fruit-pies-msg

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fruit-pies-msg - 4/20/15

Period fruit pies. Recipes. Baking pies.

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From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>

Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 15:27:55 -0700 (PDT)

Subject: Re: SC - Roasted apples!

At 8:48 AM +0000 5/26/97, Jessica Tiffin wrote:

>I've just tracked down and devoured a copy of the Goodman of Paris

>(wonderful stuff). He refers to "roasted apples" in many of his

>feast menus. I'm assuming that this is a standard sort of baked

>apple - would anyone know precisely how they were cooked in period?

>Melesine

There is a recipe for baked quinces in Chiquart's cookbook (15th c. French,

as opposed to the Goodman's late 14th c.) and roughly the same recipe for

quinces or pears ("wardons") in Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books

(English). You have a bottom crust, core your quinces or whatever from the

top without breaking through the bottom, put them on the crust, fill with

sugar (and in the English, ginger; or honey with pepper and ginger) and put

on a top crust. Bake. Very good, but the pie looks decidedly lumpy.

Elizabeth

Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 07:38:35 -0500

From: dangilsp at intrepid.net (Dan Gillespie)

Subject: SC - Apricot pie-IP recipe

Cap lxxxiij De tortada de orejones.

Una tortada grande y buena de orejones, ha de llevar una libra, los quales

se lavaran con agua calie(n)te, y despues de bien lavados, echalos en un

caço, co(n) una libra de açucar; ha se de dexar un poco para encima, y se

les echara un poco de vino blanco, y canela, y sazonala, y pondraslo a la

lumbre; de suerte que no se queme, porque ellos de suyo son bla(n)dos, y

estando conservados, se quitaran, y po(n)dranse en la tortada, y se les

echara açucar, y canela por encima; despues de bie(n) conservados tambien se

les puede echar miel en lugar al açucar; pero ha de ser buena, y se pondran

en la tortada coziendo a poca lumbre, porque todas las cosas dulces se

queman facilmente.

Chap 83 On a pie of dry apricot or peach halves

A large & good pie of dry apricots, bring a pound of them, those which are

washed with hot water, & after they are well washed, cast them in a pot,

with a pound of sugar; leave a little for on top, & cast to them

white wine, & cinnamon, & season it, & set it on the fire; be sure that it

does not burn, because they are delicate, & being conserved, remove them & &

put them in the pie, & cast to them sugar & cinnamon on top; after they are

well conserved you also may cast honey in place on the sugar; but let it be

good, & put the

pie cooking on a small fire, because all the sweet dishes burn easily.

Apricot Pie

- -12 oz package of dry apricots

- -12 oz white sugar, or 1.5 cups

- -1 c. white wine (red or rose also works fine)

- -1 tsp cinnamon

- -1 tsp ginger

- -a double crust pie pastry

Cut the apricots in half to make thin halves. Cover them with boiling water

& let them soak for 10 minutes. LEt them drain. Put the sugar, wine &

spices in a heavy pan on medium high heat. Let this boil & reduce heat to

medium. Add the apricots & cook 30 minutes, or so. The fruit should look a

bit translucent & the syrup should be reduced & thickened. Roll out the pie

dough & put all the fruit & as much of the syrup in the pie shell as looks

right to you. YOu don't want the excess syrup to bubble out of the shell &

burn in the oven. Cover with top layer of pie dough. Sprinkle sugar &

cinnamon on top. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes & reduce the heat to

325 for 30 minutes or til pastry looks golden brown. I sometimes make

cookie cut-outs of the extra dough & put them on top for decoration.

Dan Gillespie

dangilsp at intrepid.net

Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1998 22:20:48 EDT

From: LrdRas at aol.com

Subject: SC - Tartys in Applis-NEW recipe-enjoy

This recipe would be good for a vegeterian or fast day feast also It is

recommended for experienced cooks.

