clotted-cream-msg - 12/15/04 Period and modern clotted cream products. Devonshire cream. NOTE: See also the files: cheese-msg, cheesemaking-msg, Cheese-Making-art, livestock-msg, butter-msg, dairy-prod-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 09:19:06 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy Subject: Re: SC - Re:Crustade Lombarde, An Inspiration turned Sour -Reply JANINE BRANNON wrote: > What is "Devon" cream - that luscious stuff you > eat with scones? How is that made? Are there > any additional ingredients in it? What if we are > thinking of the wrong type of milk. Maybe this > "cream" should be some type of soured cream > or buttermilk ?? > > Magdelane Devonshire cream is a form of clotted cream, made from fresh, unpasteurized, unhomogenized milk. I don't recall if it is scalded first, but it is essentially held at a temperature just above blood warm overnight, by which time it will have soured just a bit (which will be far more evident in the milk than in the cream) and the cream will have had a chance to float to the top. The surface will have dried out a bit, and it resembles a sheet of yellow leather. It can be lifted off with a skimmer, and treated and served in various ways. An extremely elegant method of serving it is with sheets rolled into a sort of ball, known in sources from just-post-period as cabbage cream, because of the shape. Devonshire cream, when sold commercially, is packed into jars and pasteurized, so it's uniformly thick and smooth. It's quite possible to make clotted cream in places other than Devon, but you really need Devoinshire milk to make Devonshire cream. Adamantius Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 15:07:20 -0500 From: "Louise Sugar" Subject: Re: SC - request for Clotted Cream > Does anyone have a recipe for Clotted Cream? > >-Laurene OK Laurene...this comes from a book called Special Teas by M. Dalton King ISBN 1-56138-166-7 published by Kenan Books Inc 15 West 26th St New York, NY 10010. List price $19.95US. This book is a wonderful source for information on teas and themes/recipies for cookies, preserves, jams, fruit butters, cakes and many other things. The chapter headings are Tea-The Drink, House SpecialTeas, A British Cream Tea, An American Cream Tea, A Southern Tea, High Tea, Thanksgiving Tea, Christmas Tea, Easter Tea, Russian Tea, Chinese Tea, Children's Tea, Chocolate Lover's Tea, Feel Better Tea, Late-Night Tea and Bare Bones Tea. Each is a theme including tea and food and a short 4 or 5 paragraph description of what the tea is about. It also includes sources for obtaining the various teas used as well as sources for accessories/furnishings, etc used in each photo layout (I love this because how many of us have seen something in a photo shoot that we fell in love with and had no idea where to find) CLOTTED CREAM (makes 1 1/3 cups serves 4 to 6) The cream served in England is not available here, although there are a number of substitutes and facimiles available. We use the following: 1 cup heavy cream, at room temeperature 1/3 cup sour cream, at room temperature 1 tablespoon confectioners sugar One hour before serving, pour the heavy cream into a bowl and whip until soft peaks form. Whisk in the sour cream and sugar, continuing to beat until the mixture is very thick. Place in the refrigerator and chill until it is time to serve. If you want to make this ahead of time, it should last 4 to 6 hours in the refrigerator. Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 09:04:53 SAST-2 From: "Ian van Tets" Subject: SC - clotted cream and melted cheese just wanted to talk about clotted cream. The recipe that was given sounded rather more like what I know as whipped cream. What I understood to be clotted cream is, I think, cream that is put into a flattish earthenware dish and left on the back of the stove at the very lowest heat possible (try an asbestos or other mat, if possible) for about 24 hours, by which time it will not have boiled, but thickened, at least the top layer, and have a crusting that looks rather like cradle cap. You then put it on some stone to cool down and eat with just about anything, since it's not sweet. One of the Elizabeth David recipes for saffron cake uses clotted cream instead of butter. I'm not altogether sure of this recipe, never having made it. Doubtless someone else will know better, perhaps Cynethrith? Also, I _think_ (not certain, have lent out my copy), that the Gloucester cheese and ale recipe in Elisabeth Ayrton's The Cookery of England is period? I think it involves melting cheese and ale (and butter?) and pouring it over bread. Cairistiona Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 09:28:34 -0600 From: L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt Subject: SC - Clotted/Clowted Cream Method >If someone wants to suggest a way of clotting cream, I would be happy to >try it and tell you what it did. then again, if someone has a better >redaction of the above, I would be more than happy to use it. > >Bogdan din Brasov Here's my method: You need either 1 1/2 quarts of Day old from-the-Jersey-Cow (ie: high cream content) Milk in a sauce pan, or you need a pint of heavy cream and a quart of whole milk, mixed together briefly in a sauce pan (this works better if they are not perfectly fresh). Heat at the lowest possible burner setting, NEVER letting it boil or even simmer. You may wish to turn it off and on if your lowest heat is too high. It will develop a wrinkled, yellow skin on top. This could take a hour or more. The skin is good. Leave the skin alone and heat without stirring. When the skin is pronouncedly wrinkled and thick, remove the cream/milk from the burner. Let cool several hours or overnight, very loosely covered if at all. With a spoon, carefully remove the cream from the surface of the milk, and drain if needed. The lumps of cream are called clotted cream. If you manage to get the skin off in one piece, you have cabbage cream (it resembles a wrinkled cabbage leaf). Yield: a scant pint of clotted cream, and a quart of milk suitable for cooking purposes. Aoife Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 12:28:33 -0600 (CST) From: jeffrey s heilveil Subject: SC - Aoife's Surefire Clotted cream Here is the recipe that Aoife sent me. all you have to do is skim off the skin. Then again, you may wish to keep some of the liquid cream. This works with the milk and cream, however, it works just as well with 1.5 quarts of heavy whipping cream. Either way, if you let this chill before you use it, the consistency becomes more predictable. Hope you enjoy it. This is PERFECT in Bear's redaction of that Shortbread recipe. Bogdan >From Aoife: Here's my method: You need either 1 1/2 quarts of Day old from-the-Jersey-Cow (ie: high cream content) Milk in a sauce pan, or you need a pint of heavy cream and a quart of whole milk, mixed together briefly in a sauce pan (this works better if they are not perfectly fresh). Heat at the lowest possible burner setting, NEVER letting it boil or even simmer. You may wish to turn it off and on if your lowest heat is too high. It will develop a wrinkled, yellow skin on top. This could take a hour or more. The skin is good. Leave the skin alone and heat without stirring. When the skin is pronouncedly wrinkled and thick, remove the cream/milk from the burner. Let cool several hours or overnight, very loosely covered if at all. With a spoon, carefully remove the cream from the surface of the milk, and drain if needed. The lumps of cream are called clotted cream. If you manage to get the skin off in one piece, you have cabbage cream (it resembles a wrinkled cabbage leaf). Yield: a scant pint of clotted cream, and a quart of milk suitable for cooking purposes. Aoife Date: Fri, 01 Jan 1999 23:54:32 +1100 From: Kiriel & Chris Subject: Re: SC - Scottish/british food terms Devra at aol.com wrote: > I believe that 'single cream' would be equivalent to our 'light cream', > although I also understand that certain breeds of cow (notably the Jersey > actually found on the Isle of Jersey) naturally give cream much thicker and > richer than we are accustomed to here. > > 'Double cream', thus, would refer to 'heavy' or 'whipping' cream. > > Devra the Baker Certainly this is the case in Australia. I understand our normal cream is the equivalent of US heavy/double cream. Normal cream for us is, IIRC 35% fat. Sour cream the same. I don't know that you could even get the equivalent of King Island Cream which is something like 55% fat - wicked stuff so thick your spoon stands upright in it. I too would love to find the recipe for clotted cream - it is just so very moreish. All the mouthfeel and taste of thick cream, but not as cloyingly rich. Ah well, why don't I look it up! And here is what I found: Title: CLOTTED CREAM PART 1 Categories: Desserts Yield: 1 serving Clotted cream is a traditional product of South West England and the traditional farmhouse method of manufacture is as follows: 1. Channel Island milk is placed in shallow pans or bowls and left until the cream rises to the top. 2. The milk is then scalded for about one hour by placing the pan or bowl over a pan of water maintained at a temperature of about 180^F (82^C). 3. The cream is ready when it is straw colored and wrinkled in appearance. It is then cooled overnight or for about twelve hours. 4. When cool the cream should be skimmed off the surface using a perforated skimmer or a shallow spoon. 