James Peterson.

The third edition is 2008. (you might look for an earlier edition to save money.)

 

Check Amazon for a full write-up with recipes.

 

Or see Wiley here: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470194960.html

 

Johnnae

 

 

Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 16:54:40 -0500

From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] op

 

Peterson, James, Sauces:  Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making --2nd

edition, John Wiley and Sons, 1998.

 

I have both the 1st and 2nd editions.  You want the 2nd.  It is the best

single reference on sauce making I have seen.

 

Bear

 

 

Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 18:33:20 -0400

From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] op

 

On Jun 19, 2012, at 6:05 PM, Terry Decker wrote:

<<< I hadn't spotted the 3rd edition.  Do you know if this is an upgrade of the 2nd edition or just a reissue with no or cursory editting?.

 

Bear

 

Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making (9780470194966) by James Peterson. The third edition is 2008. (you might look for an earlier edition to save money.)

 

Johnnae >>>

 

I own all of them. Each volume has been different from the previous one, improved, longer, more pages, more recipes. This edition had color photos.

 

Wiley notes

Peterson overhauls the text by simplifying the book without taking out anything critical. Many of the sauces are lightened and the old French names are dispensed with or relegated to a separate section. Many of the sauces in the current book are in chart form since the procedure is identical for large numbers of them, and there is a chapter that has all the charts for easy reference. The author also standardizes the terminology for the consistency of liquids (for instance, in the Liaisons chapter, a chart showing thicknesses ranges from "water" to "mayonnaise") because it is the consistency that's most important (and the hardest) to show. An updated bibliography and source list of purveyors is also included. The photos are redone to be included in a bigger insert with fewer images since the photos in the current book are too small for anyone to really appreciate the details. The technique photographs are larger and focus on the essential steps that a reader cannot visualize based on the narrative instruction. Also, there are more color photos in this edition with an emphasis on how-to and cooking techniques (since many of the sauces are derivatives of techniques like braising, sauteing, poaching, etc.).

 

http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470194960.html

 

Sample chapters are on the website.

 

It's used as a textbook so I would guess this is a way to keep sales up. {Yes, you must use the 3rd edition and not the 1st edition sort of thing.)

 

Johnnae

 

 

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 10:21:46 -0500

From: Robin Carroll-Mann <rcarrollmann at gmail.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Surviving medieval sauces?

 

On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 10:18 AM, David Walddon <david at vastrepast.com>wrote:

<<< There are a lots of recipes for horseradish preparations and sauces in the

German Corpus.

Eduardo >>>

 

There's a Spanish honey-horseradish sauce in de Nola.

 

Brighid ni Chiarain

 

 

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 10:23:39 -0800 (PST)

From: Euriol of Lothian <euriol at yahoo.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Surviving medieval sauces?

 

<<< My own instinct - but in no way meant to be a hard and fast line - is to?

distinguish between what's preprepared and made for a particular dish.

'Worcestershire sauce' is a condiment to me. But to be honest I've never really?

thought the whole thing through before.

 

Jim? Chevallier >>>

 

Many of the sauces I see in the various manuscripts that are stand alone recipes are meant for a variety of pairings. There are various factors, largely based on the humoral theory, which would have a cook decide on a particular pairing.

 

I guess in my opinion, it does not matter if you call it a sauce or a condiment, it is both, for those sauces that can be treated as both.

 

Euriol

 

 

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 14:00:20 -0500

From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Surviving medieval sauces?

 

Our Concordance of English Recipes: Thirteenth Through Fifteenth Centuries ( MRTS 2006) lists nearly

7 pages of sauces at roughly 28 entries per page. That would make nearly 200 English recipes indexed under sauces for just those centuries.

 

No one has mentioned one of our original articles on the topic.

 

A Mediaeval Sauce-Book is up on JSTOR and can be read either through your institutional access or by registering.

Lynn Thorndike

Speculum

Vol. 9, No. 2 (Apr., 1934), pp. 183-190

Published by: Medieval Academy of America

Article Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/2846594

 

Johnnae

 

 

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 11:01:19 -0800

From: David Walddon <david at vastrepast.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Surviving medieval sauces?