* Exported from MasterCook *

Tartys in Applis (Apple Tarts)

Recipe By : L. J. Spencer, Jr. (copywrite 1998)

Serving Size : 8 Preparation Time :0:00

Categories : English Fruit

Pies & Pastry

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method

- -------- ------------ --------------------------------

3 apples, peeled -- cored, chopped fine

2 pears, peeled -- cored, chopped fine

1/2 cup figs, dried -- chopped fine

1/2 cup Zante currants, dried -- chopped fine

1/4 teaspoon black pepper -- ground

2 teaspoons cinnamon -- ground

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg -- ground

1/4 teaspoon mace -- ground

1/4 teaspoon cloves -- ground

1 pie shell

sugar -- for garnish

Mix fruits and spices together thoroughly. Spread the mixture evenly in the

bottom of a pastry shell. Bake at 450 deg F for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to

360 deg F for 20 minutes or until crust is golden brown and filling is

bubbling. Serve at room temperature. Garnish with granulated sugar if

desired.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

NOTES: Original: Tartys in Applies- Tak gode applys & gode spycis & figs &

reysons & perys, & wan they arn wel brayed colour wyth safroun wel & do yt in

a cofyn, & do yt forth to bake wel. - Curye on Inglish

Although the original recipe doesn't specify seasonings, I chose to do so

based on a comparison to other tart/pastry type recipes from this manuscript.

I feel that this recipe was meant to convey the main ingredient of the tart

and was written for the pastry cook rather than any of the other myriad

specialty cooks available at the residence

The spices I used are typical of this sort of dish and provide depths of

flavor that literally lifts the original out of the depths of insipidity. The

spice mixture that I created is well within the acceptable range of other

similar mixtures that are listed in COE. Sprinkling a rounded tablespoon of

granulated sugar over the top after about a half hour out of the oven makes a

nice garnish.

Mincemeat-like recipes appear to have been very popular during the middle ages

and remained so right up until the end of the Victorian era with very little

change in ingredients or method of preparation. The popularity of mincemeat

dishes dropped dramatically throughout the first part of the 20th century C.E.

The economy of W.W.II brought about a major decline in availability of

ingredients as well as a major change in cooking styles, tools, utensils and

major product additions. Mincemeat dishes were reduced to the level the old

fashioned novelty that they are today.

This is a good recipe for the creative period cook because of it's obvious

resemblance to similar mincemeat-like recipes. The addition of 1/4 cup finely

diced suet and 6 ounces of finely chopped raw venison to the main ingredients

would make this tart substantial enough to serve as a first course. More

importantly, IMO, it would be as period as any thing we know about and with

appropriate documentation could be entered into A & S displays or competitions

without fear of 'being out of period'. :-)

Enjoy!

al-Sayyid A'aql ibn Ras al-Zib, AoA, OSyc

Guildmaster (The Guild of St. Martha)

Kingdom of Aethelmearc

Shire of Abhain Ciach Ghlas

Mountain Confederation

Clan Ravenstar

Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 07:05:54 -0500

From: vjarmstrong at aristotle.net (Valoise Armstrong)

Subject: Re: SC - Tartys in Applis-NEW recipe-enjoy

Tyrca wrote:

>Very interesting, Ras, and it brings up a question that I have had for

>some time, about mincemeat. I grew up with mincemeat pies for

>Christmas as something with _meat_ in them. My mother usually used

>leftover roast beef or venison, put it through a hand grinder, and

>added the apples and raisins, and canned the filling to use for the

>holidays. It is my father's favorite. As I grew older, and went more

>out into the world, I discovered that other people I talked to had

>never heard of meat in mince pies. They thought I was crazy.

>Did they really use meat in mincemeat pies in period? Or is my family

>just an abberation? Any recipes? Anyone?

Fruit in medieval meat pies was a very common occurance.

Actually, until the second half of the fifteenth century recipes for meat

pies with fruit seem to be much more common than for fruit pies without

meat. Many meat pies were baked in a heavy flour and water crust that

served mostly as a container for the ingredients and could stand up under

long cooking times. Some writer's have claimed that the innovation of a

lighter and more edible pie crust and suggested that this new pie crust

made the fruit pies (which needed shorter cooking times) much more popular.

This is all supposition on the part of the historians so I set out to see

if I could verify it by scanning a number of cookbooks for recipes for

fruit pies that did not include meat. Out of about twenty English, French

and German cookbooks from the 14th to 16th century one percent or fewer

recipes were for fruit pies in the earlier two centuries while twelve

percent of all the 16th century recipes were for fruit only pies.

These are imperfect statistics since most of my 16th C. sources were German

- - so it might be a regional fad.

