dairy-prod-msg - 1/8/19 Dairy products. milk, curds, cream, sour cream. NOTE: See also the files: milk-msg,cheese-msg, cheesemaking-msg, Cheese-Making-art, livestock-msg, butter-msg, cheese-lnks, clotted-cream-msg, fresh-cheeses-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 ************************************************************************ From: Philip E Cutone Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 12:27:43 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SC - An Introduction and a question. The domestroi mentions various ways fruits are preserved/cooked. just to throw one more point toward butter in period: it talks of croutons fried in butter(67) the parenthesized numbers are chapters, for the interested. please note this was from a very quick browse through.... and typed rather quickly as well... Filip of the Marche Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 11:57:24 -0400 (EDT) From: Mark Schuldenfrei Subject: Re: SC - Re: curds, was-A real sieg how do you make fresh curds? are they like cottage cheese? Milk is a complex structure, of water, proteins, fats, sugars and stuff. It's really quite neat. One of the principle protein combinations in milk is called casein. It can be coagulated into a solid white mass, called curds. There are two basic mechanisms for doing this. One is to add a small amount of sour/acid, and heat gently. Another is to use an enzymatic method, such as the chemical "rennet" which is found in the stomach lining of many farm animals. Many of the forms of cheese we consume are hardened variations on curds, and processed curds. Cottage cheese is flavored and otherwise intact curds. But it is hardly ever fresh, and it is often salted or otherwise spiced. The remains of the milk, after curds are made and removed, is a clear and protein rich liquid, called whey. You can find whey if you purchase a live culture yogurt (such as I have in my hand...) and let it warm gently. They whey is the thick clear liquid that separates out. Tibor Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:54:19 -0500 From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter) Subject: Re: SC - Re: curds, was-A real sieg Hi, Katerine here. Brid asks how you make fresh curds, and whether they are like cottage cheese. On the first question: well, if you have raw (that is, unhomogenized) milk, it's relatively easy. Curds are the lumps that form out of milk with the addition of acid. Rennet works *very* well; but you can also get them with a few drops of vinegar, or lemon juice, or verjuice, or so on. Unfortunately, if the milk is homogenized, you have to add much more, and the curds just aren't the same when they form. As to whether they're like cottage cheese: if you look on those tubs they sell, they're labeled "aged". So the answer is: curds are a *fresh* form of the sort of thing they *age* to get the lumps in cottage cheese. No, cottage cheese doesn't work great in this recipe. But it can be used. Cheers, - -- Katerine/Terry Date: Wed, 13 Aug 97 13:58:46 -0700 From: chuck_diters at mail.fws.gov Subject: Re[2]: SC - lombardy custard Katerine/Terry wrote: (snip) Since cream in those days was neither pasteurized nor combined with milk (as even modern heavy cream is, because dairies can legally do it and save money thereby), my suspicion is that they would have been using a much heavier cream, and the straining may have been encouraging the fats to harden, thickening it further, rather than introducing air. (snip) I recall a particularly tasty dessert at a restaurant on Ile d'Orleans called L'Atre (this was in the late 60's) that consisted simply of fresh bread with maple sugar, run under a broiler, and topped with the heaviest of heavy cream from the farm's own cows. As I recall, the cream was not thickened in any mechanical way, and already had nearly the consistency of modern "whipped" cream. (In other words, I suspect K/T is close to the mark here.) Chuck/Bjarni ************************************************************************ Chuck Diters/Bjarni Edwardsson West/Oertha/Eskalya Shadowood Manor, 9541 Victor Road, Anchorage, AK 99515-1470 ph: (907)344-5753 Email: chuck_diters at mail.fws.gov Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 17:09:33 -0500 From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter) Subject: Re: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #245 Hi, Katerine here. Snipping from Aiofe's response to Adamantius: >For that matter, who says that our cream was the consistency of their cream, I, for one, am middling certain it wasn't. Modern cream is homogenized, which affects consistency. It is also thinnned down to legally acceptable levels. In fact, modern cream isn't much thicker than the stuff that rose to the top of milk bottles we got in England 35 years ago -- and that was milk from which much of the cream had already been removed. I suspect that raw cream carefully extracted from fresh raw milk is *much* heavier than the heaviest you can buy at the supermarket. Modern dairies economize by giving us much weaker stuff. I also suspect that homogenization affects the readiness of cream to clot. - -- Katerine/Terry Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 18:10:31 -0400 (EDT) From: Uduido at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Re:Crustade Lombarde, An Inspiration turned Sour In a message dated 97-08-21 08:36:55 EDT, Adamantius wrote: << This isn't my normal way of solving problems like this. I offer it only as a consolation prize... . >> Ok, folks. I went visiting a farmer friend and talked him out of a gallon of gurnsey milk. I let it stand in the fridge for 72 hours. and then carefully removed the layer of cream on top. This cream is a) very thick and b) will hold a small egg on top if carefully slid unto it. I did not go any further but I thought that it would be something to think about. That is to say the small cattle of period probably produced milk wich was richer in cream and their chickens definately produced smaller eggs. I don't know if this will help but that is what I have discovered so far. Unfortunately after 3 weeks of vacation I don't have the time needed to further experiment with this one. :-( Lord Ras Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 19:02:03 -0500 From: maddie teller-kook Subject: Re: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #245 Terry Nutter wrote: > Hi, Katerine here. Snipping from Aiofe's response to Adamantius: > > I, for one, am middling certain it wasn't. Modern cream is homogenized, > which affects consistency. It is also thinnned down to legally acceptable > levels. In fact, modern cream isn't much thicker than the stuff that > rose to the top of milk bottles we got in England 35 years ago -- and > that was milk from which much of the cream had already been removed. A dairy in Central Texas sells unhomogonized cream. It is very, very thick. I wonder if this product would produce the desired results! It may form curds with the addition of the parsley. meadhbh Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 09:02:31 -0600 (MDT) From: Mary Morman Subject: SC - real cream Back in the dark ages when my children were babies, I knew a woman who owned two jersey cows. She milked daily, pasteurized, and then sold the milk and cream. I used to get two gallons of milk (with cream rising to the top) and a pint mayonaise jar of real cream every week. Now this cream would not pour. It was more the consistency of soft butter or modern sour cream. You had to scoop it out of the jar with a big spoon. You could whip it, and it didn't take a lot of whipping to 'puff' but would turn to butter in a trice. If this is the kind of cream that period cooks were working with, then, yes, it would support an egg right off with no problem and no additives. And also, why bother to whip it when it's already the consistency of creme anglaise or pastry filling? elaina Date: Mon, 3 Nov 1997 19:16:47 -0500 (EST) From: LrdRas at aol.com Subject: SC - Sour Cream << Also, is sour cream period, or is that a different breed of cat from period stuff, too? >> If you leave unhomogonized, raw milk on the counter over night the cream rises. The milk and cream also sour. Thus you have sour cream. BTW, soured milk is the "traditional way of making butter. It yields the best buttermilk in the world and the butter itself is, IMO, 100 steps ahead of the "sweet" butter available in most supermarkets today with regard to flavor. Ras Date: Mon, 03 Nov 1997 21:19:22 -0500 From: margali Subject: Re: SC - Sour Cream LrdRas at aol.com wrote: > << Also, is sour cream period, or is that a > different breed of cat from period stuff, too? >> > > If you leave unhomogonized, raw milk on the counter over night the > cream rises. The milk and cream also sour. Thus you have sour cream. GIANT HORRENDOUS GAAAAKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Milk that has been pasteurized will not sour into sour cream, it gathers airborne microbes that are NOT lactobacillus acidoph., and they taste nasty. If you ask any cheesemaker, you inoculate with the correct bacillus and then you let it sour. Thus is made proper sour cream, it is essentially a variant of yoghurt. off my soap box and nipping back under my rock, away from the nasty rotting milk left out on the counter margali Date: Mon, 03 Nov 1997 20:40:14 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy Subject: Re: SC - Sour Cream LrdRas at aol.com wrote: > If you leave unhomogonized, raw milk on the counter over night the > cream rises. The milk and cream also sour. Thus you have sour cream. Actually, Ras, you get cream, which will probably have soured without the benefit of the microbes that give dairy sour cream (and I know I used the term "dairy sour" cream specifically to make this distinction) its distinctive flavor. In other words, you get cream that is sour, but not sour cream. Margali, whereever did you find that unhomogenized, raw, pasteurized milk that rots on the counter ; ) ? Seriously, though, some Middle Eastern groceries sell a Lebanese cream yogurt called Laban or labneh. Labneh just means yogurt, pretty much, so you will have to read the ingredients to determine whether it is milk yogurt or cream yogurt. Cream Laban is great, but not quite the same as smetana, the Russian (I think) stuff we've come to know as sour cream. I believe there's a different bug involved. Adamantius Date: Tue, 04 Nov 1997 21:06:44 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy Subject: Re: SC - Sour Cream Varju at aol.com wrote: > << Cream Laban is great, but not quite the same as > smetana, the Russian (I think) stuff we've come to know as sour cream. I > believe there's a different bug involved >> > > Would this account for different textures and consistancies? I know that > Hungarian tefol (sour cream) is much thinner and generally had the > consistancy of thick yoghurt. Even at its thickest it was nothing like our > sour cream. > > Noemi A different bacterium might well account for differences in consistency. So might differences in the cream itself, prior to souring (i.e. butterfat content, or even a different animal source). Adamantius Date: Wed, 05 Nov 1997 10:40:24 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy Subject: SC - Re: Sour Cream Woeller D wrote: > P.S. still haven't figured out, from all of the replies on the sour > cream string, if it, or what can be gotten in stores, is anywhere near > period. The Official Answer is "We don't know." The apparent real answer is, probably not, unless you are of Russian or Polish or other Eastern European persona, and perhaps not even then. But it hasn't been ruled out, either. What we call sour cream is really smetana, a Russian preparation that probably became widely known in Europe only after the Crimean War, with an extra boost when a lot of Russian aristocrats moved to France after the Russian Revolution. How long smetana has been eaten in Russia, I have no idea. Adamantius Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 08:22:23 -0600 (CST) From: alysk at ix.netcom.com (Elise Fleming) Subject: SC - Period Dairying, Etc. Greetings. For the person looking for information on period dairy practices and cheesemaking try _The English Housewife_ by Gervase Markham, 1615. There is a good edition out by Michael Best, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1986, ISBN 0-7735-0582-2. He has a chapter on the practices that a good housewife should follow. While I don't believe there are "recipes" per se he does mention certain types of cheeses and what one should do with the whey, curds, etc. There is also another fascinating book, _The Country House Kitchen, 1650-1900_, edited by Sambrook and Brears. While the dates indicate OOP, this book takes some of the manors belonging to England's National Trust and details the architectural plans and layout of the kitchens and related rooms. Tucked in with all the OOP material are references to period practices. There are numerous references to dairies and dairying. I don't know where one might find the book. It is esoteric enough that most public libraries wouldn't have it and expensive enough that most SCAers wouldn't have it. I have a copy, but then, I'm single and a pack rat for books! If there's something specific - dairy layout, items needed for a "perfect" dairy or dairyroom, post me and I will send what I can find, time willing. Alys Katharine Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 18:24:12 EST From: LrdRas at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Persian milk Seton1355 at aol.com writes: << I have been reading recipes that include "Persian milk." Does anyone know what this is? Many thanks, Phillipa Seton >> Yogurt. Ras Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 13:19:14 EDT From: kathe1 at juno.com (Kathleen Everitt) Subject: Re: SC - Swithin Cream? On Wed, 29 Apr 1998 10:40:13 +0100 (BST) Daria Anne Rakowski writes: >I have been requested to find a recipe for 'Swithin Cream' and I have >never heard of it and haven't been able to find it so far. It includes >such things as Dandelion heads, cream, sugar, etc.