 

I still think you have not defined "sauce".

Do you mean something that is poured over meat?

Something that is served with meat?

Something that is meat is cooked in?

In the Italian corpus (from the early and late periods) mustard is referred to as a sauce.

Modern condiments could be considered a sauce depending on your definition.

Is ketchup a sauce or a condiment?

And the word sauce could change in definition depending on where and when we are talking about.

Also is there a medieval definition of sauce?

Mustard is also used as a flavoring in several "sauces" in Martino (check out the sauce for Pesce Cane where both Agliata and Mustard are used to create an entirely different "sauce" for dog fish).

 

Eduardo

 

On Feb 17, 2014, at 7:39 AM, JIMCHEVAL at aol.com wrote:

<<< On mustard, I had in mind the medieval use. In France, I've mainly seen it  

as a condiment. Taillevent does say to eat dish "with mustard" which I take

to mean the condiment but could arguably refer to a sauce. And the more

corrupt version of his work includes a sauce for garlic with mustard and a

mustard soup.  But no recipe for a mustard sauce.

 

But clearly I don't know the German side at all well. So there might be

one there. The horseradish references sound interesting.

 

Jim Chevallier >>>

 

 

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 14:15:38 -0500

From: Robin Carroll-Mann <rcarrollmann at gmail.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Surviving medieval sauces?

 

The translation and redaction for horseradish-honey sauce are on my

(long-neglected) website:

http://breadbaker.tripod.com/sauces.html

 

The recipe does not say what the sauce is served with.

 

Brighid ni Chiarain

 

On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 1:55 PM, David Walddon <david at vastrepast.com> wrote:

<<< That sounds great!

Can you post the transcription or translation?

Does it say what it is served on/with?

Eduardo >>>

 

 

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 14:49:23 -0500

From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] definitions was Surviving medieval sauces?

 

Sauce in OED 3rd is defined as:

 

"Any preparation, usually liquid or soft, and often consisting of several ingredients, intended to be eaten as an appetizing accompaniment to some article of food. Formerly occas. applied to a condiment of any kind.

Often with qualifying word denoting the predominant ingredient, as bread sauce, egg sauce, mint sauce, parsley sauce, or with qualifying adj., as black sauce, brown sauce, hard sauce, white sauce. Also (15th c.) in many adopted French terms, as sauce cameline, sauce galantine, sauce gansell, etc.: see Two Cookery-bks. 77 (c1450?110) and 108 (c1430).

 

Quotations go back to at least 1375.

Medieval forms being ME sawse, Sc. salss, ME?17 sawce, sause, ME saus, sace

 

Condiment goes back to 1420.

Anything of pronounced flavour used to season or give relish to food, or to stimulate the appetite.

(Some medical writers class tea, coffee, alcoholic drinks, as condiments; but they are not ordinarily so called.)

 

c1420 Pallad. on Husb.   xi. 503   This condyment is esy and jocounde.

ibid.      xii. 351   This moone is made olyve in condiment.

 

Rarely condiment was also

trans. To season or flavour with a condiment; to spice. And the source there for the quotation  is c1420 Pallad. on Husb.  

 

xi. 525   Use this ferment For musty brede, whom this wol condiment.

 

The MED or Middle English Dictionary just muddles the waters and declares the following:

sauce (n.) Also saus(e, salse, (?errors) sauche, sauu3; pl. sauces, etc. & (error) sawes. [OF sausse, sause, sauce, salse & ML salsa, AL salsea.]

(a) A condiment for meat, fish, fowl, etc., a sauce; also, a pickling liquid, brine; (b) fig. of (a); (c) a curative or preventive preparation; a medicinal sauce; (d) cook. in combs.: ~ blaunk (gamelin, ma-dame, neiger, noir, sarasin, sauge), blaunk (sobre) ~; for other varieties see camelin adj., galauntine n., gingivere n.(c), grene adj.1.(d), verge adj., etc.; (e) in cpds.:~ al-one, common alliaria (Alliaria officinalis), garlic mustard; ~ makere, a maker of condiments; also, mistransl. of OF sans?e [quot.: c1440]; also as surname; ~ makere-craft, guild of condiment makers.