Valoise

Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 17:25:33 -0800

From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>

Subject: Re: SC - Tartys in Applis-NEW recipe-enjoy

Ras gave his worked-out version of the following 14th-c recipe:

>NOTES: Original: Tartys in Applies- Tak gode applys & gode spycis & figs &

>reysons & perys, & wan they arn wel brayed colour wyth safroun wel & do yt in

>a cofyn, & do yt forth to bake wel. - Curye on Inglish

For comparison, here is a richer version from a different source, with eggs

and cream and butter, but with the same ground apples and/or pears and

dried fruit as yours; it is 15th c. English and, unlike yours, specifies

the spicing. It does specify sprinkling on the sugar at the end--in this

case, cinnamon sugar.

A Flaune of Almayne

Ancient Cookery p. 452/39

First take raisins of Courance, or else other fresh raisins, and good ripe

pears, or else good apples, and pick out the cores of them, and pare them,

and grind them, and the raisins in a mortar, and do then to them a little

sweet cream of milk, and strain them through a clean strainer, and take ten

eggs, or as many more as will suffice, and beat them well together, both

the white and the yolk, and draw it through a strainer, and grate fair

white bread, and do thereto a good quantity, and more sweet cream, and do

thereto, and all this together; and take saffron, and powder of ginger, and

canel, and do thereto, and a little salt, and a quantity of fair, sweet

butter, and make a fair coffin or two, or as many as needs, and bake them a

little in an oven, and do this batter in them, and bake them as you would

bake flaunes, or crustades, and when they are baked enough, sprinkle with

canel and white sugar. This is a good manner of Crustade. [end of original;

spelling modernized]

2/3 c raisins pinch of saffron 1/2 c whipping cream

3 pears or apples 1/2 t salt 5 T butter

1/2 t cinnamon 3 eggs (large) 9" pie crust

1/4 t ginger 4 T breadcrumbs 1 T cinnamon sugar to sprinkle on at the end

A blender works well as a substitute for a mortar to mash the apples and

raisins; mix the liquids in with the apples and raisins before blending.

Bake at 375° for about an hour.

Elizabeth/Betty Cook (only a week behind the list, now)

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 17:01:18 -0700

From: varmstro at zipcon.net (Valoise Armstrong)

Subject: Re: SC - period fruit pastries

timorra asked

>is there a period fruit pastry out there? like pasties?

>i have a friend who is serving a dish and was wondering if it was period

If by pastry you mean a pie, you might check out Das Kochbuch der Sabina

Welserin. It has a couple of dozen fruit pies. Duke Cariadoc has graciously

given it a place on his web page at:

http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Medieval/Cookbooks/Sabrina_Welserin.html

Valoise

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 08:22:41 -0400

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

Subject: Re: SC - period fruit pastries

Mouuze at aol.com wrote:

> is there a period fruit pastry out there? like pasties?

There are instances of pies either containing fruit in addition to other

ingredients (and often the fruit is dried) or occasionally fruit with a

custard mix (such as apples or cherries). I'd say the biggest influx of

what we would today call a fruit pastry in an English source is in

~1545, in "A Newe Proper Booke of Cokery", which contains a pastry

recipe and several recipes for fruit pies and tarts together in one section.

One problem with thinking in terms of a fruit pasty, other than that

I've never seen such a reference and the concept may violate some

unwritten law among period cooks, if you know what I mean, is that if

there _were_ textual references to fruit in pasties, we still would have

no reason to assume what was meant was anything like a Cornish pasty in

shape or pastry composition. See what I mean? All we would know is that

fruit appeared to have been eaten wrapped in pastry, and that's

something we already know.

> i have a friend who is serving a dish and was wondering if it was period

Ah. See above. ; ) . Rather than give the standard lecture about

documentation after the fact, we can consider it given and simply say

yes, it does appear fruit in pastry was eaten in period, in one form or

another, but that half-moon-shaped turnovers filled with sweetened fruit

with the juice thickened to provide a sauce, probably were not, or at

least I'm not aware of any reason to assume so.

Adamantius

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 00:13:44 EDT

From: ChannonM at aol.com

Subject: Re: SC - Blackberry/Apple Pie

Since I don''t know which Celts you are talking about and what time, I'll

assume (watch it there) that they are Irish, Scottish or in that area and

most likely early period (pre 12 C).

I have found success with a "crumble" type recipe utilizing honey instead of

sugar (if you are doing Celtic, sugar was not avail before 12C (I know

everyone will have a specific/different date).