5. If the skimmed cream is left in the refrigerator for a few hours it will thicken further. Alternatively, clotted cream can be made using the direct scald method. Double cream is placed in shallow pans or bowls and scalded as for the traditional method. After scalding and cooling the whole contents of the pan are used as clotted cream. Source: "Farmhouse Kitchen", based on the Independent Television series, presented by Dorothy Sleightholme. Published by Yorkshire Television Centre, Leeds LS3 IJS, c Trident Television, Ltd., 1976 From the Recipe Files of: Deidre-Anne Penrod, FGGT98B on Prodigy, J.PENROD3 on GEnie per Karen Mintzias Kiriel Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 23:10:55 -0500 From: "RANDALL DIAMOND" Subject: SC - Re: Devonshire Clotted Cream (was Milk OOP) Lucrezia comments: ....usual. I don't know if Jersey milk is available here is it? >>>>You can't even get it here in the UK anymore! (at least not that I've seen) You can however get Devonshire Clotted Cream in the local supermarket. Mmm, divine...<<<< For those of you non U.K. folks, Devonshire clotted cream is indeed a real treat. If you would like to try it, here is a traditional recipe (It takes 36 hours to make incidentally): Take 2 1/2 quarts (2.4L) and 1 1/2 cups ( 3dl) double cream (whipping cream). Pour the milk and cream into a wide, shallow pan like a large skillet or preserving pan (or if you happen to have one like I do, a ninteenth century milk pan from Eastern Europe). The pan should be firesafe. There is no need to stir. Let the milk set in a cool place overnight, the fridge will do if you have room. In the morning, put the pan on very low heat, being careful not to shake or disturb the pan when you move it. If you have an uneven heat source like gas or electric burners (rather than the griddle of an old fuel fired stove) put a distributing mat under the pan (can you still get asbestos mats?). Let it stand on heat for 8 to 10 hours. Remove from heat, again being very careful not to disturb the milk. When cool, put in the fridge or cool place overnight yet again. In the morning, skim off the clotted cream with a wide bladed palette knife or a slice. The clotted cream shoud be yellow and wrinkled on top and quite thick. The yield should be about 1/2 pound (240g). Serve on fresh scones with honey or apple jelly. Or on hot apple pie with a sprinkle of sugar. MMMMmmmmmmm! You say you can't find scones at the Safeway?? Well, here is a recipe for Devonshire Scones. They are a bit richer than scones from other areas of England. Try spreading cold clotted cream and strawberry jam on them. For Devonshire Scones from the northern part of Devon: Mix 1/2 teaspoon salt into 2 cups (240g) self-rising flour and rub into 3/4 stick (90g) butter to a crumb-like consistancy. Whisk 1 egg, 1/2 tablespoon castor sugar (superfine/ powdered) and 2 tablespoons milk together and stir into the flour mixture to make a soft dough. Roll out about 3/4" (2cm) thick and cut in rounds with a 2" (5cm) cutter or in triangle if you prefer. Bake in the centre of a hot oven, 400 to 425F (200 to 220C or gas Mark 6 to 7), for 10 minutes. Clotted cream is traditional in the U.K.. When did they start making it? My guess is the mid 17th century. Anyone have any firm documentation? Also what is the earliest recipe we know of for scones? Source for recipes: English Provential Cooking by Elisabeth Ayrton. Akim Yaroslavich Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 08:58:25 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeff Heilveil Subject: SC - documenting clotted cream It was asked how ealy on clotted cream can be documented. Here is the earliest I have found: From:_The Widowes Treasure_ (1585) John Partridge. IN: _To the Queen's Taste_, Lorna Sass. page 92: _To make fine Cakes_ "...Then take clouted Creame or sweet butter, but Creame is best:..." Hope this helps. In service. Cu drag, Bogdan _______________________________________________________________________________ Jeffrey Heilveil M.S. Ld. Bogdan de la Brasov, C.W. Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 14:23:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Norma Jean Storms Subject: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #2233--Clotted Cream Here are a couple of recipes I just happened to have on hand! YIS, Francesca MOCK CLOTTED CREAM (from: Angel Victorian Tea Book) 1 cp. heavy cream at room temperature 1/3 cp. sour cream at room temperature 1 Tbl. powdered sugar 1 hour before serving, pour cream in a bowl and whip until stiff peaks form. Whisk in sour cream and sugar, continuing to beat until mixture is very thick. Refrigerate and chill until time to serve. Experiment with your own proportion of sugar and sour cream to please your taste. MOCK CLOTTED CREAM (from: Gene Simmons, Cook and Tell) 1 (4-oz) pkg. cream cheese (not whipped) 1 tsp. confectioner's sugar 1 cp. whipping cream dash of vanilla Blend all ingredients in food processor until 'any thicker would be too thick'. This is most like the authentic Devonshire cream. Clotted Cream 5 cups whole milk 1 º cup heavy cream Mix milk and cream thoroughly in medium pan. Simmer gently for 1 1/2 hours (surface of cream mixture should be just barely moving, not actually bubbling). Remove from heat; let stand at least 3 hours before refrigerating. Chill overnight. Remove top layer of clotted cream from pan. Discard remainder of mixture. Refrigerate cream until used. Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 03:52:38 -0400 From: "Bethany Public Library" Subject: Subject: SC - Re: clotted cream >Would it perhaps be possible to do clotted cream by leaving the pan in an oven with a pilot light? I have used this to supply gentle heat for bread rising. > >Devra the baker We actually went over this quite a while ago (before the florilegium posts, maybe, though I did't read all of them). You can do this in the oven or on top of the stove. The trick is to warm it gently and let it stay warm, and it's probably virtal for you to have some sort of air circulation, so covering it up is not a great idea---you won't get the wrinkly surface. Lots of folks don't leave the wrinkly bit intact, but just skim it off the surface and then mix it up. A darn shame, it is. It's pretty simple to make. If you have trouble maintaining the gentle heat, try using a pizza stone under the pan. It helps. The thing is to get a wrinkly skin to float on top of the mixture (you can use milk, and float cream on top if you like---it's just the top layer you're concerned with). I'm pretty sure there's a recipe for Clowted Cream in Huswife's Jewel (Dawson). I remember having a conversation with Adamantius about a recipe that made pseudo-cabages from the clotted cream. My personal preference would be for "leaves" of the stuff to be served with fresh berries mascerated in something luscous and the whole drizzled over the cream---heart attack inducing, but what a way to go............. Aoife Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 14:50:38 -0400 From: "Siegfried Heydrich" Subject: Re: SC - Double cream Really? Usually when I made it, I just poured heavy whipping cream into shallow hotel pans, covered them, and sat them on top of the coolers, where the warm air from the condenser could blow on them. (had good luck with warming pads, too) Just left them for 24+ hours, and it clotted quite nicely. Poured off the semi-clear liquid on top, scored it with a knife after drizzling it with a bit o' honey, and it was wonderful! I'm serving this for CoroCrown next weekend, doing Tantallon Triskele cakes with Peaches & Cream for dessert. (to head off the queries about what the hell is CoroCrown, we're having Coronation on Saturday, and Crown Lyste the following day. We're switching the dates for coronations and crown lists, so it's going to be a weird event. And you don't EVEN want to know why we're doing it, either.) Sieggy > Maddalena asked: > > Anybody know what "double cream" is? > > Double Cream is cream which contains no less than 48% > butterfat content, and is usually commercially > produced by centrifugal seperation. It is right > between "Heavy whipping Cream" (%35-45) and "clotted > cream" (%55). I have not had much success finding it > in the States. I would substitute by reducing heavy > whipping cream by 1/3 to 1/2 (and have done so on many > occasions.) The only drawback to this is the "cooked" > taste which results, which is fairly similar to > Devonshire Clotted Cream. Hope this helps > > Balthazar of Blackmoor Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 14:16:05 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy Subject: Re: SC - Double cream Chris Stanifer wrote: > You were making clotted cream, then, and not Double > cream, right? My suggestion was for reducing heavy > cream in order to approximate the butterfat content of > Double cream. Another tactic I've used, that seems to work for me, is to heat the cream and swirl very fresh, unsalted butter into it, in various proportions for various uses. I find that this is slightly less likely to give the cream a cooked taste than reducing it would, and you can reduce the cooked taste still further by using a small amount of cream, adding a lot of butter, stirring slowly as this mixture cools, then adding more cream that hasn't been heated. Adamantius Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 11:13:48 -0700 From: Susan Fox-Davis Subject: Re: SC - Double cream > Adamantius: Another tactic I've used, that seems to work for me, is to heat > the cream and swirl very fresh, unsalted butter into it, in various > proportions for various uses. I find that this is slightly less