 

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med-idx?type=id&;id=MED38564

 

Johnnae

 

 

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 11:59:55 -0800 (PST)

From: Euriol of Lothian <euriol at yahoo.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Surviving medieval sauces?

 

Condiment was in use in the medieval period along with sauce.

 

You can see the evidence in works like?A Middle-English Dictionary: Containing Words Used by English Writers from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century. Also if you look at some of the original manuscripts which discuss sauces.

 

Specific examples I can share are from??Ein B?ch von G?ter Speise,?14th?century?

 

"Ein condimente

Mal ku?mel vnd enys mit pfeffer vnd mit essige vnd mit honige vnd machs gel mit saffran vnd thu darzcu senff In disem condimente machtu sulcze petersilien Piren vnd clein kumpost oder ruben was du wilt."

 

Libellus de Arte Coquinaria?a comparative analysis of 4 manuscripts, dating from the 13th?century, collection of 35 recipes in three languages... Danish, Icelandic, & Low German.

 

 

Quomodo temperetur salsum dominorum et quamdiu durat.

 

Man skal tak? g?rf?rs naghl?, oc Muscat, cardemomum, pip?r, cinamomum th?t ?r kani?l, oc ingif?r, all? i?fn w?ghn?, tho swa at kani?l ?r ?m myk?t sum all? hin? andr?; oc slyk tu stekt br?th sum all? hin? andr?, oc st?t? them all? sam?, oc mal? m?th st?k ?dyk? oc lat? I en l?gh?l. Th?t ?r h?rr? sals?, oc ?r goth et halft aar.

 

Cookery Book II Harleian MS. 4016, ab. 1450 A.D?

 

Sauce gamelyne. :?Take faire brede, and kutte it, and take vinegre and wyne, & stepe the brede therein. and drawe hit thorgh a streynour with powder of canel, and drawe hit twies or thries til hit be smoth; and then take pouder of ginger, Sugur, and pouder of cloues, and cast thereto a lilul saffron and lege hig be thik ynogh, and thenne serue hit forthe.

 

Libre Del Coch, Mestre Robert, cook to ?don Ferrando de Napols? Catalan, 15th?century.

 

Sal?ero para Perdius o Gallines en Ast

Ametles belles e blanques pendr?s e picar-les has b? en un morter. E quant sien ben picades, destempra-les ab suc de magranes agres. E apr?s met in lo morter sucre polvorizat, canyella e gingembre, perqu? la sua color e sabor vol tirar casi canyella. E no la cal passar per nengun ced??. E vet as? tot fet.

 

I think this clearly shows the use of the terms in a variety of the European areas of the time period.

 

Euriol

 

 

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 19:09:40 -0500 (EST)

From: JIMCHEVAL at aol.com

To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Surviving medieval sauces?

 

True, but they are not made to store up and use over time like mustard (and

possibly horseradish). My impression is that they are made in association

with preparing a meal.

 

"To Make Poitevin Sauce

With capons or poultry, roast them well on the spit. Take their livers,

and a little browned bread and very little broth, and crush up spices in a

mortar - cinnamon, ginger, assorted spices - and soak in verjuice and wine.

Bring to a boil, and put in the poultry."

 

"Saupiquet

To make saupiquet sauce on rabbit or another roast, brown bread as for

cameline, and put it to soak in broth. Melt some lard in a frying pan and chop

an onion up small, and fry it. For four servings, take two ounces of true

cinnamon, half an ounce of ginger and a quarter of an ounce of assorted  

spices. Take red wine and vinegar. Strain the bread and all the spices

together. Boil in a frying pan or a pot, and then put over the roast."

 

Jim Chevallier

www.chezjim.com

 

In a message dated 2/17/2014  3:56:58 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,

prescotj at telusplanet.net writes:

<<< In  Viander and Menagier, for example, the sauces are clearly prepared

and served separately, and not cooked with the food. >>>

 

 

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 16:44:18 -0800 (PST)

From: Euriol of Lothian <euriol at yahoo.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Surviving medieval sauces?