(all of which we >have in abundance!) Proportions? Sources? Thank-you in advance. > >Coll Swithin Cream Peels of 2 large lemons, grated 10 dandelion flowers 2 cups heavy whipping cream 1/8 tsp. salt 3/4 c sugar Beat the cream, add salt and sugar, fold in lemon peel and flower petals. It's from Medieval Holidays & Festivals by Madeleine Pelner Cosman. Yes, the same Madeleine Pelner Cosman who did Fabulous Feasts. No documentation. I've never seen anything like it in a good reference. But it tastes very good. (Hey! I was given the book as a gift before I knew any better and I made a lot of the recipes in it. Some of them aren't bad. The peppermint rice is a little weird. So is the Pasta and Apricot Butter. Need I say more?) Julleran Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 15:20:51 -0500 From: "Suzanne Berry" Subject: SC - SC: Creamline milk information Greetings, good gentles. I'm usually a lurker, and I don't know if this will be useful to anyone, but.... A couple of months back I had posted asking if anyone knew anything about milk being called "creamline milk" as I had found it here, from a local dairy. I've finally had time to experiment with it, and figured others might be able to use the info. It appears to be pasteruized, NONhomogenized milk, completely unskimmed. A one-quart bottle, allowed to sit in the fridge for a day or two, develops a sufficiently thick plug of solid cream that the milk cannot be poured until you spoon out the cream. I made clotted cream last night by m'lady Aoife's method, and came out with about 2-3 times the cream obtained when using "whole" milk, to my surprise and joy. Oh, and the discussions we were having about what you did to cream to make it support an egg? (in reference to a redaction) the "plug" of cream I mentioned above definitely would support an egg without doing anything to it at all. Think of the texture of whipped butter, and that's about what it's like. - - Aislinn Barony of Stonemarche East Kingdom Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 06:12:00 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." Subject: RE: SC - butterkase? > << Ok, newbie cook question time. What's "butterkase"? >> IIRC (and I admit memory is poor on this one), butterkase is a hard rind cheese similar in shape to provolone. There is a square of butter in the center of the cheese. It allows one to keep butter for extended periods without refrigeration. The technique was developed for the Hanseatic trade. I haven't seen any for years and I may have put the wrong name to it. Bear Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1998 18:16:48 EST From: Jgoldsp at aol.com Subject: Re: SC Life span of cows was... Just some info in my area of the world we can get specific types of creams at whole foods stores for example I buy jersey cow heavy cream which is much more thicker and very yellow compared to the sanitized and white heavy cream found in supermarkets. It is pasteurized but not homogenized neither is the milk in this particular brand and it is fun and interesting to use but a tad expensive. Joram Barony of the Bridge,[new England] Kingdom of the East Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 07:01:39 EST From: Mordonna22 at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Scottish/british food terms Devra at aol.com writes: > 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. Actually, the Jersey Breed (Which did originate on the Isle of Jersey) does produce milk higher in butterfat than most other dairy breeds (Such as the Holstein.) Doesn't mean the resulting cream is richer, simply that you can get more cream per pint of milk. For comparison's sake, when we were dairying, our registered Holsteins averaged 5 to 8 gallons of 4% to 5% butterfat milk per milking. Our registered Jerseys averaged 3 to 5 gallons of 7% to 8% butterfat milk per day. We're talking US gallons, at about 8.6 lbs of milk per gallon, so our best Holstein producer gave almost 3 1/2 lbs of butterfat per day. Her Jersey counterpart (who was a ribbon winner several times in our county) gave the same amount of butterfat in 5/8 the amount of milk. Since, in order to make milk, you allow the butterfat to rise and settle, then skim it off, the percent butterfat of the cream is not related to the percent butterfat of the milk. However the total amount you can get from a given amount does. The richness of cream has more to do with the method of preparing it than with the kind of milk you start with. Milk taken directly from the cow, warm, allowed to sit overnight, then skimmed produces a far superior product than anything I've ever found in a grocery. Mordonna Warrior Haven Atenveldt Atenveldt (Phoenix, AZ) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 08:50:21 -0000 From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" Subject: Re: SC - "bog butter" ><< And completely unsalted, >> > >On what basis do you make this statement? In Iceland, butter was never salted until the 19th century. Neither was fish, and meat rarely. We used other methods of preservation, as almost all salt had to be imported and was simply too expensive for ordinary people. Yet this butter was not only a great part of our diet (the usual allotment for a working man was half a pound per day) but was also used for many financial transactions. Rents were usually paid in butter, for instance. Nanna Date: Mon, 08 Mar 1999 14:57:30 -0800 From: "James L. Matterer" Subject: Re: SC - Bread and Circuses > And, FWIW, the whole cheese/bread/butter thing at the beginning of a > meal seems to be way off prevailing medieval European medical theory > (dairy products, especially cheeses and cheese dishes, would normally be > served at or near the end of the meal to close the chest and stomach up > while digesting, and I've seen no evidence of butter being spread on > bread in medieval Europe, and some evidence to suggest it was not). > > Adamantius I'm afraid I have to disagree with this somewhat. John Russell's Boke of Nurture clearly states that butter is eaten with bread: "Buttir is an holsem mete, first and eke last, for he will a stomak kepe & helpe poyson a-wey to cast, also he norishethe a man to be laske and evy humerus to wast, and with white bred he wille kepe thy mouthe in tast." "Butter is a wholesome food, at the beginning and end of a meal, for it fortifies the stomach and protects it from poisons; it also nourishes by opening the stomach and clears away ill humours - and on white bread it will add relish to eating." Scully uses this quote in "The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages" to show that bread & butter were used as an apertif to begin the meal. Dyetary of Helth (Andrew Boorde, 1490-1549) also recommends butter to begin the day with: "Butter is made of crayme, and is moyste of operacion; it is good to eate in the mornyng before other meates." Huen - -- A Boke of Gode Cookery http://www.labs.net/dmccormick/huen.htm Date: Tue, 09 Mar 1999 13:13:56 -0800 From: "James L. Matterer" Subject: Re: SC - Dairy Products (long) Leafing through Food & Feast in Medieval England by P. W. Hammond, I found several interesting comments. Hammond says that most butter was used by cooks for cooking purposes; in great households butter was made available to members of the family but usually not to the servants; most peasants had access to some sort of butter; in 1289 carters on Ferring Manor, Sussex, had a morning meal of rye bread with ale & cheese, at noon they received bread, ale, and a dish of fish or meat, and in the evening they were given a drink only (no butter for these poor fellows, but cheese in the morning). This book also has an interesting 15th c. illustration of a peasant man scooping out butter from a large pot suspended over a fire. The only reference to butter I've found in the writings of Chaucer is for the butterfly! He mentions cheese quite a bit, though. Huen - -- A Boke of Gode Cookery http://www.labs.net/dmccormick/huen.htm Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 16:59:12 EST From: LrdRas at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Dairy Products (long) jlmatterer at labyrinth.net writes: << but cheese in the morning). >> This makes perfect sense. If a worker were going to the fields for the day , the eating of cheese would be somewhat of an assurance that he wouldn't have to use the privy too often. <> Could it be possible that this person is scooping curds or freshly made cheese from the pot over the fire since heating is a step in cheese making? Unless there is accompanying text that specifies 'butter' I would be more inclined to think that cheese would be the more correct interpretation. Ras Date: Tue, 09 Mar 1999 18:53:15 -0800 From: "James L. Matterer" Subject: Re: SC - Dairy Products (long) > < illustration of a peasant man scooping out butter from a large pot > suspended over a fire. >> > > Could it be possible that this person is scooping curds or freshly made cheese > from the pot over the fire since heating is a step in cheese making? Unless > there is accompanying text that specifies 'butter' I would be more inclined > to think that cheese would be the more correct interpretation. > > Ras The text accompanying the picture says "Man spooning out butter." It is from the Tacuinun Santitatis. The opening word calligraphed on the period picture is "Butium." My latin is not so good - is this butter? Huen Date: Tue, 09 Mar 1999 21:04:48 -0500 From: Philip & Susan Troy Subject: Re: SC - Dairy Products (long) > The text accompanying the picture says "Man spooning out butter." It is > from the Tacuinun Santitatis. The opening word calligraphed on the > period picture is "Butium." My latin is not so good - is this butter? > > Huen That would be the Liege Tacuinum, #36, which is captioned "Butirum". Yes, that's butter. As for why it is suspended over a fire, one possibility is that what we are seeing being vended is clarified butter. Another possibility is that this butter is made along the lines of clotted cream, slightly soured and heated to break the emulsion, and then lifted off the surface. Adamantius Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 20:09:47 -0400 From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow) Subject: Re: SC - Whipped Cream >I've just recieved my copy of Pleyn Delit, and I love it : ) >There are a couple of question marks though - the authors repeatedly state >that medieval cooks did not whip either cream or eggwhite. Does anyone >know if this is really true? >I find it hard to believe > >Lady Uta Hello! I've got a recipe for Crustade Lumbard (Harl. 279, Dyuerse Bake metis, #17) that says "Take gode Creme, & leuys of Percely, & Eyroun, [th]e [3]olkys & [th]e whyte, & breke hem [th]er-to, & strayne [th]orwe a straynoure, tyl it be so styf [th]at it wol bere hym-self..." If the phrase "tyl it be so styf [th]at it wol bere hym-self..." is referring to the cream, then this is the earliest mention of whipped cream that I've found yet. (c. 1430) There's an illustration from Il Cuoco Segreto..., 1570, showing a cook whipping cream with a whisk. I posted that illustration here: http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/food-art/cheese_and_butter.gif Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu renfrow at skylands.net Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 07:33:04 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy Subject: Subject: Re: SC - Persian milk? From: Kerri Canepa > I have been watching with some interest for any response to the question Henry > posted concerning