berries-msg - 2/22/08
Period berries and berry recipes. strawberry, whortleberry, raspberry, lingonberry, cranberry, gooseberry, currants, blackberry, blueberry.
NOTE: See also the files: grapes-msg, cherries-msg, marmalades-msg, fruits-msg, fruit-pears-msg, fruit-apples-msg, beverages-msg, fruit-pies-msg.
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From: ercil at astrid.upland.ca.us (Ercil C. Howard-Wroth)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Mulled Wine Receipe
Date: 17 Oct 95 11:16:18 PDT
UDSD007 at DSIBM.OKLADOT.STATE.OK.US (Mike.Andrews) writes:
>priest at vassar.edu (Carolyn Priest-Dorman) writes:
>>(P.S. There is a species of cranberry that is native to the Old World,
>>I believe, only I think they call it something else....)
>
>Lingonberry; it's native to Sweden, I believe -- and maybe other
>Scandinavian/Baltic countries. Lingonberry preserves are supposed
>to be good on meats, according to the text on the jar I have.
>
>udsd007 at dsibm.okladot.state.ok.us
>Michael Fenwick of Fotheringhay, O.L. (Mike Andrews) Namron, Ansteorra
>Pray, I beseech you, for the repose of the soul of
>Kathleen Anna Young Lister, once known as Baroness Caitlin
Lingonberry.......mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... delicious. In Austria they
have them and make a wonderful (extremely alcoholic) sweet fruit wine.
Phonetically I remember it as `Ree - Bee - zal' wine So sorry not to
remember it more correctly.
Lingonberry preserves are wonderful on meat, bread, plain. I have not seen
them, but looked hard for them in France. They may be an old northern
world treat.
Astridhr Selr Leifsdottir
E. Howard-Wroth
ercil at astrid.upland.ca.us Shire of Heatherwyne
...uunet!astrid!ercil Kingdom of Caid
From: zoeholbr at rs6a.wln.com (M Zoe Holbrooks)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Mulled Wine Receipe
Date: 18 Oct 1995 20:39:33 GMT
Organization: WLN
: Lingonberry preserves are wonderful on meat, bread, plain. I have not seen
: them, but looked hard for them in France. They may be an old northern
: world treat.
Look for lingonberry preserves in Scandinavian delicatessens and some
groceries in areas that serve (or once served) Scandinavian populations.
It's very easy to find in Seattle, for example, because of the early
immigrationa dn settlement of the town by Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish
folks, among others. I've seen them in several foodie mail order
catalogs, also.
Asahla Telerion
Barony of Madrone, Kingdom of An Tir
From: "Greg Lindahl" <lindahl at pbm.com>
Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 23:42:08 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Questions??
> I am in need of some information concerning cranberries and blueberries.
> Are they : 1) Period?
> 2) Old world, new world or both?
> 3) If period/ old world, where may I find the
> documentation to support this?
Cariadoc has this to say in the Miscellany. Unfortunately beside McGee
there are the words "add cite here"... ah, the cite is in the next
version that I don't have on-line yet:
McGee, Harold, _On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of
the Kitchen_ , Consumer's Union, Mt. Vernon, N.Y. 1984.
Anyway, here's Cariadoc's comment:
Blueberry and Cranberry
It appears from comments by Simmons that the term "blueberry" describes a
number of different New World species of the genus <i>Vaccinium</i>; the
bilberry, which is a member of the same genus, is Old World. The blueberry
produces "larger and better flavored berries than the European bilberry."
According to McGee, "The cultivated blueberry, a native of the American east,
north, and northwest, has been purposely bred only since about 1910 ... ."<p>
According to McGee, Cranberries are also species of <i>Vaccinium</i>. According
to several earlier sources, there is disagreement as to whether they are
members of <i>Vaccinium</i> or belong in a separate genus, <i>Oxycoccus</i>.
There are both old world and new world cranberries, but "the commercial
cranberry ... is an American native." (McGee) The word "cranberry" seems to
have come into use with the new world variant of the berry.<p>
It sounds, in both cases, as though a jelly made from modern berries would
correspond pretty closely to something that might have been eaten in Europe in
period, but individual berries would look noticably different from their old
world relatives. We do not, however, know of any period recipes using either
berry.<p>
From: Par Leijonhufvud <parlei at ki.se>
Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 16:57:00 +0200 (METDST)
Subject: Re: SC - Berries
On Wed, 21 May 1997, Michael F. Gunter wrote:
> ligonberries so beloved by my Nordic cousins? They are quite similar to
> cranberries and used in many recipes. Are they a later introduction to the
Lingonberries are native of northern Europe.