 

Some can be stored up over time, some not. I've made a number of the sauces that could keep for weeks. It's just a matter of knowing which ones can and can't.

 

Euriol

 

From: "JIMCHEVAL at aol.com" <JIMCHEVAL at aol.com>

<<< True, but they are not made to store up and use over time like mustard (and possibly horseradish). My impression is that they are made in association with preparing a meal. >>>

 

 

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 18:04:05 -0700

From: James Prescott <prescotj at telusplanet.net>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Surviving medieval sauces?

 

Snippets from Viandier (Power translation since I have that to hand):

 

"... a duckling, two spring chickens and sauce thereto; oranges,

cameline, verjuice ..." p 238.  Note that the cameline [sauce] is

mentioned entirely separately from any of the meats with which it might

be eaten.

 

For the same wedding feast, "From the saucemaker, three half pints of

cameline for dinner and supper and a quart of sorrel verjuice."  The

saucemaker was not associated with the household, but was a maker/seller

who presumably had a shop somewhere. p 241

 

For the same wedding feast, "... two earthenware pots ... the other of

two quarts for the cameline." indicating that the cameline did not come

from the saucemaker in a serving pot, but that a pot was purchased

separately. p 242

 

For a different wedding, "From the sauce-maker, a quart of cameline for

the dinner and for the supper two quarts of mustard." Clearly cameline

and mustard sauces.  The sauce maker may have had more than just these

two kinds or sauce for sale.  p 246

 

The Cold Sage [Sauce] on p 277 is made using the chicken stock, and is

poured over the chicken before serving, so this is an example of a sauce

that is prepared directly in association with the dish.

 

Irrelevant but interesting: "Note that nutmegs, mace and galingale make

the head to ache." p 292

 

Thorvald

 

 

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 19:49:50 -0800 (GMT-08:00)

From: <lilinah at earthlink.net>

To: SCA-Cooks <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Surviving medieval sauces?

 

First, it seems to me that Chimichurri, which is Argentine and enjoying some popularity outside Argentina, is an off-shoot of medieval Green Sauce. Basic Chimichurri is made from finely chopped fresh parsley and oregano, garlic, olive oil, and wine vinegar.:

http://home.earthlink.net/~al-tabbakhah/misc/GreenSauce-Survey.html

 

As for Horseradish Sauce, I made two different ones for two different feasts. One was the Honey-Horseradish Sauce from Nola, which Brighid translated:

http://home.earthlink.net/~al-tabbakhah/2000_Boar_Hunt/2000-2nd.html#horseradish

 

The other was for a German feast, from Master Eberhard:

http://home.earthlink.net/~al-tabbakhah/2001_Feasts/2001-Boar_Hunt/2001-3rd.html#horseradish

Both were served with roast pork.

 

Finally, there are a number of medieval mustards that i would count among the sauces. After all, Cameline Sauce is not a loose liquid that is poured over the meat, but something of a thick dip, and yet it is recognized as a "sauce". And all the period mustards I've made, from the European corpus, the Arabic language corpus, and mid-15th c. Ottoman (one of which is made with powdered mustard seed and yogurt), are much thinner and more pourable than almost every Cameline I've had. They may have been made a day or so ahead of time - as were the Horseradish Sauces - but they were made in consideration of what would be subsequently served. And there are quite a few recipes for Mustard Sauce today.

 

Urtatim (that's oor-tah-TEEM)

 

 

Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 01:31:01 -0500

From: Sharon Palmer <ranvaig at columbus.rr.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Surviving medieval sauces?

 

<<< True, but they are not made to store up and use over time like mustard (and

possibly horseradish). My impression is that they are made in association

with preparing a meal. >>>

 

Rumpolt has direction for making cherry sauce and verjuice that can

be stored for a year.  There is a recipe for eel in pepper sauce that

can be stored.   Also pickled sturgeon, salted mushrooms, salted

cucumbers, and various fruit confects.  On the other hand he doesn't

mention storing mustard or horseradish.