likely > to give the cream a cooked taste than reducing it would, and you can > reduce the cooked taste still further by using a small amount of cream, > adding a lot of butter, stirring slowly as this mixture cools, then > adding more cream that hasn't been heated. As a matter of fact, cleaning out my late mistress' house, I found a rare old plastic hand-powered appliance, a 'cream maker.' You agitate the handle and the milk + melted unsalted butter inside combine into cream. You can adjust the fat content in the cream according to the proportions of milk to butter. I ought to bring it to a no-electricity camping event some time and test it out [behind the reed curtain into non-period-equipment-land of course]. Selene Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2000 11:33:43 -0800 From: Susan Fox-Davis Subject: Re: SC - Clotted Cream taste test Kateryn de Develyn wrote: > I obtained some clotted cream (commercial - in a jar) yesterday. > > So I conducted a little taste test since I have some medieval recipes calling for clotted cream. It tasted exactly like the homemade butter you can make by shaking heavy whipping cream(for what seems like forever), or unsalted butter (available in the freezer section of your grocery store). > > It does not taste anything like the clotted cream which is made essentially like evaporated milk. IE: cream set near an oven vent which is set on low heat (250 degrees) for overnight. Now, that cream which does get a very thick skin on top, tastes a lot like evaporated milk. > > Which is the most period? The commerical stuff or the top-of-oven stuff? Probably the top-of-oven stuff. How would I make a substitution for it out of modern ingredients? I would use unsalted butter (for the appropriate texture) and a tablespoon or two of evaporated milk (for the appropriate flavor). > > Has anyone else tried making clotted cream or substituting for it? > > Kateryn de Develyn The commercial stuff is crap, the metallic flavor of whatever they do to it for export ruins it completely. The clotted cream I had in Devon and Cornwall was a substance of similar texture to stirred sour cream, but sweet as heaven without sugar added. I believe it has a fat content higher than anything you can get in the states. What might work is if you ran the heaviest cream available in the US in a blender with melted, unsalted, clarified butter, and THEN did the top-of-the-stove thing. I think I have instructions for that, but as usual, that's at home and I'm at work. Occasionally I'll use Crema Mexicana from a jar, but as a topping not as an ingredient. This advice is only useful if you live in an area with Mexican neighborhoods, which I suspect are in short supply in Calontir. I could be wrong. Selene, Caid Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 09:54:09 -0600 From: "Alex Wollangk" Subject: SC - OOP- Devonshire or Clotted Cream from Joy of Cooking Found this in "The Joy of Cooking": Devonshire or Clotted Cream One of those regional specialties calling for certified unpasteurized cream. In winter, let fresh cream stand 12 hours; in summer, about 6 hours, in a heatproof dish. Then put the cream on to heat - the lower the heat, the better. It must never boil, as this will coagulate the albumen and ruin everything. When small rings or undulations form on the surface, the cream is sufficiently scalded. Remove at once from the heat and store in a cold place at least 12 hours. Then skim the thick, clotted cream and serve it very cold as a garnish for berries. Bran Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 09:00:54 -0800 From: Susan Fox-Davis Subject: Re: SC - OOP- Devonshire or Clotted Cream from Joy of Cooking I've tried this several times, but U.S. cream does not seem to have the fat content to make this really worthwhile. Selene, Caid Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 21:55:45 -0600 From: "RANDALL DIAMOND" Subject: Subject: SC - OOP- Devonshire or Clotted Cream from Joy of Cooking >Has anyone else tried making clotted cream or substituting for it? What I have tried is from Elisabeth Ayrton's English Provincial Cooking, but it is made from regular milk. In the early evening, pour 2 1/2 quarts of cold fresh cold milk (regular milk) into a wide shallow pan. If you want large quantities, add 1/2 to 1 pint of double (whipping) cream. There is no need to stir. Leave it on the shelf of the refrigerator or any cool place overnight. In the morning, place the pan, being very careful not to shake or disturb it, on a very low heat for 8 to 10 hours. The author recommends a heat distributing mat (like an old time asbestos mat) being placed under the pan. Remove the pan, again taking care not to shake or disturb it and store again in the refrigerator or other cool place overnight. In