/UlfR
Par Leijonhufvud par.leijonhufvud at labtek.ki.se
Subject: Re: BG - Cranberry corrections
Date: Mon, 08 Dec 97 11:22:01 MST
From: "N. Tatjana c. Shepperd" <ponygirl at home.actlab.utexas.edu>
To: bryn-gwlad at Ansteorra.ORG
From: Fox Purtill <Fox_Purtill at dell.com>:
> Karin has found some old Swedish cookbooks that mention cranberries
> specifically from the 1100's. Apparently the ones they have are
> different (more tart mostly) because they don't cultivate them. Like
> their blueberries they are smaller and grow wild. Linguns(sp?) are
> referred to without the word berries attached (apparently an
> Americanism) and are bead sized versions of the cranberry, they tend
> to be slightly sweeter overall than their close cousin.
If my information is correct they are actually more closely related to
Johannesberen or the English currants commonly found in the
Shetlands, Orkneys and Scandanavia. Small & tart and loved by Shetland
ponies and children (as well as the rest of us).
Suannoch
Date: Wed, 03 Jun 1998 10:23:02 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: SC - Mulberry question
> I was walking home from work today, and I saw a very old world fruit that
> was horribly sweet and ripe. So now I am looking for a period jam method.
> If anyone would be willing to share I would be willing to eat a piece of
> toast with Mulberry jam for them...
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Bogdan
The unfortunate truth appears to be that there are few or no jam recipes
of any kind, from "period". There are a few for preserves that are more
like fruit cheeses or fruit leather, but I'm not aware of any for
mulberries. I seem to recall a mulberry pyment (yes, I know a pyment
would normally involve grapes) mead, and I recall them being used in a
pottage somewhere, probably one of those 15th century English sources.
I'll see what I can find.
Adamantius
Date: Wed, 03 Jun 98 16:40:11 -0600
From: upsxdls at okway.okstate.edu
Subject: Re[2]: SC - a question
>If it works for respis (raspberries) it should work for mulberries. How lucky
>you are that you have enough to consider jam. The house where I grew up had a
>mulberry tree and we used to love the berries it produced. None ever lasted
>long enough for jam, tho.
>Renata
I would keep in mind that mulberries have a higher water content and lower
natural pectin content than raspberries. A bit more sugar or longer
cooking may be necessary to reduce the mix. At my house, any unset jam
becomes wonderful pancake syrup!
Leah Anna of Sparrowhaven
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 09:50:25 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Par Leijonhufvud <parlei at algonet.se>
Subject: Re: SC - Jellies vs. aspics
On Sat, 6 Jun 1998 geneviamoas at juno.com wrote:
> necessary to make jellies to do this or would they have prepared them
> some other way for storage? It seems to me to be a lot of investment with
Well, there is at least one berry that is simplicity itself to preserve:
simply place in a closed container with plain water. It's the
lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idea), which contains enough benzoic acid
to preserve themselves. Nice, if rather tart for most peoples taste. It
is also one of the sweater wild berries (666 g/kg sugars (dry weight),
with 85% water in the fresh berry).
No idea if it was done in the middle ages, just that the method is
oldish (i.e. few hundred years, IIRC).
/UlfR
- --
Par Leijonhufvud parlei(at)algonet.se
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 13:35:02 EDT
From: THLRenata at aol.com
Subject: SC - Re: SC- gooseberries
Ann Marie writes:
>>Gooseberries. Find me a period recipe (primary source only please) that uses
them.<<
Eleanor Fettiplace has several recipes for preserving gooseberries. Granted
she was 16th century, but she wouldn't have preserved them if she didn't have
a use for them. I look thru the book again and see if I can find a "use"
recipe.