 

And in case anyone needs the reference  Max Rumpolt, Ein New

Kochbuch, 1581, Maintz.

http://diglib.hab.de/wdb.php?dir=drucke/2-3-oec-2f

 

Ranvaig

 

 

Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 21:48:20 +1030

From: "Claire Clarke" <angharad at adam.com.au>

To: <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] green sauces

 

Jim Chevallier said:

<<< Still,  green sauce it was and probably not much different from what was

made in the  fourteenth century. >>>

 

Stefan replied

<<< I'm not sure I would say that. While green sauces are going to be a green

color and have an herb/plant/veggie taste, I would think they very quite a

lot depending upon what they are made of.

 

At least here in the southwest US many green sauces include peppers, which

were mostly unknown in Europe until well past the 14th century. They're also

usually much spicier than what I think of as medieval green sauces.

 

Stefan

--------

I would agree with Stefan. In the modern(ish) English cookery tradition

green sauce is a white sauce (ie butter, flour, milk) with parsley (and

maybe other herbs) in it, which is quite a different thing from the

mediaeval green sauce.

 

Angharad

 

 

Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 20:53:34 -0800 (GMT-08:00)

From: <lilinah at earthlink.net>

To: SCA-Cooks <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] sour apple sauce

 

Ranvaig commented:

Apples are a very common ingredient in Rumpolt.

An apple sauce described as sour, has vinegar

added.

 

Stefan li Rous wrote:

I don't think I've ever had a "sour" apple sauce. I'm not sure whether I like the idea or not.

 

First, think of it as a sauce, not like modern "apple sauce". Rather than a sweet fruit puree to be eaten by itself, it's meant to be served with meat. It would be like any tangy sauce in that sense. I haven't seen the recipe, if there is one, in Rumpolt. But the Spanish apple sauce is made from apple juice, and i suspect that German one is as well.

 

Urtatim (that's oor-tah-TEEM)

 

 

Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2015 10:30:26 -0500

From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cant Remember Recipe

 

<<< It's been while, got an issue that's driving me nuts.  I'm vaguely

remembering a Tudor/Elizabethan or maybe even Jacobean recipe for a

Honey (and either lemon or Orange) glaze over Roasted birds (chicken I

think). Cannot find the recipe in any of my usual spots.

 

Anyone have an idea?

 

Drakey. >>>

 

I don't remember ever seeing such a recipe, but there are a few orange

sauces to serve with birds here and there in late period recipe collections

(I generally use Martino's when I'm not after a specific time and locale).

 

I have prepared the dish from the following recipe, which was well received

at the Elizabethan feast I was preparing.

 

Bear

 

To boyle a Capon with Orenges after Mistres Duffelds Way.

Take a Capon and boyle it with Veale, or with good marie

bone, or what your fancy is. Then take a good quantitie of

that broth, and put it in an earthen pot by it selfe, and put

thereto a good handfull of Currans, and as manie prunes,

and a few whole maces, and some Marie, and put to this

broth a good quantitiie of white Wine or of Calarret, and so

let them seeth softlye together; Then take your Orenges,

and with a knife scrape off oll of the filthinesse of the

outside of them. Then cut them in the middest, and wring

out the juyce of three or four of them, put the juyce into

the broth with the rest of your stuffe. Then slice your

Orenges thinne and have uppon the fire readie a skillet of

faire seething water, and put your slice Orenges into the

water and when that water is bitter, have more readie, and

so change them still as long as you can find the great

bitternesse in the water, which will be five or seven times,

or more. If you find need: then take them from the water,

and let that runne cleane from them: then put close

orenges into your potte with your broth, and so let them

stew together till your Capon be readie. Then make your

sops with this broth, and cast on a little Sinamon, Ginger,

and Sugar, and upon this lay your Capon, and some of

your Orenges upon it, and some of your Marie, and toward

the end of the boyling of your broth, put in a little

Vergious, if you think best.

The Good Huswives Handmaid, 1588

 

 

Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2017 18:20:58 -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] Concerning Ryori Monogatari

 

For anyone seriously interested in the history of soy sauce, here is the URL of what is probably the most thorough treatise on the subject:

 

https://archive.org/stream/bub_gb_-M5t2nXIXi4C#page/n19/mode/2up

 

Bear

 

<the end>



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