Crumble or fruit crisp recipes use oats, nuts (hazelnuts or filberts were

avail to the Celts ) a sweetener, butter and fruit.

Spices that were found in burial sites such as the Osberg Ship's burial do

not to my knowledge contain what we would typically call "pie spices" ie

cinnamon, nutmeg so on those you can infer contact with Vikings who may have

come across them . According to Anne Wilson's - Food and Drink in Britain,

the spice supply was interuppted in the 5th century and revived again in the

late 8th. Others out there may have more detail on that.

Here is an adaption of a recipe that originally used sugar, instead of

honey. Honey can be substituted for sugar at 1 cup honey:1.25 sugar (white) or

.8 of a cup to 1 cup sugar.

Combine 5 cups fruit (if necessary peel, core & chop/slice) with 3 Tblsp honey

Place in an oven proof dish

Separately combine,

1/2 cup regular rolled oats

1/4 cup flour ( I used 1/8 all purpose + 1/8 whole wheat)

1/2 cup honey

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg, ginger or cinnamon

1/4 cup chopped nuts (toasting them lightly in a 400degree oven brings out

their flavour)

Cut in 1/4 cup butter

Sprinkle topping over filling or what may be a more period manner- mix the

whole thing together as a sweet thick pottage- sounds good with some thick

cream poured over after cooking.

Bake in 375 degree oven for 30-35 minutes or till fruit is tender.

Hauviette

Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 22:42:53 -0500

From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>

Subject: Re: SC - Blackberry/Apple Pie

At 12:13 AM -0400 9/27/99, ChannonM at aol.com wrote:

>Since I don''t know which Celts you are talking about and what time, I'll

>assume (watch it there) that they are Irish, Scottish or in that area and

>most likely early period (pre 12 C).

...

>Here is an adaption of a recipe that originally used sugar, instead of

>honey. Honey can be substituted for sugar at 1cup honey:1.25 sugar (white) or

> .8 of a cup to 1 cup sugar.

>Combine 5 cups fruit (if necessary peel, core & chop/slice) with 3 Tblsp honey

>Place in an oven proof dish

>Separately combine,

>1/2 cup regular rolled oats

...

Rolled oats are a modern invention. Would the recipe work with whole oats

or oatmeal in the old sense?

Also, can you think of any period recipes that are reasonably similar to

this? Taking a modern recipe and substituting period ingredients isn't a

very reliable way of getting a period recipe, since lots of things other

than ingredients change over time.

David/Cariadoc

http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 00:13:44 EDT

From: ChannonM at aol.com

Subject: Re: SC - Blackberry/Apple Pie

Since I don''t know which Celts you are talking about and what time, I'll

assume (watch it there) that they are Irish, Scottish or in that area and

most likely early period (pre 12 C).

I have found success with a "crumble" type recipe utilizing honey instead of

sugar (if you are doing Celtic, sugar was not avail before 12C (I know

everyone will have a specific/different date).

Crumble or fruit crisp recipes use oats, nuts (hazelnuts or filberts were

avail to the Celts ) a sweetener, butter and fruit.

Spices that were found in burial sites such as the Osberg Ship's burial do

not to my knowledge contain what we would typically call "pie spices" ie

cinnamon, nutmeg so on those you can infer contact with Vikings who may have

come across them . According to Anne Wilson's - Food and Drink in Britain,

the spice supply was interuppted in the 5th century and revived again in the

late 8th. Others out there may have more detail on that.

Here is an adaption of a recipe that originally used sugar, instead of

honey. Honey can be substituted for sugar at 1 cup honey:1.25 sugar (white) or

.8 of a cup to 1 cup sugar.

Combine 5 cups fruit (if necessary peel, core & chop/slice) with 3 Tblsp honey

Place in an oven proof dish

Separately combine,

1/2 cup regular rolled oats

1/4 cup flour ( I used 1/8 all purpose + 1/8 whole wheat)

1/2 cup honey

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg, ginger or cinnamon

1/4 cup chopped nuts (toasting them lightly in a 400degree oven brings out

their flavour)

Cut in 1/4 cup butter

Sprinkle topping over filling or what may be a more period manner- mix the

whole thing together as a sweet thick pottage- sounds good with some thick

cream poured over after cooking.

Bake in 375 degree oven for 30-35 minutes or till fruit is tender.