Persian milk. Did anyone answer and I missed it? Does anyone > have an answer? Ras? Cariadoc? > > Enquiring cooks want to know... > > Cedrin > Princess Oertha Lord Henry and Assorted Worthies ask about Persian milk... sorry, I kinda figured that by the time I got to this one someone else would. Here are what pass for my thoughts, such as they are: I understand Persian milk to be similar to yogurt. However, as Lord Henry mentions, the context of the recipe he's working with suggests to him that ordinary yogurt would curdle if used as described. So either Persian milk is not just plain yogurt as we know it around here, or perhaps the recipe intends for it to curdle, or there may be some mistranslation somewhere along the line. I can't really help with these questions, but perhaps approach the problem from the opposite direction? Ways for milk to not curdle, assuming that it's not supposed to. As Henry mentions, stabilizing it with some kind of gelatinized/cooked starch would be one way. This method is used today in the various yogurt/garlic/mint sauces for dishes such as shushbarrak (a sort of ravioli-thingy found also in Al-Baghdadi, IIRC), and the method of stabilizing with starch could conceivably have been done in period, although I don't recall seeing a recipe that includes it. Another modern example would be the various uses of kishik, a convenience-food preparation of yogurt dried with ultra-fine bulgur, traditonally on a sunny rooftop, and available commercially in better Middle Eastern markets in funky Romano-cheese-smelling ingots, or as a powder. It's used to thicken and flavor soups and sauces. Another possibility might be that Persian milk is cultured from milk that's been cooked a long time. Proteins will curdle when boiled, but some of them will reverse this process after hours of boiling, rather like some old beer recipes that call for long boiling to first separate out heavier (and cloud-inducing) proteins, and redissolving them by boiling to make a higher-gravity beer. This might be possible with casein and such, and I can think of an example or three of milk cooked to a thick goop without curdling. Dulce de leche would be one example, although this may be stabilized by sugar syrup. Various Italian and Scandinavian dishes of meat cooked in milk, very slowly, might be other examples of this. Another consideration is that the yogurt, assuming that's what Persian milk is, is probably not cow's milk yogurt, and yogurt made from goat's or sheep's milk behaves differently. You might have different results using goat's milk yogurt, since goat's milk has its fat emulsified more severely into it -- it is effectively "shortened" -- which means it tends to thicken or gel more than curdle, in a cheesemaking process. You may find that the same is true in cookery applications for goat's milk yogurt as Persian milk. Again, assuming that Persian milk _is_ yogurt. The only documentation I've seen for that assumption has been on this list, so it's pretty much a matter of faith. > >Does anyone have any useful information on Persian milk? Other period > >cookbooks that use the term, other information about the words, evidence of > >its use in modern times, boiling experiments, information about Arabic words > >for "boil" and "simmer," etc.? > > > >Henry of Maldon/Alex Clark Adamantius Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 17:20:39 EDT From: CBlackwill at aol.com Subject: Re: Subject: Re: SC - Persian milk? troy at asan.com writes: > Another consideration is that the yogurt, assuming that's what Persian > milk is, is probably not cow's milk yogurt, and yogurt made from goat's > or sheep's milk behaves differently. You might have different results > using goat's milk yogurt, since goat's milk has its fat emulsified more > severely into it -- it is effectively "shortened" -- which means it > tends to thicken or gel more than curdle, in a cheesemaking process. This is true. Goats milk will still curdle, but at a higher temperature than cows milk, and it does not curdle in the same fashion. Also, Goats milk can withstand a more highly acidic environment than cows milk. When introducing cows milk into an acidic liquid, it is best to do so only after roux (or another starchy substance) has been used to thicken it (either the milk, or the liquid). This helps to inhibit the curdling (or "breaking). With goats milk, it is often not necessary to thicken it prior to the introduction. Balthazar of Blackmoor Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 15:07:48 CEST From: "Christina van Tets" Subject: SC - yoghurt Allison wrote: >Thanks for your thoughts, M. Adamantius. Do you suppose that, following >the evening milking--of whatever animal--if the milk were set in an >earthenware pot at the back of the cooking fire area, that by morning it >might have had the necessary cooking to make the yoghurt type, or >thickened type? That was roughly the speculation on the card in a museum I saw some years ago in England (Southampton, I think). It went with a nifty little device (in the Roman section) which was a bowl with small rough pebbles set into it during the making; the whole inside was unglazed. From memory, the archaeologists had done tests and said that there cheese bacteria were lodged in all the 'pores', and that all a cook needed to do was pour milk in and it automatically got its rennet like that. Cairistiona P.S. It was the same shape as an ordinary milk pan, FWIW >Certainly, making yoghurt at home, we heat it to the right temperature >and then hold it there for hours. I try to think of the simple way that >would be natural to do a thing, as very often that is what got done. >Perhaps commercial production in a city might have used a different >method, but if this is not solely a noble dish, then something not too >elaborate in method or utensils is likely. I'm thinking of the kitchens >dug up by archeologists--generally minus their furnishings, of course. Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 16:10:59 -0600 From: Sue Clemenger Subject: Re: SC - Creme Bastarde Here you go, thanks to M'lady Contance's documentation for last week's A&S: >From _Two 15th Century Cookbooks_, p. 139: "Take te whyte of eyroun a grete hepe, & putte it on a panne ful of mylke, & let yt boyle; ten sesyn it so with salt and honey a lytel; ten lat hir kele, & draw it torw a straynoure, an take fayre cowe mylke an draw yt withallm & seson it with sugre; & loke tat it be poynant & doucet: serve it forth for a potage, or for a god bakyn mete, wheder tat tou wolt." The way Constance redacted it, it came out much like a slightly sweet custard sauce. Absolutely divine as a dip for fresh strawberries. - --Maire Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 10:13:29 +0200 From: "Cindy M. Renfrow" Subject: Re: SC - Creme Bastarde >>I'm sure it was good with strawberries, but has anybody tried this as >>the recipe suggests, as a pottage, or, I assume, a filling for tarts? >>I've never made this myself; don't the egg whites curdle? >>Adamantius Hello! Yes, IMO the egg whites should curdle, since we're instructed to boil the whites with milk. The whites clot, and then you strain it through a strainer to make it smoother. My adaptation came out somewhat like tapioca pudding in consistency. It's a good pottage, but I haven't tried it as tart filling. I added currants (as an option) to make it 'poignant', since the recipe does not specify how we're to make this sweet dish 'poignant'. Harl. MS. 4016, Fried creme de almondes, hides currants in almond cream. "Harleian MS. 279 - Potage Dyvers Clj. Creme Bastarde. Take [th]e whyte of Eyroun a grete hepe, & putte it on a panne ful of Mylke, & let yt boyle; [th]en sesyn it so with Salt an hony a lytel, [th]en lat hit kele, & draw it [th]orw a straynoure, an take fayre Cowe mylke an draw yt with-all, & seson it with Sugre, & loke [th]at it be poynant & doucet: & serue it forth for a potage, or for a gode Bakyn mete, wheder [th]at [th]ou wolt. 151. Creme Bastarde. Take the white of Eggs a great heap, & put it in a pan full of Milk, & let it boil; then season it so with Salt and honey a little, then let it cool, & draw it through a strainer, and take fair Cow's milk and draw it withal, & season it with Sugar, & look that it be poignant & sweet: & serve it forth for a pottage, or for a good Baked meat, whichever that thou will. 4 egg whites 1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons milk dash salt 1 teaspoon honey 1 Tablespoon sugar Optional: garnish with currants Put egg whites and 1/4 cup milk in a saucepan and bring to a boil while stirring. Add a dash of salt and a teaspoon of honey. Stir. Remove pan from heat as soon as the mixture solidifies; it should resemble tapioca pudding. Allow the mixture to cool. Add 2 tablespoons milk to the egg mixture and press it all through a strainer into a bowl. Add 1 tablespoon sugar and stir. Pour into a serving dish and serve warm or cold. Makes 3/4 cup. Serves 2." (From "Take a Thousand Eggs or More", 2nd Ed., Vol. 1 pp. 228-9. Copyright 1990. 1997, by Cindy Renfrow.) Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu Author and Publisher of "Take a Thousand Eggs or More" and "A Sip Through Time" Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 09:19:03 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeff Heilveil Subject: SC - Creme Bastarde It was asked whether anyone had made Creme Bastarde as a filling for tarts. I have. IT was wonderful. It worked out wonderfully. Admittedly, I didn't redact it myself, but rather used the redaction in Take a Thousand Eggs or More (I don't recall which volume, though Cindy might help out with that). As with all of the redactions I have used from there, it worked beautifully, and tasted wonderful. Bogdan Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 18:45:51 EDT From: LadyPDC at aol.com Subject: SC - Creme' Bastarde Greeting to the list from Constance de LaRose, Now that the A&S competition is over and I have the time to read all the postings from the SCA-Cooks, I am back. I have noticed several posts regarding the various Creme' Bastarde recipes from period sources and various problems getting it to come out correctly. So I thought I would pass on the secrets I have discovered. All of the period recipes call for milk, however, one was specific in stating "fayre milk straight from the cow" (sorry, things are still a mess here so will have to get you the reference on it later). As anyone who has ever milked a cow can tell you, if you let milk straight from the cow set for any length of time, the cream (and many of the sweet fats from the milk) will rise to the top. Even modern whole milk which you buy in the store has usually lost these parts. Since I didn't have access to a ready, milk providing, cow, I put these parts back in when I made the "Creme' Bastarde" which was in the competition. For each cup of milk which the redation I worked out called for, I used 3/4 cup whole milk and 1/4 cup cream. Also, after straining the final cooked mixture, I beat the whole mixture 200 strokes before refrigerating and 100 strokes after an hour of refrigeration. This is what gave the cream it's fuller, creamier, taste and texture. As for the other question, I did try the baking offered as an alternative in the original recipes. The cream addition makes for a lovely fluffy baked custard which is delicious with a sauce of any fruit liqueur and a bit of honey heated and poured over it. Hope this helps. Constance de LaRose "CrËme Bastarde. Take te whyte of eyroun a grete hepe, & putte it on a panne ful of mylke, & let yt boyle; ten sesyn it so with salt and honey a lytel; ten lat hit kele, & draw it torw a straynoure, an take fayre cowe mylke an draw yt withallm & seson it with sugre; & loke tat it be poynant & doucet: serve it forth for a potage, or for a gode bakyn mete, wheder tat tou wolt" Custard Sauce 2 egg whites, well beaten 3/4 cup whole milk 1/2 cup cream 2 tsp. cream 2 T honey pinch salt 2 tbsp sugar Put egg whites in a sauce pan with the milk and º cup of the cream and stir over medium heat as it comes to a boil. Let it simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring: then add the honey and salt. After simmering for another minute or two, remove from heat and strain or blend in a blender, adding remaining cream and sugar and beat for 200 strokes. Pour into a serving dish and chill for one hour (it will thicken as it chills). At the end of one hour, remove and beat again for 100 strokes then chill until ready to serve. Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 08:12:09 EDT From: ChannonM at aol.com Subject: SC - Re: Started as viking barley bread- now did Vikings drink milk > An interesting point. Was milk drunk as a common beverage? I'm sure it > was consumed quite a bit in Scandinavian areas (that's one reason why > the Innuits wiped out a Viking trading village in Greenland. They had > been given milk as a drink and the lactose intolerant natives thought they > had been poisoned.) but what about the Continent or England? When researching a 12th C Irish feast I included the Viking influence and read Egil's Saga. There are several food references in it and one that touches on milk in particular Finally, after the death of his sons, Egil discusses with his daughter and he says; <<ìSo worketh it with one that eateth dulse, thirsteth he aye the more for that (water)î ìWilt thou drink, father?î saith she. He took it, and swallowed a big draught, and that was in a beastís horn. Then spake Thorgerd: ì Now are we cheated! This is milkî. Then bit Egil a shard out of the horn, all that his teeth took hold on, and there with cast down the horn.>> So, milk anyone? I guess it wouldn’t be wise to serve it to this Viking. Hauviette Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 17:55:12 -0500 From: "Michael F. Gunter" Subject: SC - Re: now did Vikings drink milk > < that (water)? > ?Wilt thou drink, father?? saith she. > He took it, and swallowed a big draught, and that was in a beast?s horn. > Then spake Thorgerd: ? Now are we cheated! This is milk?. > Then bit Egil a shard out of the horn, all that his teeth took hold on, and > there with cast down the horn.>> > > So, milk anyone? > > I guess it wouldn't be wise to serve it to this Viking. > > Hauviette Well upon reading it a couple of times it appears to me that what upset the heroes wasn't the fact that milk wasn't drunk but that they were expecting something a bit stronger. I've seen several sources that the Norse enjoyed milk, either fresh or soured, as a beverage but I don't know if the habit extended to the lower countries. Maybe Nanna could give some insight. Gunthar Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 17:30:47 -0700 From: "James F. Johnson" Subject: Re: SC - Re: now did Vikings drink milk "Michael F. Gunter" wrote: > Well upon reading it a couple of times it appears to me that what upset > the heroes wasn't the fact that milk wasn't drunk but that they were > expecting something a bit stronger. > > I've seen several sources that the Norse enjoyed milk, either fresh > or soured, as a beverage but I don't know if the habit extended to the > lower countries. I know the Icelanders diluted whey about 1 part whey to 11 or 12 parts water and consumed as a beverage. And while it was acceptable to offer it in hospitality, if you were discovered to have held back the good stuff (mead, beer, etc) and only offered the whey, the fur would start to fly. If the whey was all you had, then that was acceptable if offered. The former happens in Egil's Saga when he finds the innkeeper has held back the good food and drink, expecting the king, and given Egil skyr curds and diluted whey. Egil makes known his heartfelt disappointment at his treatment by the innkeeper, and, er,....'returns' the curds and whey to his host. Seumas Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 01:04:21 -0000 From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" Subject: Re: SC - Re: now did Vikings drink milk >Well upon reading it a couple of times it appears to me that what upset >the heroes wasn't the fact that milk wasn't drunk but that they were >expecting something a bit stronger. > >I've seen several sources that the Norse enjoyed milk, either fresh >or soured, as a beverage but I don't know if the habit extended to the >lower countries. > >Maybe Nanna could give some insight. Sure. The point here is that Egill was so full of grief after his son drowned that he decided to starve himself to death, but his daughter ?orgerur (Thorgerd) tricked him by first convincing him that she wanted to join him in his plan, then by chewing some dulse (which seems not to have been eaten in Norway, the Icelandic settlers probably learned that from the Irish). Egill didn¥t consider the dulse to be food (chewing gum, maybe?) so he also got some dulse, not realising how salty it was. They became very thirsty and called for some water but were given milk instead (arranged by ?orgerur before she joined her father, of course). The reason for Egils anger is that he realises he has been tricked. So he abandoned his plan of starving himself to death and instead (at ?orgerur’s suggestion) composed Sonatorrek, one of his mighty poems, in memory of his sons (another one had died a short time earlier). The Icelanders did drink milk, and diluted fermented whey (s?ra), and thin skyr (either undrained or thinned with water). Nanna Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 18:07:49 -0400 From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" Subject: Re: SC - Double cream And it came to pass on 24 Aug 00,, that Philip & Susan Troy wrote: > It's too early in the morning, and I haven't finished my tea, or I'd > find the specific butterfat percentage ranges for the various kinds of > cream in the USA and the UK. Maybe someone else has this information > handy? > > Adamantius The rec.food.cooking FAQ has this, and other neat bits of information. It is well worth bookmarking, and is webbed (among other places) at: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/cooking/faq/ This is what it has to say about cream: The minimum milk fat content by weight for various types of cream: (UK) (US) Clotted Cream 55% Double Cream 48% Heavy Cream 36% Whipping Cream 35% 30% Whipped Cream 35% Single Cream 18% (=Light Cream) Half Cream 12% (=Half and Half*) * Half and Half has only 10% butterfat in British Columbia. Lady Brighid ni Chiarain Settmour Swamp, East (NJ) mka Robin Carroll-Mann harper at idt.net 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: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 16:39:45 -0400 From: "micaylah" Subject: Re: SC - Weird but cool kitchen gadgets > But does the result of this end up like cream? It sounds like it > would actually more resemble buttermilk. Actually Buttermilk has very, very little fat in it. According to Canadian standards: Buttermilk is milk to which bacterial cultures have been added to give it its characteristic sour taste. Even though it has butter in its name, it is not a higher fat choice! It is made from either 1% or 2% milk. Its nutritional content is comparable to regular white milk except it may or may not be fortified with vitamin D. One cup or 250 mL of buttermilk (0.8% MF) has 105 calories and 2 grams of fat. American mileage may vary. Micaylah Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 14:04:07 -0700 From: lilinah at earthlink.net Subject: Re: SC - Weird but cool kitchen gadgets Stefan li Rous wrote: > > But does the result of this end up like cream? It sounds like it > > would actually more resemble buttermilk. Well, originally buttermilk was the milk leftover *after* butter was made, so low butterfat content, the opposite of this little gadget. Nowadays most buttermilk in America is cultured of non- or low-fat milk. I can also find "churned" buttermilk commercially, again, low in fat. It's sort of the opposite of its name, as it is milk "without butter". I've never had any right out of a churn. Anybody know? Is it really sour like the commercial kind? Anahita Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 19:28:40 EDT From: Bronwynmgn at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Weird but cool kitchen gadgets lilinah at earthlink.net writes: > I've never had any right out of a churn. Anybody know? Is it really > sour like the commercial kind? I made my own butter at Pennsic last year. Real buttermilk is far, far better tasting than the cultured stuff. I abhor the buttermilk the grocery sells; it always smells and tastes like it's gone bad to me. The buttermilk left over from my butter was so good that I drank it straight. Brangwayna Morgan Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 09:09:24 -0700 (PDT) From: Chris Stanifer Subject: Re: SC - yogurt Cheese 101? - --- Stefan li Rous wrote: > Anyone know if this is a period technique? And another question for us > neophytes, what exactly is yogart? Is it just an already curdled milk > project? If so, then how is it different from cottage cheese? It > certainly *looks* different. Stefan, I'm not sure if yoghurt cheese is period, but I seem to recall something about it, somewhere (how's that for definitive?) One of the more learned scholars on this list may be able to answer that for us... However, as for the question "what exactly is yogart (sic)"... Yoghurt is a milk product which has been inocculated with bacteria, very similar to buttermilk, which begin to coagulate the proteins and give it a pleasantly tart taste. It's cultured milk. The difference between yoghurt and cottage cheese is the absence of rennet in yoghurt, among other factors. Consequently, if you mix cottage cheese and yoghurt, the combination produces a very high quality blend of protein and carbohydrate...very effective if taken an hour or so after a vigourous weight training workout! Or, after a serious butt-kicking out on the dusty battlefield.... Balthazar of Blackmoor Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 10:17:40 +0200 From: UlfR To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: SC - yogurt Cheese 101? micaylah [2001.04.30] wrote: > > Consequently, if you mix cottage cheese and yoghurt, > Balthazar do you really eat this??? Ewww. About a year ago Nanna mentioned an Icelandic speciality, which was "hr=E6ringur - skyr mixed with cold oatmeal". I've since tried this using a substitute skyr made from what is sold as yogurt here (3% milkfat, consistency like a milkshake, but with the full yogurt tartness[1]). Superb, and even went down most of the others in the camp (I'm pretty much an omnivore, and thus can't be used to evaluate what others will or will not eat). Perfect summer lunch in camp. make far too much oatmeal, and mix the cold remains up with the freshly drained "skyr". Two cloth bags for the making of yogurt cheese/"skyr" is part of the stuff I allways bring to SCA camps. I found that adding a few spoons of it (the "skyr") to hot barley porridge was pretty good as well. /UlfR [1] They make a "mild" version as well. Totally meaningless. I *want* the tart flavour to go with my m=FCsli. -- UlfR parlei-sc at algonet.se Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 13:59:07 +0200 From: UlfR To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: SC - yogurt Cheese 101? Philip & Susan Troy [2001.05.10] wrote: > > "hrringur - skyr mixed with cold oatmeal". I've since tried this using > I must have missed this discussion when it came around previously on the > git-tar. This may sound silly, but would you consider this a cheese food > or a cereal food? Or is this one of those situations where you say in > response, "Yes," ? A "moistened" cereal food. Now that you mention it I have no data (paging Nanna) as to the proportions in hr=E6ringur. I went for somewhere between 30 and 50% cheese by volume. > I ask because you seem to be thinking of it in terms of a porridge with > added cheese, which is then eaten with a spoon. It would be rather messy to eat with ones hand. > I think I might want to > try it as a soft cheese with an added grain element, lacking any > identifying criteria. Depending on the proportions used I would agree with you. Basically the question boils down to which is the more dominant part. I could see it served either way, but I have only tried it with the grain dominating. > I mention this because there are Scots cheeses, > IIRC, that perform similar arcana, Names? > not to mention foods like kishik in > the MidEast. [Although kishik is used as a highly-flavored thickener, > usually, sort of an instant roux, it's about equal parts fine powdered > bulgur and yogurt, dried in the sun and reground to a fine meal. Perhaps > a bit different from the other grain/cheese amalgams.] I've seen suggestions, no doubt based on the vast corpus of early (Scandianvian) iron age cooking manuscripts, that one could dry skyr and use it in cooking. /UlfR From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" To: Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: SC - yogurt Cheese 101? Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:24:49 -0000 UlfR wrote: >A "moistened" cereal food. Now that you mention it I have no data >(paging Nanna) as to the proportions in hr=E6ringur. I went for somewhere >between 30 and 50% cheese by volume. Well, it is a leftover dish (usually) and I've never seen a recipe that had any set proportions. I'd probably use half of each, more or less - possibly a little more skyr than grain. Come to think of it, I can't remember ever having seen an actual recipe - this is a dish that didn't need one - but the only description I have in an old cookbook says you can use oatmeal porridge, or barley, or rye, or rice (that one I've got to try, BTW) or Iceland moss porridge. This author recommends adding chopped lettuce to the dish, which I've never tried. I asked my mother and she said this had occasionally been done at her childhood home, but that chopped lettuce had usually been eaten with just milk and sugar, as a dessert. (Yes, I know ...) Formerly, turnip and rutabaga greens were sometimes preserved (fermented) in skyr, which was then added to porridge. A sort of hroringur with sauerkraut. Interesting that you tried adding skyr to hot porridge also. This is (or was) often done here, although the cold version was much more common. I was confused for a moment when I read "30 and 50% cheese by volume". Of course skyr is a cheese product of sorts but no Icelander would ever think of it as a cheese. I don't know why, it just isn't cheese, period, not even when it is used in cooking in a similar manner to cheese - which it was, quite a lot, in former times. Not exactly dried but much drier than the skyr we have today. The skyr of my childhood (1960s) could be crumbled - it was cut in chunks and sold wrapped in paper. Today's skyr is soft and smooth and is sold in plastic beakers. (Oops - nu kommar jag ihog att jag hadde sagt att jag ville skicka nogot torrkat fisk til deg. Det skall jag fixa redan i morgon - jag hadde komplett glomt det. Sorry.) Nanna Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 06:58:23 +0200 From: UlfR To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: SC - yogurt Cheese 101? Nanna R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir [2001.05.11] wrote: > Well, it is a leftover dish (usually) and I've never seen a recipe that had > any set proportions. I'd probably use half of each, more or less - possibly > a little more skyr than grain. I can see why. With that proportion you would get the full creamy effect, not a cold porridge with something in it. > Come to think of it, I can't remember ever > having seen an actual recipe - this is a dish that didn't need one - but the > only description I have in an old cookbook says you can use oatmeal > porridge, or barley, or rye, or rice (that one I've got to try, BTW) or Rice... But a Swedish audience would immediately say "Ris a la Malta" (cold boiled rice with whipped cream and sugar + vanilla sugar). All the more reason to try it. For some reason people at work for some reason think that it is unusual to bring mawmenny, "icelandic chicken" or cawdel of samoun to lunch, even if someone the other day expressed surprise that I was eating "normal" food for lunch. > Iceland moss porridge. Recipie? Iceland moss (Cetraria islandica) I can get hold of in practically unlimited quantities by talking a walk in the woods. In particular since I have been unable to get hold of the ingredients for Blaomor, more the pity. Or would pigs blood be useable in it? > Interesting that you tried adding skyr to hot porridge also. This is (or > was) often done here, although the cold version was much more common. It was sort of obvious. It was there, so I had to try. > I was confused for a moment when I read "30 and 50% cheese by volume". Of > course skyr is a cheese product of sorts but no Icelander would ever think > of it as a cheese. I don't know why, it just isn't cheese, period, not even > when it is used in cooking in a similar manner to cheese - which it was, > quite a lot, in former times. I agree with you. In swedish we would refer to it is "fresh cheese", but cheese proper is something different. Now I must make a batch that is really firm, and then try it in cooking. > Not exactly dried but much drier than the skyr we have today. The skyr > of my childhood (1960s) could be crumbled - it was cut in chunks and > sold wrapped in paper. Today's skyr is soft and smooth and is sold in > plastic beakers. All depends on how it is used, I suppose. The references to sacks in the sagas might indicate things about consistency, as does the draining boards from some of the finds. Comment? /UlfR Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 15:49:00 +0200 From: UlfR To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Skyr? and intro Skyr is a form of fresh cheese that is mentioned in the Icelandic Sagas, and still eaten on Iceland. Nanna, being the lucky one, lives on Iceland where she can get hold of what is the real thing, baring any evolution/changes that hs taken place over the last 1000 years. Here in Sweden I have to make do with a substitute, which is the yogurt cheese. Basically take a suitably tart yogurt, and let it drain from a thin fabric bag. ISTR that Nanna has earlier posted direction for how to make the real thing, but you would need access to a live culture to do that. /UlfR From: "Nanna Rognvaldardottir" To: Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Skyr? and intro Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 14:39:32 -0000 >ISTR that Nanna has earlier posted direction for how to make the >real thing, but you would need access to a live culture to do >that. Here is a recipe from the (uncorrected) manuscript of my forthcoming book: Skyr Makes around 5 pounds skyr and 5 quarts whey Skyr has been made in Iceland since the Settlement, but the skyr of those times was probably much thinner than it is today. Skyr was also made in Scandinavia and variations of it are still known there, but in Iceland it was extremely popular and most of the milk that was gathered from cows and ewes during the summer was used for skyr-making. Skyr is traditionally made with unpasteurized fresh skim milk, but buttermilk may also be used. Ideally, you should use a little skyr as a starter for the new batch but since anyone who tries to make skyr on his own is probably doing so because skyr is unavailable, sour cream will usually have to do. It won’t be true skyr, of course, but it should be near enough for most uses. 10 quarts skim milk, or 8 quarts skim milk and 2 quarts buttermilk 2 heaped tablespoons skyr or sour cream rennet (see package for instructions on how much to use) Warm the milk up to 190=B0F and hold it at this temperature for 10 minutes, taking care that the milk doesn=92t scorch or come to the boil. Use a candy thermometer to be safe. Pour the milk int a large bowl or bucket and cool it quickly down to 100=B0F. If the room where you are working is very cold, the temperature should be a few degrees higher, but it must not be too high. Gradually dilute the starter with warm milk, until it has become so thin that it will mix easily with the milk in the bowl. Add the rennet (dissolved, unless it is in liquid form) and stir well. At this stage, the milk should cool down very slowly. Place a lid on the container and cover it with towels to retain the warmth. After 3 hours, check the milk. It should have coagulated by now, enough to make a cut that doesn’t close immediately. With a sharp knife that reaches to the bottom of the container, cut a double cross into it, all the way through. Cover again and let stand for 2-3 hours more. Check if the skyr and remove the lid if it is well coagulated, else keep it covered a little longer. Refrigerate overnight. Spread a cheesecloth over a large colander and place it over a bowl. Pour or spoon the skyr into the colander. Tie the corners of the cheesecloth together, hang it over a bowl and let the skyr drain for 8-12 hours, until fairly firm. The final stage used to be to weigh the skyr down for a few hours to drain it even further but that is rarely done now. When the skyr is to be served, it is whipped until smooth and diluted with milk if it is very thick. Some sugar is usually added and it is served with more sugar and milk or a mixture of milk and cream. Berries or fruit are a good accompaniment. Most Icelanders eat skyr as a dessert or as a sweet breakfast or lunch dish but it was formerly used in other ways too (stirred into soups, for instance) and imaginative cooks have been finding new ways to use it in later years. It can for instance be mixed with garlic, herbs and spices and used as a dip (try making Greek tzatziki with skyr, for instance). It can be used in breads and cakes and skyr-cakes, similar to cheesecakes, are delicious. From: lilinah at earthlink.net Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 08:52:52 -0800 To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Middle Eastern Food Jaime Declet wrote: >Question concerning yogurt in Middle Eastern period dishes. I was under the >impression that yogurt back then was more like sour cream today? Is that >correct? My ex-father in law is from the Middle East and he always said >that the yogurt here was not strong or thick enough. a) I'm guessing your ex-father-in-law was from the Levant. The product he was talking about was probably Labna/Lebneh/Lebni (note that the pronunciation of the Arabic words can vary a bit from culture to culture, and romanizations can vary as well), which is made from yogurt, but isn't yogurt. The Persian yogurt i've had has been more like Pavel's and not at all like lebneh. One way to make lebneh is get some cheese cloth and line in a bowl so there are several layers. Then take that excellent quality, pure, whole milk yogurt (see my description below) and dump it into the center of the cheese cloth. Pull up the edges and corners of the cheesecloth around the yogurt and tie it shut. Then hang it up (some folks tie it to the kitchen sink spout) so that the liquid/water/whey gradually drains out of the yogurt and into the bowl. Some folks leave it overnight, some folks fewer hours. It should be thicker than sour cream - all the lebneh I've had, both commercially and homemade, has been denser than commercial sour cream. You can drink the whey afterwards for a refreshing sort of buttermilk drink, although it will be thinner than buttermilk - most commercial buttermilk is made of cultured milk anyway, although sometimes you can find real churned buttermilk. b) we don't known exactly what "period" Near Eastern yogurt was like. I just use regular yogurt, Pavel's Russian-Style Whole Milk Yogurt ...well, in some ways it isn't regular, since, unlike most brands, it has no stabilizers added, being made exclusively of milk and yogurt cultures. I consider this the very best yogurt. I suspect that for average American taste it will be too tangy, but it is excellent for cooking. I would add that in my experience cooking "period" Near Eastern dishes that contain yogurt, the flavor is, in my opinion, much better with whole milk yogurt rather than with some reduced fat version. I can taste/feel the difference. And i noticed a difference between the same recipe made with Pavel's and with some other brand of yogurt. Pavel's is a local (SF Bay Area) brand, but i imagine that other regions have a brand of high quality yogurt made without added stabilizers. Of course, anyone who has had *real* cream cheese, not that nasty gummy "Philadelphia" brand stuff, can guess at some of the differences in texture between pure milk products and products thickened with stabilizers, no matter how natural those thickeners and stabilizers are. As for tanginess that some other posters have mentioned: I am certain that modern American yogurts (or the bacilli that produce the yogurt) are processed in such as way as to make them less sour, since even the unsweetened brands are very bland and lacking in the appropriate tang that yogurt ought to have, even many unsweetened "health food" brands (Continental? Feh!). The Bulgarian yogurt i had when i lived in Indonesia (imported from Bulgaria in narrow glass bottles) was a real eye-opener - and it was meant to be drunk, not eaten with a spoon. Anahita Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 13:43:53 -0800 From: Susan Fox-Davis Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Skyr To: Cooks within the SCA Sharon Gordon wrote: > Does anyone ave a resource for fresh skyr or powdered skyr culture in > the US or Canada? > > I've seen the recipes for substitutes if you can't the actual skyr, but > wondered if the real thing is available? > > Sharon > gordonse at one.net Apparently, live culture sour cream or buttermilk will do, according to this page: http://www.isholf.is/gullis/jo/Miscellaneous.htm Selene C. Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 16:15:16 -0600 From: Robert Downie Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Skyr To: Cooks within the SCA Sharon Gordon wrote: > Does anyone have a resource for fresh skyr or powdered skyr culture in > the US or Canada? > > I've seen the recipes for substitutes if you can't the actual skyr, but > wondered if the real thing is avalable? > > Sharon > gordonse at one.net It's available. You just need to find a town near you with a high Scandinavian population. We get ours in Gimli, Manitoba, which is handy for feasts, since our September long weekend Event is held just outside Gili. Faerisa Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 16:30:27 -0500 From: ranvaig at columbus.rr.com Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Skyr To: Cooks within the SCA > Does anyone have a resource for fresh skyr or powdered skyr culture in > the US or Canada? > > I've seen the recipes for substitutes if you can't the actual skyr, but > wondered if the real thing is available? http://www.owlsprings.com/EuropeanCuisines/iceland.html Title: Icelandic Curds (Skyr) Categories: Icelandic, Dairy Yield: 8 servings 4 qt Milk 1/2 pt Sour cream 1/2 Rennet tablet The milk is brought to a boil without burning it, and then cooled to blood heat (98F). A cupful of the sour cream is whipped and mized with some of the milk until thin and smooth: then it is poured into the milk. At the same time, one-half rennet tablet is dissolved in a little cold water (about a tablespoonful) and poured into the milk, which is stirred to mix the ingredients. The mixture is allowed to stand at room temperature for 24 hours. Then the skyr is scooped from the pot and strained gradually through a fine linen sieve (several layers of cheesecloth may be used instead). It is thus separated from the whey. The skyr which is left in the sieve should be about as thick as ice cream. Four quarts of milk should make about one and a half quarts of skyr. When serving, whip skyr well with a spoon or whipper to a smooth ice-cream-like consistency. The consistency should not be grainy or like cottage cheese. Icelanders eat skyr as a dessert with sugar or cream. (Or fruit.) (from THE COMPLETE SCANDINAVIAN COOKBOOK, Alice B. Johnson) Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 14:05:41 -0800 (PST) From: Kathleen Madsen Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Skyr To: Cooks within the SCA I discovered when I first started making my own cheese that milk scorches very quickly, at a much lower temperature than most people expect. I recommend stirring the milk constantly once it reaches 120 degrees F. It makes for *much* easier cleanup, and less aggravation. Eibhlin --- ranvaig at columbus.rr.com wrote: >> Does anyone have a resource for fresh skyr or > powdered skyr culture in the >> US or Canada? >> >> I've seen the recipes for substitutes if you can't the actual skyr, but >> wondered if the real thing is available? > http://www.owlsprings.com/EuropeanCuisines/iceland.html > > Title: Icelandic Curds (Skyr) > Categories: Icelandic, Dairy > Yield: 8 servings > > 4 qt Milk > 1/2 pt Sour cream > 1/2 Rennet tablet Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 14:40:34 -0600 (CST) From: "Pixel, Goddess and Queen" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Darioles recipe To: Cooks within the SCA On Sat, 15 Nov 2003, Alex Clark wrote: > At 12:35 AM 11/15/2003 -0600, Stefan wrote: >> However, rather than almond milk I'm wondering if this relly does mean >> almond cream as we discussed recently. . . . > > That's a good question. I've just now gone over a bunch of recipes and > found each of the following types of filling: > 1. wine, broth, cream, and egg yolks (2FCCB p. 47, p. 53, p. 5) > 2. pike, almond milk, cheese, and eggs (or maybe thick almond milk > etc.??) (2FCCB p. 47) > 3. milk, fat from broth, and eggs (2FCCB pp. 55-6) > 4. fresh curds with the whey wrung out, and egg yolks (2FCCB p. 56) > 5. almond milk made with wne, minced fish, currants, and minced bread > (Noble Book off Cookry p. 56) > 6. cream of cow milk or of almonds, and eggs (Forme of Cury in > _Curye on Inglysch_, p. 141) > 7. cream of almonds or of cow milk, and eggs (Ancient Cookery, p. 443) > 8. fat cheese and eggs (ibid.) > > 2FCCB: Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, at > http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/c/cme/cme- > idx?type=HTML&rgn=TEI.2&byte=3356093 . > > I had assumed some years ago that the Forme of Cury recipe could reasonaly > be interpreted as meaning almond milk, the word cream having been chosen to > refer to cow milk and used only loosely with reference to the almonds. But > it looks a bit different when compared with the Ancient Cookery recipe, > which is the ost similar one that I've found. The latter links the words > cream and almonds more closely to each other and then says that fat cheese > can also be used. > > All of these recipes call for one or more out of cream, milk with added > fat, almond ilk, or cheese/curds. So both almond milk and cream of almonds > would give results similar to at least one of the other ingredients. In the > Forme of Cury it's not so obvious that cream of almonds is intended, > because it is called for as an alernative to cream of cow milk, which is a > runny liquid rather than a curd. Since the almond ingredient in Ancient > Cookery takes the place of either cream or fat cheese, it is less > surprising that it is called for as cream of almonds. Have you eer dealt with milk production first-hand? By this I mean milking the cow (who is not a modern Holstein-Frisian), letting the cream rise, skimming off the cream, etc. Real cream, the stuff that you get when you skim milk that's been let rest after milking (it comes out of the cow freshly homogenized), is less a runny liquid and more of a somewhat fluid solid. If you let it sit long enough, it's more like the consistency of sour cream than the stuff you get in cartons at the grocery store. It's not a curd, but it's awfully thick. My aunt and uncle had Jerseys, which are a lot closer to what they had in period than modern Holstein-Frisians (the black and white factory cows who produce tens of gallons a day). A Jersey will usually produce (IIRC) 5- gallons of milk which is a lot higher in fat content, both milk and butter fat, than commercial milk. The cream that we skimmed off the top was very very thick. Period cows produced richer milk and cream than what we get in the store. Less of it, but richer. Modern dairy herds have been "improved" to produce higher yields of milk with a lower fat content for financial reasons. > To get back to saffron, the recipe types listed above that call for saffron > are 1, 3, 5 & 6 (and optionally, implid by the list of possible colors, 8 > and probably also 7). > > Henry of Maldon/Alex Clark Margaret, full of random trivia about cows today Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 01:59:39 -0500 From: "Carper, Rachel" Subject: [Sca-cooks] (no subject) To: I got these instructions for making your own clotted cream but I have no idea where I would find unpasteurized cream. Any ideas? And does this sound right? I've never encountered the let sit out instruction before. In winter, let fresh, unpasteurized cream stand 12 hours, (in summer, about 6 hours) in a heat-proof 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 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, or spread on scones and top with jam. Elewyiss Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2004 10:10:14 -0500 From: Tara Sersen Boroson Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] (no subject) To: Cooks within the SCA > I got these instructions for making your own clotted cream but I >have no idea where I would find >unpasteurized cream. Any ideas? And does this sound right? I've never >encountered the let sit out >instruction before. You skim it yourself :) Go here to find a local supplier of raw milk: www.realmilk.org. They have listings by state, but you have to dig a little (not an extremely well designed site...) -Magdalena -- Tara Sersen Boroson Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2004 11:03:11 -0500 From: Tara Sersen Boroson Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] (no subject) To: Cooks within the SCA > In winter, let fresh, unpasteurized cream stand 12 hours, (in summer, > about 6 hours) in a heat-proof 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. Erm... albumen? Albumen is a protein in egg whites, not cream. It's frequently the allergenic factor in eggs, so I'm pretty confident in saying that there is absolutely none in milk products. Here's a breakdown of the components of milk: http://www.siu.edu/~tw3a/434minet.htm The protein that most people think of relative to milk is casein - which is the most common allergenic component of dairy. I've never heard of casein coagulating in the same way as albumen, so it's not at all clear to me what this recipe is talking about... -Magdalena -- Tara Sersen Boroson Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2004 14:20:08 -0600 From: Robert Downie Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks]clotted cream (was no subject) To: Cooks within the SCA "Carper, Rachel" wrote: > And does this sound right? I've never > encountered the let sit out > instruction before. > > In winter, let fresh, unpasteurized cream stand 12 hours, (in summer, > about 6 hours) in a heat-proof 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. > > Elewyiss Yup, it looks right. Nothing new under the sun... Hugh Plat's Delightes for Ladies 1603 c23 clouted creame Take your milke beeing newe milked, and presently set it vpon the fire from morning vntil the euening, but let it not seethe, and this is called my Lady Youngs clowted creame. The only thing not mentioned in these instructions is the setting aside to chill, but it was probably assumed everyone knew to do that. I sometimes wonder what the medieval mind would make of some of our modern idiot proof cookbooks which detail _every_ single step! Faerisa Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 12:16:43 -0700 From: Susan Fox-Davis Subjct: Re: [Sca-cooks] A question or two... To: Cooks within the SCA > What was sour cream called in period? Was it used much? In what ways > principly? > > When did the use of cow's milk (and cream) become common in cooking? > > David of Caithness Gosh, that's a good question. I should think that sour cream was not so much of an invention but an inevitability in any tribe that used animal milk at all. Sour cream is just a step on the way to churning butter, n'st-ce pas? There is a discussion worth reading in the Florilegium: A quick surf through Google shows that the word "smetanik" shows up in the Domostroi in a creamy context, whereas the moden Russian word for "sour cream" is "smetana". Yogurt, a soured milk, appears in al-Baghdadi, that's dated 1220 if it's a solid documentation date you need. See here, some translated and redaced recipes in Caridoc's Miscellany: Other terms worth considering: Kefir, labna, tahn, etc. But I don't think Western Europeans did much with sour cream except besides churn it for butter More the fools they. Selene Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 19:47:22 -0800 (PST) From: R J Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Looking for "real" sour cream To: Cooks within the SCA --- James wrote: > Was just wondering if anyone on the list knew of a > company in the US that makes sour cream with actual flavor? I no longer use supermarket sour cream either. My suggestions are: If you live near an Amish area, get it from them. There are a number of small communities in Texas, though I cannot tell you precisely where. The other choice is what I usually resort to, Meican "Crema". Be careful opening it, as the fat separates and clogs the top, so removal can be somewhat explosive. If you choose to make your own, store the container you put it in "upside down", which seems to help. Not only does the liquid and fat go to the top, the package seals slightly better, keeping air out and retaining freshness a few extra days. AEsa Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 01:07:37 -0800 (PST) From: Chris Stanifer Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Looking for "real" sour cream To: Cooks within the SCA --- James wrote: > Was just wondering if anyone on the list knew of a company in the US > that makes sour cream with actual flavor? Have a few recipes I'm going > to make for the holidays and a few of them either call for sour cream > in the sauce or in the crust. I would suggest Cacique Crema Mexicana Agria (available in most larger supermarkets in the refrigerated cheese section). It tastes very much like sour cream...meaning, cream which has been made sour. Very creamy, a little bit tacky, but also very stable when heated. William de Grandfort Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 11:16:02 -0800 From: lilinah at earthlink.net Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Looking for "real" sour cream To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Brett wrote: > I adore labne! Same thing as kefir, but labne is the name I most > often eat it under. Nope. Labneh and kefir are NOT the same and are made differently. Labneh is pretty much just drained yogurt. I love the stuff. Kefir is made by a different process. According to http://www.kefir.net Both kefir and yogurt are cultured milk products but they contain different types of beneficial bacteria... Kefir contains several major strains of friendly bacteria not commonly fond in yogurt, Lactobacillus Caucasus, Leuconostoc, Acetobacter species, and Streptococcus species... It also contains beneficial yeasts, such as Saccharomyces kefir and Torula kefir... --- edited to remove some health claims --- I used to love kefir, bu i'm not happy with the flavor or texture of two brands currently most available here. Anahita Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 11:23:08 -0800 From: lilinah at earthlink.net Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Sekanjabin Origins To: ca-cooks at ansteorra.org Cadoc wrote: > I remember from Platina, when he covers Milk (which I think was copied from > Pliny) is he says i should be drunk in liquid or in curds. So we have > some documentation that people in older times didn't mind their milk > chunky. Hunh? We eat chunky milk now. I have some cottage cheese right here on my desk. And melca, the Roman food, was made by putting a little vinegar into warm milk and letting it curdle, sort of like yogurt. Anahita Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 19:27:41 -0500 From: Brett McNamara Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Looking for "real" sour cream To: Cooks within the SCA > Nope. Labneh and kefir are NOT the same and are made differently. I feel bad about this, but I'd have to disagree here. I'd also submit that http://www.kefir.net seems to be a fry short of a happy meal. They're pushing a product and leveraging an "ancient" cure-all mystique. From http://www.foodsubs.com/Chefresh.html the process cited appears identical. I've seen many authorities note that this is basically the same product. I also found this site ( http://users.