Renata
Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 12:00:09 EDT
From: THLRenata at aol.com
Subject: SC - Re: SC- gooseberries
When the debate on which century Eleanor Fettiplace belongs in continues, I
have found 2 recipes in her book where gooseberries are an ingredient:
To Boile Chickins
Take a good handfull of parselie, pick it small, & a good handfull of
gooseberries, & a pretie quanitie of tyme, mince it small, & three large mace,
& put these all together in a dish, & a little pepper, & salt, & half a pinte
of white wine, &some broth that the chicken were boiled in, & a piece of sweet
butter, & let it boile halfe an hower, & when the chickins are bnoiled inough,
put that broth to them, & serve them; put some sugar into it.
To Butter Gooseberries
Take your gooseberries before they are ripe, & put them in a dish with a good
piece of sweet butter, cover them close & let them boyle till they begin to
break, then stirre them till they bee all broken, then put in some sugar to
them & rosewater & the yelks of two eggs beaten, so stirre it altogether, &
serve it upon sippets.
Renata
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1998 15:23:00 -0500
From: allilyn at juno.com (LYN M PARKINSON)
Subject: SC - Re: gooseberries + jelly
>>Gooseberries. Find me a period recipe (primary source only please)
that uses them.<<
I was looking through some of my books for your sauce, as I did not
remember seeing one when I did my sauce research. Still did not find any
gooseberry sauce, (Yes! See below) but have come across 'gelee of
gooseberries' in _The French Cook_, Francis deLaVarenne, 1653. This is
out of our period, but as we recently had a thread on jellies, I thought
it interesting. In period, the clear jellies are meat and fish based and
just 50 years later, the clear fruit jellies that we know are being
published. Raspberry jelly is made the same way. OOP, but not to be a
'spoon tease', here it is:
How to make gelee of gooseberries. Take some gooseberries, press them,
and strain them through a napkin; measure your juice, and put near upon
three quarters of sugar to one quart of juice; seeth it before you mixe
it, and seeth again together; after they are mixed, try them on a plate,
and you shall know that it is enough, when it riseth off. That of
Rasberries is made the same way.
As for other gooseberries, aside from a late period paste, and a
gooseberry verjuice, everybody seems to have preserved them and nobody
ate them! When the Brit museum continues excavating London, they will
surely find many, many pots of preserved gooseberries! Could it be that
someone tried to make paste in a rainy summer, and it wouldn't dry out?
"Here, eat this anyhow" "I can't pick it up!" "Well, put it on some
bread, then" "Oh, boy!"
As an antecedent to the mackeral/gooseberry combo, some fish sauces are
definately tart: they contain sorrell, lemon and other piquant tastes, so
your combo in in line with prevailing tastes, just not currently
documentable. Fruit jellies are so popular with meats in Europe, that
tart jellies may sometimes have taken the place of tart sauces.
Jeff says that European gooseberries are prickly. Do the prickles wash
off? Do they cook down to be non-prickly? Our landlord grew them, but I
never handled them. Would the prickles make them more or less likely to
appear in sauces, jellies, etc.?
Whoa!!! Hold!!! Just found something else in LaVarenne!
62. Fresh mackerells rosted. Rost them with fennell, after they are
rosted, open them, and take off the bone; then make a good sauce with
butter, parsley, and gooseberries, all well seasoned; stove a very little
your mackerells with your sauce, then serve.
Have just glanced at a number of her fish sauces; none seem to have cream
or milk added, yet. Is 'short broth' a reduced cooking liquid, do you
think?
Allison
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 1998 13:36:04 +0100
From: "Yeldham, Caroline S" <csy20688 at GlaxoWellcome.co.uk>
Subject: RE: SC - Re: gooseberries + jelly
English gooseberries have prickles (on the berries, they also have
prickles on the stalks but they are tougher), but they are like hairs,
won't damage you in handling and disappear in cooking - they don't need
removing. They do have a stalk at one end and a hairy bit at the other
which need removing (unless you are going to sieve the cooked
gooseberries) - usually called 'top and tailing' in England.
Lovely fruit, one of my favourites. Eaten green in June and July they
have a tart flavour which goes very well with elderflowers, makes a
wonderful fool, or tart or crumble. Berries left on the bush to August
turn golden or red and become very sweet.
I've never been very fond of gooseberry jam, as too much sugar kills the
flavour (but then I tend to believe that of a lot of fruit), so that
might be why Bogdan's grandfather didn't like it!
Caroline
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 18:38:48 +1000 (EST)
From: "GARY.J LUCKMAN" <gluckman at ozemail.com.au>
Subject: Re: SC - Mulberries
Mulberries are period.