Hauviette

Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 22:42:53 -0500

From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>

Subject: Re: SC - Blackberry/Apple Pie

At 12:13 AM -0400 9/27/99, ChannonM at aol.com wrote:

>Since I don''t know which Celts you are talking about and what time, I'll

>assume (watch it there) that they are Irish, Scottish or in that area and

>most likely early period (pre 12 C).

...

>Here is an adaption of a recipe that originally used sugar, instead of

>honey. Honey can be substituted for sugar at 1cup honey:1.25 sugar (white) or

> .8 of a cup to 1 cup sugar.

>Combine 5 cups fruit (if necessary peel, core & chop/slice) with 3 Tblsp honey

>Place in an oven proof dish

>Separately combine,

>1/2 cup regular rolled oats

...

Rolled oats are a modern invention. Would the recipe work with whole oats

or oatmeal in the old sense?

Also, can you think of any period recipes that are reasonably similar to

this? Taking a modern recipe and substituting period ingredients isn't a

very reliable way of getting a period recipe, since lots of things other

than ingredients change over time.

David/Cariadoc

http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 13:37:01 -0500

From: "Daniel Phelps" <phelpsd at gate.net>

Subject: Re: SC - Thanksgiving

I wrote:

><< I'm pretty proud of

> the apple fig raisin so I will be posting the recipe later for anyone who

> wants it. >>

Was reply:

>I would love to have the recipe, Daniel. Sounds scrumptious.

>Juliana/Iu'liana

Just took one out of the oven with a little Triskel on the crust.

Can't take any real credit for the reciepe as I used the filling for fruit

Rissoles on page 278 of "Early French Cooking" by Scully and Scully. It's

their redaction from Menagier de Paris (The Goodman of Paris)

3-4 medium cooking apples (I used 5 smallish Granny Smiths. I tried Red

delicious once and they didn't do as well)

8 figs ( I used 10 this time as they seemed a bit small as well)

1 cup rasins (black raisins, I intend to use golden raisins next time to see

if it makes a difference)

1 cup water

1/2 cup white wine ( used half and half water and wine, 1.5 cups of each)

Peel and clice apples, chop figs small (cut off stems and throw them away).

Simmer fruit in water/wine several minutes until fruit is soft but not

mushy. Do not over cook. (Check the apples of doneness if they are done so

is the rest of the fruit.)

1/2 cup of sugar (I used some ginger flavored sugar I had left over from

making candied ginger)

1 tsp ground ginger

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp grain of paradise (optional according to Scully but I use it if I

have it on hand)

1/3 cup pinenuts or chpped walnuts (I have made it with walnuts and without.

This time I left them out as one of the people eating has an extreme food

allergy to nuts. In truth it does not seem to make a difference to me.)

Combine sugar and spices. Add fruit (Add with a slotted spoon as you do not

want the mixture to be to moist.) If mixture is to dry, stir in white wine

by the teaspoonful tpo correct. (I add in a bit of the drained mixture.)

Taste; adjust spices to taste. (Go light on the cloves as it is very easy

to go over board.)

Stir in nuts.

I prebaked a deep dish 9 inch pie shell and added in the filling. I put a

pastry shell on top, the other pie shell unbaked, and baked in a preheated

oven at 375 F for about 25 minutes. Check the pie at 20 minutes to see if

the crust is done. I wouldn't leave it in over 30 minutes.

This is one of Scully's suggested cooking variations.

Daniel Raoul

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:33:18 -0800

From: Maggie MacDonald <maggie5 at home.com>

Subject: SC - Requested Recipes- Pork Roast/Warden Pie-LONG!!

I mentioned some recipes we used at the Maison deSteele Thanksgiving, and

got requests for the recipes, sources, etc. THL Gillian of Lynnhaven

provided me with the all of those tonight. Let me see if I can get them to

look as pretty here as she has on the paper that she gave me. Enjoy!