the morning skim off the cream with a wide-bladed pallette knife or a slicer. The clotted cream should be yellow, wrinkled on top and quite thick. Serve cold on fresh scones with fruit jam or treacle. Prepared this way, it does not seem like butter to me at all. The thicker areas of this have the thickness of soft Philadelpia cheese and the more liquid part like yougart. I did not get much of a taste of evaporated milk. I am more minded of fresh curd but far creamier, maybe with a bit of nutlike taste from the slow scalding. The author claims this is the way it has always been made in Devon and Dorset since (I suppose) medieval times. Akim Yaroslavich Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 09:34:36 EST From: LrdRas at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Clotted Cream taste test lilinah at earthlink.net writes: << Can't imagine what you could use as a substitute. Mascarpone? I wouldn't mix butter and evaporated milk as that wouldn't make a product even remotely close to what i had in England. >> This pretty accurate, IMO. What I had was slightly sourish witha hint of barnyard. :-) It was very silky and and was really deliscious with the marmalade and scones that were served with it. Wonderful stuff but nothing I have eaten in the US remotely resembles it. :-( Ras Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 20:30:30 -0500 From: "Siegfried Heydrich" Subject: Re: SC - OOP- Devonshire or Clotted Cream from Joy of Cooking > I've tried this several times, but U.S. cream does not seem to have the fat > content to make this really worthwhile. I dunno, I've made it several times with heavy cream and it came out just fine. It's been like 25 years since I tasted real devonshire cream, but it tasted pretty much the same to me, at least to my debased american tastes. It's expensive, but it's so rich that only small portions are needed. It's interesting to see the expression on peoples faces when they try it - they LIKE it, but it doesn't really equate to anything they're used to. I've had people confuse it for cool whip, yogurt, ricotta, and pureed cottage cheese (no kidding - had one person ask me if that was how I made it. Go fig. re: debased american tastes . . .), so it usually takes them about 30 seconds of eyerolling and eyebrow wriggling before deciding to try another spoonful. Then they're hooked. Sieggy From: Riley Robin W PSNS Date: November 2, 2004 5:10:09 PM CST To: Riley Robin W PSNS Cc: "'stefan at florilegium.org'" Subject: Herb's Clotted Cream Complaint? -----Original Message----- From: Riley Robin W PSNS [mailto:rileyr at psns.navy.mil] Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2004 3:23 PM To: 'Herbert Stahlke'; veenker at insightbb.com Cc: 'O'Reilly, Daniel'; bible-l at lists.wku.edu Subject: [Bible-l] Herb's Clotted Cream Complaint? "Clotted cream and honey shall he eat before he knows to reject evil and to choose good. For ere the lad will know to reject evil and choose good, forsaken shall be the ground which you are irritating, of the presence of its two kings." (Robin) What's with this "clotted cream" stuff ... ummm? (Herb) The concordant translation of Is. 7:15 raises two questions (of course if the HB had been in Norman-accented French it would crème fraiche) ... (Robin) Ummmmm ... maybe, maybe not? Your crème fraîche is a heavy cream slightly soured with bacterial culture, but not as sour or as thick as American sour cream (Mexican crema or "cream espesa" is similar) ... I would hazard the guess that this scriptural "clotted cream" is more like what you often find, today (in eastern countries), called "Leben" ...... there's even a variety of this, called "kosher yogurt," which has a culture that won't allow the pH to drop lower than 5.1; this "liquidy" leben, is considered a drink, and a "berachah acharonah" does not be recited unless 3.3. oz. are consumed within a very short time period (not the rate at which such foods are commonly consumed) ... In the UK, this "clotted cream" is a very high fat (55%) product processed with heat (scalded milk) ... made by combining two parts whole milk with one part heavy cream, heating at the very lowest possible heat for a couple of hours until a skin forms, leaving it undisturbed overnight, and then harvesting the skin and its underclots (one may do whatever one likes with the remaining milk) ... Please notice that the SCRIPTURES do make a distinction between "clotted cream" and just plain milk, be it from cows, goats, sheep or camels ...... "clotted cream of the herd and milk of the flock" (Deut 32:14) ...... Cream, itself is the higher-fat layer dairy product skimmed from the top of raw milk. And cream has a varity of grades, depending on fat content; in the U.S., it is usually sold as: Half-and-half (12% fat) Whipping