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefir_cheese.html ) particularly interesting because it did describe some kefir variants and recipes. Additionally, the last time I bought labneh at an ethnic market, some brands billed themselves as both labne and kefir on the container. Victor's ( http://www.imperialfoods.com/Page2.htm ) was the only one I could find online. If you look real close, you can see "kefir cheese" under the giant labne label. Alas, I don't have any other brands to hand as I chose to purchase a local source. ( Imported dairy products with expiration dates scare me. ) Wistan Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 09:14:44 -0800 (PST) From: Chris Stanifer Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Why..chocolate yogurt AND other yogurt thoughts To: Cooks within the SCA --- Sharon Gordon wrote: > I looking for historical information on yogurt, generally I find info > relating to its origins in the middle east. I've been looking for > yogurt or yogurt-similar foods in Europe. I would try looking for references to Filmjolk or Viili. Filmjolk i a Swedish yogurt-type food, which may be period (it's pretty darned old, from the info I have been able to gather). William de Grandfort Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 12:38:42 -0500 From: Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Whey To: Cooks within the SCA >> When I make cheese I follow the same instructions however what is >> left after removing the solids through a strainer is called whey and >> is not a good thing to drink, even after being sweetened and >> fermented. It is a poison and is usually tossed out. It was fed to >> dogs and pigs for a reason as we cannot digest it properly The FDA lists it as Generally Recognized as Safe, which means that it has been used extensively for many years and so is not subject to regulatory testing: http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm? fr=184.1979 Little Miss Muffet eats a dish of curds and whey in the nursery rhyme. Some citations for drinking whey noted in the OED: 1732 ARBUTHNOT Rules of Diet in Aliments, etc. I. 252 Of all Drinks, Whey is the most relaxing. 1791 SCOTT Let. in Lockhart (1837) I. vi. 183 My uncle drinks the whey here, as I do ever since I understood it was brought to his bedside every morning at six, by a very pretty dairy-maid. The Encyclopedia Britannica says "The whey is removed from the curd during the process of making cheese; then it is centrifuged to remove fat, concentrated or dried, and used for human food in processed cheese products, baking, and candy making. Whey is used for animal feed as a liquid, concentrate, or dry powder. " Viking foods were pickled in whey, and Ricotta is a cheese made from whey. Vikings also drank whey, and drinking whey is mentioned in the Little House Books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. -- -- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 11:32:54 -0800 (PST) From: Pat Subject: [Sca-cooks] Buttermilk To: jenne at fiedlerfamily.net, Cooks within the SCA I grew up drinking the buttermilk left over after my Big Mama made butter. She would allow the whole, raw milk to sit at room temperature overnight (two nights in winter), then skim off the cream for making a tart, delicious butter, nothing like the insipid product made from "sweet" cream. The buttermilk was very tart, thicker than whole milk, but not as dense as the cream. The buttermilk was refrigerated as soon as it was skimmed. Sometimes, if she let it sit longer than usual, it would have a slight fizz. Never hurt it a bit. Pat Griffin Lady Anne du Bosc known as Mordonna the Cook www.mordonnasplace.com Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 16:32:37 -0700 From: David Friedman Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Yogurt To: Cooks within the SCA For what it's worth, we have always interpreted "Persian Milk" as yogurt and it works in the recipes. > The Spaniards proudly claim the Persians brought yogurt to Spain which > is perfectly logical but when translating the recipes from laban into > Spanish they say leche not yogur. I have reviewed all my stuff and took > a good gander at the below as well. All I can find are two references > Perry makes in the Anon. translation to laban but does not specify if > the recipes he is talking about could have been made with yogurt or > milk. In Medieval Arab Cookery he indicates that laban can be either > milk or yogurt but most likely yogurt. Can I say it is possible that the > recipes in which he cites laban could have been made with yogurt? > Further taking into account yogurt was used in Persian sauces, eggplant > dishes and stews I would think yogurt could appear in many of the Anon > recipes instead of milk but can I state that? > > Food Timeline history notes: > muffins to yogurt. _http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodfaq2.html#yogurt_ > Stefan's dairy-prod-msg - 1/23/05 > http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/dairy-prod-msg.html > Perry's remarks on yogurt in _Medieval Arab Cookery._ Trowbridge, > Wiltshire: Prospect Books. 2001 > And Perry's translation of _An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the > 13th Century:__ > __http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/ > andalusian_footnotes.htm_ > http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/ > andalusian3.ht > http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/ > andalusian_contents.htm > Suey -- David/Cariadoc www.daviddfriedman.com Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2007 17:09:29 -0400 From: Gretchen Beck Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Yogurt To: Cooks within the SCA --On Sunday, June 03, 2007 4:43 PM -0400 Suey wrote: > Carole Smith wrote: >> . . . He also stated that the promised land was the land of yoghurt >> (not milk) and honey, and that the original translators had learned the >> Egyptian version of arabic (and gotten it wrong). . . > How about Genesis 18:1-15? Picked a clip up on Internet that Abraham did > not serve curds or curds and whey but yogurt and milk to the three > strangers in the hospitality message. What does your Bible say? This of > course takes us back to Miss Muffitt. Did she eat cottage cheese, > custard or yogurt? When did yogurt get to England by the way? Was it > before Dr. Thomas Muffitt, Mary Queen of Scots or later? When did yogurt > in English take on the Turkish name? > Susan According to the OED, the word appears in English around the beginning of the 17th C: 1625 PURCHAS Pilgrims II. IX. xv. ?9. 1601 Neither doe they [sc. the Turks] eate much Milke, except it bee made sower, which they call Yoghurd. 1687 A. LOVELL tr. Thevenot's Trav. II. 25 A kind of Butter-milk by them [sc. Turks] called Yogourt, which they drink. toodles, margaret Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 12:13:01 -0400 From: "Elise Fleming" Subject: [Sca-cooks] I Didn't Know... To: "sca-cooks at ansteorra.org" Greetings! I was just reading the tudorcook blog page and saw this: > ......not because of anything he did, more the fact that milk today is > separated from cream in a different manner to the Tudors. Today, > our milk and cream are separated centrifugally, in the past good old > gravity did the job....so what you say...well, our milk today has less > fat in it than in the past and our cream more fat. This meant that when > Robin came to curdle the milk to make a possett..make a styf poshotte > of Ale; þan hang þe croddys þer-of in a pynne all he got was a few > measly lumps floating in a lot of milk/whey.......my fault really as I should > have ordered cream to mix with the milk to up the fat levels...... I never knew about a difference in separation - only that we homogenize most of our milk today. I wonder what else is different today that would make a big difference in the results of our cookery... Alys Katharine Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:58:06 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway Subject: [Sca-cooks] Forthcoming titles Fall 2008 LONG To: Cooks within the SCA As promised sometime back here's a list of some forthcoming fall 08- winter 09 titles that might be of interest to readers of this list. They cover a full range of topics. I've included details, descriptions or links where I have them. A number of the lists I used didn't record prices possibly because they were not yet set. Johnnae ----------------- *Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages *by Anne Mendelson 352 pages. Knopf Publishing Group (7 Oct 2008) Part cookbook with more than 120 enticing recipes/part culinary history, part inquiry into the evolution of an industry, Milk is a one-of-a-kind book that will forever change the way we think about dairy products. Anne Mendelson is the author of Stand Facing the Stove. http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9781400044108.html Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:25:53 -0600 From: Judith Epstein To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Greek yogurt RE: cream cheese On 14 Dec 2009, at 4:53 PM, Stefan li Rous wrote: D'vorah said: <<< When I make Greek yogurt for myself, I start with Nancy's yogurt, a brand I'm not sure is USA-wide; >>> Okay. Now, I'm confused. What is the difference between "Greek yogurt" and "yogurt"?  I thought it was a different process or critter (yeast?) being used. But if that is the case, how could you turn one version into the other? And if so, why not start with milk instead of another yogurt? How do you take Nancy's yogurt, or a substitute and turn it into Greek yogurt? I've never made homemade yogurt, and I'm unfamiliar with that process. Stefan -------- Greek yogurt is essentially regular yogurt with more of the whey removed, a denser yogurt, though not as dense as, say, labna. You take regular yogurt (plain, low-fat or non-fat is best; bonus points if you can find sheep or goat milk yogurt) and dump it into a strainer that has been lined with several layers of cheesecloth and set over a basin in the fridge -- make sure the fridge doesn't have any funky smells in it, because milk products always soak up funky smells. If need be, do all of this in a huge bucket with a lid on it. The whey will drip out of the yogurt and into the basin. Discard it once a day for three to five days. Then your Greek style yogurt is ready. Let it sit for a week or ten days, and you'll get labna, but for this, I prefer yogurt that's not non-fat -- low-fat or regular is better, to my mind, and for this, I always start with sheep's milk yogurt or goat's milk yogurt. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- D'vorah, mka Judith Epstein Master Albrecht Waldfurster's Egg Middle Kingdom, Midlands, Ayreton, Tree-Girt-Sea (Chicago, IL) Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:58:34 -0600 (CST) From: "Pixel, Goddess and Queen" To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Greek yogurt RE: cream cheese I make my own yogurt somewhat at random using Madhur Jaffrey's instructions. Bring your milk to the boil, boil for a minute, then turn it off and let it cool. While it's cooling, take a few tablespoons of starter yogurt and whisk them until creamy in a non-reactive bowl. When the milk has cooled to between 100F and 110F, start adding it to your starter yogurt a TB at a time, whisking each time, until you've got about a third- to a half-cup in the bowl. Add the rest of the milk by cups, whisking after each. Then cover the bowl with plastic wrap, wrap it in a heavy towel so that it stays steady, and put it in a warm place free of drafts for about 8 hours. I use my oven. 8 hours later, you should have yogurt. No yogurt maker necessary. You could, after the milk and starter are mixed, pour it into individual containers, but I am too lazy for that usually. Margaret FitzWilliam Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:02:41 -0800 (PST) From: Euriol of Lothian To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Skyr (was Re:  Whale meat) A Compleat Anachronist issue last year was about Skyr & Mysa. Issue #143 Euriol Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:48:12 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Paneer Think about milk products in general when searching for the origins. You might try interlibrary loan or see if your library has:. The Technology of traditional milk products in developing countries   has information and a history. Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages By Anne Mendelson   is relatively new. They might own it. Johnnae On Apr 12, 2010, at 12:39 PM, Susan Lin wrote: <<< I am helping out at an event in a few weeks and have chosen to make and demo paneer. I have done some research but cannot find the origins - does anyone have a direction to point me toward so I can have some documentation with me? Even without documentation I will still be making it and demo-ing it because it's easy and fun and I do not have time to decide to make something else. Shoshanna >>> Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:40:39 -0700 From: "Rikke D. Giles" To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] cow butter? On 06/03/2010 09:58:07 AM, Donna Green wrote: <<< Butter is made from cream rather than milk and is a condensed, emulsified fat. >>> << Since goat milk is, as I understand it, naturally homogenized and does not separate into cream, does that mean it is harder or not possible to make goat milk butter? Juana Isabella >> In real life, I own a small, private, goat dairy.  I make cheese, butter, yogurt and more from the milk. Goat milk does separate, it just takes longer.  I let it sit on the counter, at room temp (in western WA state, so we are talking anywhere from 60-70 F), for a day or two and skim off the risen cream.  There is still plenty of cream left in the milk to make a semi-skim cheese.   Some people let the milk sit in their refrigerator, which is safer in warm climates.  I don't bother, because I use raw milk and while it's sitting on the countertop it's culturing for both the butter and the cheese. Goat milk also separates easily with a standard cream separator.   I just haven't bought one yet. Aelianora Date: Fri, 04 Jun 2010 12:17:57 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period Cheese Markham is generally accepted as an appropriate source. The English Housewife dates to 1615, but much of Markham's country works are reworkings of Maison Rustique which was translated   in 1600. You might also want to take a look at such books as: Bartholomew Dowe's Dairie booke for good huswives which is anexed to  The householders philosophie which is that odd household manual by Torquato Tasso. It was released as a facsimile in 1975 as part of the English Experience series #765. The publisher was Amsterdam : Theatrum Orbis Terrarum and in the USA by Norwood, N.J. : W.J. Johnson. ISBN:90-221-0765-5. A DAIRIE BOOKE FOR GOOD HUSWIVES is dated 1588 and discusses the making and keeping of white meats which is what dairy products were known as. The Oxford papers from 1999 which were published under the title Milk: Beyond the Dairy. Published by Prospect Books. See also Robin Weir's Recipes from the Dairy. Johnnae <<< I own dairy goats, and have made cheese for the past few years. So far, I have used purchased cultures, but I'd like to try using my raw milk and wild cultures. Any advice? Also, where could I find documentaton for period cheesemaking? The sources I've found, like Gervase Markham are just beyond the SCA time frame. Anything earlier that would help? I have one lactating ewe, and plan to try milking her. I'll let you all know how it goes! Lidia Allen >>> Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2010 09:59:55 -0700 (PDT) From: Dan Schneider To: Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org Subject: [Sca-cooks] whey uses On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 11:40 AM, Laura C. Minnick wrote: <<< So what _is_ whey good for? Liutgard >>> In Sweden they make something called "mjolksyrad rotsaker" it's basically shredded root vegetables of various types layered with a little salt and spices in a big glass jar, which is then filled with whey, and allowed to ferment for about a week, then sealed and let to mature another 3 weeks. It tastes sorta like sauerkraut, but with more character (IMHO), and a much crisper texture. It's also got the advantage of having lots of what they're now calling "probiotic" bacteria- the ones that are really good for your intestinal flora. I can't document it ('cause I can't read early Swedish yet, and am just getting competent at modern), but the fact that it's a fermented preservation and not salt-based, makes me suspect that it may be a fairly old technique/product. The recipe I use calls for filmjolk (a form of buttermilk that's really popular here) whey, but I've used the whey from my homemade yogurt several times with no problems at all. Dan Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2010 13:26:20 -0400 From: Jennifer Lynn Johnson To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] What to do with whey? <<< So what _is_ whey good for? Liutgard >>> Preserving Meat. I have read quite a bit about this practice in Iceland, I keep on meaning to experiment with it. I am not sure if I should cook the meat before or not. There are references to barrels of whey in the sagas, presumably to store preserved food. -Hrefna Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 05:55:27 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: [Sca-cooks] new title: Goat: Meat, Milk, Cheese Back in February, we discussed on the list the problems with finding   sources for goat meat. (We've also discussed goat cheeses in the past too.) I came across a new book on the topic yesterday which people may find   interesting. Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough.  Goat: Meat, Milk, Cheese (Stewart, Tabori & Chang; $29.95) It came out this month. Description   reads: "From appearances at the most high-end restaurants to street   food carts coast-to-coast, goat meat and dairy products are being   embraced across the country as the next big thing. With its excellent   flavor, wide-ranging versatility, and numerous health benefits, goat   meat, milk, and cheese are being sought by home cooks. And while goat   is the world?s primary meat (upwards of 70 percent of the red meat   eaten around the world is goat) never before has there been a cookbook   on this topic in the United States. Goat is a no-holds-barred   goatapedia, laugh-out-loud cooking class, cheesemaking workshop, and   dairy-milking expedition all in one." Amazon is pairing it with another book called Getting Your Goat: The   Gourmet Guide by Patricia A Moore from 2009. Johnnae Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2011 15:45:55 -0800 From: David Walddon To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] "Middle eastern" drinks for pregnant people I really have to disagree with you on the non-fat yogurt. American non-fat yogurt is vile. Fage Greek Non-fat yogurt and a few other brands are AMAZING! They are rich tasting and delicious and have MUCHO protein! Eduardo On Jan 17, 2011, at 3:29 PM, Jim and Andi Houston wrote: <<< And don't even think about using low fat yogurt. It's vile. Use the best quality whole-milk yogurt you can afford, preferably organic. Madhavi >>> Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2011 20:37:53 -0400 (EDT) From: Devra To: sca-cooks at Ansteorra.org Subject: [Sca-cooks] some new titles - commercial plug from Poison Pen Press... Goat: Meat, Milk, Cheese - $29.95 Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough. Here is a no-holds-barred goatapedia: a laugh-out-loud cooking class, cheese making workshop, and milking expedition all in one. This first US cookbook devoted to the topic of the goat includes recipes for meat, milk, and cheese. Hardcover, 255pp, color photos, index. Stewart, Tabori  & Chang. Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:55:15 -0500 From: "Kingstaste" To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] a Viking-challenge? Siggi's - skyr.com is being sold in grocery stores now. I bought it here in Atlanta at my local Kroger, so it is quite possible you could find it there. I disagree about it being a thinner type of yogurt though, it is much thicker! Christianna Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:12:27 +0000 From: yaini0625 at yahoo.com To: "Cooks within the SCA" Subject: [Sca-cooks] Skyr Its a funny conversation in Iceland when trying to describe skyr. Its not ice cream, but can be served frozen with fruit. But its not traditional yogurt either because its so thick. It was once described to me as soft cheese but has the consistency of thick yogurt. Its skyr. An interesting fact about skyr is that it is started with skim milk making it naturally low fat. Skyr is still traditionally made in Iceland and there are family recipes that are generations old. It is recorded that skyr was made in Norway, Sweden and in Denmark but there aren't any surviving recipes. Jo's Icelandic recipe blog has one skyr recipe. I still owe the list my translated version I found in a farmhouse south of Husivik. When I was in Iceland my favorite way to eat skyr was with sweet cream and fruit. When I was pregnant with my son I craved the frozen version. Partly because it extinguished the heartburn. Aelina Vesterlundr Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:17:45 +0000 From: yaini0625 at yahoo.com To: "Cooks within the SCA" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Skyr (was Re: a Viking-challenge?) There are two versions of Skyr. There is the "yogurt" version that you eat. Then there is skyr which is a frozen yogurt like drink. Siggi's skyr can be found in the states but I don't think the other version is here... Yet. I make my own using plain skyr and adding my own fruits, cream and then freezing it. Aelina Vesterlundr Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 08:23:04 -0800 (PST) From: Donna Green To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org Subject: [Sca-cooks] Creme Fraiche Ana, creme fraiche is excessively easy to make. Take one pint or so of good heavy cream and add 1 to 3 tablespoons of butter milk. Leave it in a bowl, covered in plastic wrap, overnight on the counter. There you have it ... creme fraiche. You can leave it a bit longer if you want more thickness and/or more tang, but I wouldn't leave it out more than 30 hours. You'd want to use it or refridgerate it then. You do not want to use ultra pasteurized cream ... I don't know if you have that in Uruguay, but you don't want a cream that has been treated with high heat or had anything added to it. Lately I've been making creme fraiche and then turning it into butter. Marvelous stuff. Just put the creme fraiche in the food processor and switch it on. When the sound changes (the cream gets lumpy and becomes butter) wring it out and there's your butter. Salt or not as you choose. Save the butter milk ... liquid released when you wring out the butter ... to use for the next batch. The butter milk freezes just fine. The butter milk is also useful as a starter culture in cheese making. Now, the question is ... are there any period references to creme fraiche or something that could possibly be creme fraiche like? Juana Isabella From: Ana Vald?s <<< By the way, speaking about souring agents, in Uruguay we lack creme fraiche, same sour cream was made before, it was called russian cream and it was very similar smetana, the creme the Russian use to make bortsch. I read in some place you can achieve same consistence and flavour if you add some spoon of vinegar to cream. Does anybody know if it's true? If it's not, does anybody have any advice to get creme fraiche? Ana >>> Edited by Mark S. Harris dairy-prod-msg Page 2 of 47