*************************************************************

Warden Pie

by THL Gillian of Lynnhaven

Take the fairest and best wardens*, and pare them, and take out the hard

cores on the top, and cut the sharp ends at the bottom flat; then boil

them in white wine and sugar, until the syrup grow thick; then take the

wardens from the syrup into a clean dish, and let them cool; then set them

into the coffin, and prick cloves in the tops, with whole sticks of

cinnamon, and great store of sugar, as for pippins; then cover it, and only

reserve a vent hole, so set it in the oven and bake it: when it is baked,

draw it forth, and take the first syrup in which the wardens were boiled,

and taste it, and if it be not sweet enough, then put in more sugar and

some rose-water, and boil it again a little, then pour it in at a the vent

hole, and shake the pie well; then take sweet butter and rose-water melted,

and with it anoint the pie lid all over, and strew upon it store of sugar,

and so set into the oven again a little space, and then serve it up. And in

this manner you may also bake quinces*. "The English Housewife", Gervase

Markham, Edited by Michael R. Best, McGill-Queen's University Press,

Canada, 1986, p. 104, #130

3 hard Pears

1 cup white Port **

1 cup Water

1 cup Sugar

9 whole Cloves

2 whole sticks Cinnamon

1 tsp. Rosewater

2 Tbs. Butter, melted

2 pie crusts

1 pie pan

egg wash - 1 egg yolk mixed with 2 Tsp. Water

Peel and cut the pears in half and remove the core. Combine in a saucepan,

the water, sugar and wine, with one stick of cinnamon and three cloves.

Heat until boiling then reduce the heat until the syrup simmers. Add the

pears to the syrup. Cook until the pears are just tender. Do not overcook.

Remove the pears with a slotted spoon to a bowl and cool. Prepare the pie

pan with the bottom crust. Lay the pear half into the pie pan. Place one

clove into each pear half. Break the cinnamon stick into pieces and spread

over the pears. Roll out the top crust leaving a one inch hole in the

center for a vent. Cover the pears with the top crust, pinch the edges and

brush it lightly with the egg wash. Decorate the crust as desired. Bake in

the oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until the crust is golden

brown. Remove the pie from the oven.

Continue to simmer the syrup until it is reduced in volume by half. Add the

rosewater to the syrup and remove it from the stove. Spoon the hot syrup

into the vent of the pie until it is moist but not overflowing. To the

melted butter add a couple of drops of rosewater and brush the mixture over

the top of the pie. Sprinkle the top of the pie with sugar, and return the

pie to the oven for about 5 to 10 minutes to glaze the top.

Serve warm with whipped cream. Serves 6 to 8

*Wardens refer to a hard and slightly sour type of pear. Choose a pear that

is solid and slightly unripe to use in this recipe. It would also work with

quinces, which are sour uneatable fruits until they are cooked.

**If white port cannot be found, use as sweet a white wine as can be gotten

and increase the amount of sugar. The syrup should be very sweet and fragrant.

Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2000 10:17:56 -0800

From: Valoise Armstrong <varmstro at zipcon.net>

Subject: Re: SC - Cherry tarts? - Question to the list. (long)

Just got back from Wash DC and found an amazing number of digests to

wade through, but glancing through the subject headings, it doesn't

look like anyone has replied to this. Following are a couple of cherry

pie recipes from Sabina Welserin, only one of them redacted. I'm sure

there are more in other cookbooks, but these are the only ones I've

got translated and on my hard drive.

Valoise

123 To make a very good sour cherry tart

Take a pound of sour cherries and remove all of the pits. Afterwards take a

half pound of sugar and a half ounce of finely ground cinnamon sticks and

mix the sugar with it. Next mix the cherries with it and put it after that

in the pie shell made of good flour and let it bake in the tart pan.

130 To make a sour cherry tart

Take the sour cherries, take out the stones and make a pastry crust as for

the other tarts. Take bread crumbs from grated white bread and fry them in

fat. Pour them on the crust, sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on top, Put the

sour cherries in it, leaving their juice in the bowl, sprinkle it well with

sugar and with cinnamon, make a crust on top of it, let it bake, as it is

customary.

Pastry for a two-crust pie

1 1/2 cups plain bread crumbs

1/4 cup butter or lard

3 cups pitted sour cherries (fresh or frozen, canned in water as a

last resort)

2/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Drain cherries. Melt butter in pan. Add bread crumbs and brown lightly. Set

aside to cool. Arrange bottom crust in pie pan. Add bread crumbs and sprinkle

with a third of the cinnamon and sugar. Add remaining sugar and cinnamon to

drained cherries and place on top of bread crumbs. Cover with remaining pie crust. Trim and flute edges and cut vent holes. Bake in preheated oven 450

degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes. Then reduce heat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

and bake until brown (Approximately 35 more minutes).

Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2000 13:19:00 -0600

From: Magdalena <magdlena at earthlink.net>

Subject: SC - sour cherry pie

Someone asked for a cherry tart recipe a while back. I

don't think this is what she? had in mind, but I thought I'd

post it.