Mulberries are delicious.
Mulberries are best eaten when they have turned a wonderful purply black
and are almost squashy.
Mulberries are one of my very *favourite* types of food!
(Who didn't guess that? :-)
Mulberry tart is very easy, just using a sweet shortcrust, layering
mulberries on top of it, and cooking it in a medium oven, serving with
fresh double cream.
Or mulberry sponge, mulberry muffins (decrease the liquid in the recipe
or they'll be mushy muffins). Mulberry ice cream, hot mulberry sauce to
serve with ice cream. <sigh> Can I come over to visit, please?
Sorry I don't have access to any period recipes right here. My only wish
is that you enjoy them!
Cheers
Rakhel Petrovna
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 12:56:56 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Mulberries Re: SC - Mulberries
>From MS D, ff. 86r-96v, also known as Diuersa Servicia to those of you
who own a copy of Curye On Inglysch:
"37 For to make murrey, tak mulbery & bray hem in a morter and wryng hem
(th)orh a clo(th), & do hem in a pot ouer (th)e fyre; & do (th)erto bred
& wyte gresse, & let yt na(gh)t boyle non ofter (th)an onys. & do
(th)erto a god perty of sugur, & (y)if yt be no(gh)t ynowe ycolowrd brey
mulburus; serue yt for(th)e."
[For to make murrey, Take mulberries and crush them in a mortar, and
wring them through a cloth, and put the puree in a pot over the fire,
and add bread and lard, and let it come to a boil no more than once. Add
a good amount of sugar, and if the color isn't bright enough add more
crushed mulberries (as a garnish); and serve.]
This is presumably the same as the plethora of other pottages that are
either eaten alone as a sort of soup, porridge, or pudding, depending on
how thick you like them, or as a sauce for chunked roast meat, eaten
from a bowl with a spoon. This same basic dish is also made from
strawberries, cherries, plums, roses, hawthorn flowers, and others.
Some versions call for rice flour instead of bread, and some call for
the addition of some wine, which would be a great help if this is eaten
as a sauce for meat.
Happy berry-picking!
Adamantius
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 15:43:13 -0400
From: Marilyn Traber <margali at 99main.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Mulberries
mulberries are definitely period, to the point that William the Conqueror's favorite beverage was a mulberry mead [Max Elgin's favorite thing to brew, but our berries got eaten by the birds before he could come out and pick them :-(]
margali
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 15:24:31 -0600
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - 14th Century Food
> We were just having this discussion this week about raspberries. I am
> led to believe that they are a hybrid from this century. ???
> Christianna
The raspberry (Rubus idaeus) is native to the northern forests of Europe,
Asia, and America. The North American raspberry is the variant strigosus.
The European raspberry was imported into North America in the 16th Century.
Commercial raspberries have been hybridized to resist various plant
diseases.
The blackberry (Rubus occidentalis) is native to Eastern North America,
however the term blackberry has been used to describe the dark colored fruit
of other members of the genus Rubus.
R.idaeus and R. occidentalis can be cross bred.
Bear
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 21:45:54 -0600
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - 14th Century Food
> >The blackberry (Rubus occidentalis) is native to Eastern North America,
> >however the term blackberry has been used to describe the dark colored
> >fruit of other members of the genus Rubus.
>
> Is this the same as the "bramble" also?
> Elysant
Bramble is a term which is applied to all members of Rubus and usually
describes a number of plants growing together. So raspberries,
blackberries, loganberries, dewberries, etc. are all brambleberries.
In general usage the term covers any prickly or thorny bush or plant.
Bear
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 06:34:51 -0600
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - Summertime Cerulean Blue Sauce
> Could you possibly advise on the botanical name of these blackberries?
>
> Mari de Paxford
> (Meliora's "other portable brain")
I did a little searching and came up with a small problem. What we in the
U.S. call blackberries are actually black raspberries. They do exude a dark
blue juice and have a taste of their own, but they were imported into Europe
in recent times.
Rubus idaeus, which is definitely a red raspberry, is the only European
member of this group. The American variant is R. idaeus var. strigosus.
The primary species known as blackberries are R. occidentalis (AKA blackcap
or thimbleberry) and R. leucodeamis (AKA western black raspberry).
Right now, I'm wondering if the blackberry of the recipe may not be a black
currant.
Bear