cream and whipped cream (30%) Heavy cream, or heavy whipping cream (36%) Manufacturer's cream (40%) Also common in the U.S. is sour cream, which is has been subjected to a bacterial culture that produces lactic acid, and that thickens the cream. In the UK, it is usually sold as: Half cream (12%) Single cream or Light cream (18%) Whipping cream (35%) Double cream (48%) Cream with more than 30% fat can be turned into whipped cream by mixing it with air. This roughly doubles the cream's volume as air bubbles are captured in a network of fat droplets. If the whipping is continued, the fat droplets stick together and form butter; the remaining liquid is buttermilk. (Herb) The concordant translation of Is. 7:15 raises two questions ... 1. Why did the concordant translators choose that translation? Because of the artificial constraint that concordantism/ness/ance places on word choice, no concordant choice can be defended as semantically or culturally driven. Was it that "curds" was already used for something else? Why a two-word phrase where Hebrew has one word? (Robin) That's much more than just two questions, even if we discount the rant about "concordantism" ... actually, Herb, this was a quote from that well respected bible translation called "Young's Literal Version," but be that as it may, let's still look at your multiphased question ... Q: Why a two-word phrase where Hebrew has one word? A: Suppose we could have used "Leben" (a single word), but that would have only been a good cultural guess. Perhaps we might even have just transliterated it as "chem'ah" or the shortened "chemah" (Strong's #02529) ... But then, this Hebrew word is, indeed, very much so, "clotted cream" pure and simple, so why not communicate this fact to English readers ... Or, perhaps, your question/complaint is really more so, that this English translation is clumsy in that it has to use "two words" to translate the original Hebrew ... surely you're not suggesting that this isn't a common practice in ALL translations!? But I know you'll be most happy and pleased to know that despite their having to use two English words, that BOTH the Young's and the Concondant Versions did follow through, very strickly, with their artificial constraints of "concordantance," and not allowed either of these two words to be used elsewhere for any other orginal language (Hebrew) words ... more than can be said for any of the other tranlations, I looked at, dealing with this ... there's a lot to be learned from simple "consistency," for example by my following up on our "clotted cream" question, using concordant tools, I discovered the little matter of "Kethiv Readings" ... In the Hebrew Bible, the scribes did not alter any text that they felt had been copied incorrectly. Rather they noted in the margin what they thought the written text should be. The written variation is called a "kethiv" and the marginal note is called the "qere." There are 305 verses in the Old Testament with this property ... Zec 14:6 being one of these "kethiv readings" dealing with the Hebrew word for "curdled" ... but then, I'm getting ahead of myself, and starting to answer yet another portion of your multifaceted "first question" ... (Herb) The concordant translation of Is. 7:15 raises two questions ... 1. Why did the concordant translators choose that translation? Because of the artificial constraint that concordantism/ness/ance places on word choice, no concordant choice can be defended as semantically or culturally driven. Was it that "curds" was already used for something else? Why a two-word phrase where Hebrew has one word? (Robin) Q: Why did the concordant translators choose that translation? A: Suppose, because it's the most accurate choice of words!? But then, let's not be subjective, let's take a closer look, seems our Hebrew word shows up in only a few places: And taking is he clotted cream and milk ...(Gen 18:8) ... clotted cream of the herd and milk of the flock (Deut 32:14) ... The streams of torrents of honey and clotted cream (Job 20:17) ... When my goings were washed in clotted cream ... (Job 29:6) Words from his mouth are slicker than clotted cream ...(Psa 55:21) For as the squeezing of milk brings forth clotted cream ...(Prov 30:33) Clotted cream and honey shall he eat before ... (Isai 7:15) ... and it comes, from the vast yield of milk, he shall eat clotted cream, for clotted cream and honey shall everyone eat, who is left within the land. (Isai 7:22) Ummm ... this aint "butter" or the "cheese of kine," which are compleatly different Hebrew words, nor is it the Hebrew for congealed or "curdled," it's clotted, and to put an even finer point to it, it's clotted cream, not clotted "milk" (yet another Hebrew word)! Edited by Mark S. Harris clotted-cream-msg 15 of 15