Platina 8.40

40. Sour Cherry Pie

Pound in a mortar pitted sour cherries which can be

called 'merendae'. When they are pounded, mix into them

well cut up roses, a little fresh cheese, and ground aged

cheese, a bit of pepper, a little ginger, a little more

sugar, and four beaten eggs. When they are mixed, cook in a

well-greased pan with a lower crust on a slow fire. When

they are taken off the fore, pour sugar and rosewater over

them. This does not differ much from the above in force and

pleasantness.

(the above is millet pie)

- -Magdalena

Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2000 02:44:51 +0100

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

Subject: SC - cherry tarts & A tarte to provoke courage"

To make a good tart of Cheries.

Take your cheries and pick out the stones of them: then take raw yolks of egs, and put them into your cheries, then take sugar, Sinamon and Ginger, and Cloves, and put to your Cheries + make your Tart with all the Egges, your tart must be of an inche high, when it is made put in your cheries without any liquor, and cast Sugar, Sinamon, and ginger, upon it, and close it up, lay it on a paper, + put it in the Oven, when it is half baken draw it out, and put the liquor that you let of your cheries into the Tart: then take molten butter, and with a feather anoint your lid there with. Then take a fine beaten Sugar and cast upon it: then put your Tarte into the Oven again, and let it bake a good while, when it is baken drawe it foorth, + cast Sugar + Rosewater upon it, and serve it in."

(The good huswifes handmaide for the kitchen (1594?), ed. Stuart Peachey, Bristol 1992, 36f.) "To make a Tart of Cherries, when thestones be out, another waye. Seeth them in White wine or in Claret, and drain them thick: when they be sodden: then take two yolks of Egges+ thicken it withall: then season it with Synamon,Ginger, and Sugar, and bake it, and so serve it." (ib. 37.)

Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2000 08:44:58 +1000

From: "Drake & Meliora" <meliora at macquarie.matra.com.au>

Subject: RE: SC - WANTED Period recipe for an apple & chestnut pie

Lorix,

> I had a really nice period recipe for an apple & chestnut pie. Alas, I

> cannot find where I saved it to ;-(

I'm currently way behind at Uni at the moment, so sorry if this has already

been answered. Is this the recipe you are looking for? It is from Alia

Atlas' Ein Buch von Guter Spise.

Regards Mel.

Ooops, just noticed it is walnut not chestnut - sorry.

61. Einen krapfen (A krapfen)

So du wilt einen vasten krapfen machen von n¸zzen mit ganzem kern. und nim

als vil epfele dor under und snide sie w¸rfeleht als der kern ist und roest

sie mit ein wenig honiges und mengez mit w¸rtzen und tu ez uf die bleter die

do gemaht sin zu krapfen und loz ez backen und versaltz niht.

How you want to make a fastday krapfen of nuts with whole kernels. And take

as many apples thereunder and cut them diced, as the kernel is, and roast

them well with a little honey and mix with spices and put it on the leaves,

which you made to krapfen, and let it bake and do not oversalt.

Recipe 61: An Apple and Walnut Tart

4 apples, peeled and diced. (about 2 cups) (used Granny Smith)

2 cups walnuts

1/2 cup honey

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground mace

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1 pie crust (made of flour, butter, water and salt)

Cook the apples in the honey until they are starting to become soft. (This

takes approximately 10 minutes.) Mix the cooled apples and honey with the

walnuts and spices. Roll out pie crust and put in pan. Fill crust with

mixture. Cook in the oven at 3508 F until crust is brown (approximately 30

minutes).

Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 22:44:40 -0400

From: "Bethany Public Library" <betpulib at ptdprolog.net>

Subject: Re: SC - Just checking whether you are the Aoife who sent this message

Hallo Lorix! Yep, that's me, from Home (I now use my work address). I don't

recall how this recipe came out, precisely at the moment. Sorry! It would

make something very like modern mincemeat, except the ingredients are

layered rather than mixed and pre-cooked (which means that this recipe is

probably older than the date of the cookbook, since pre-mixed pie

ingredients seem to have begun coming into fashion in the late 1500s, early

1600s). But the Cordecidron is a a citrus fruit (most likely the candied

peel) and you can safely substitute candied lemon peel. I would tend to make

my own: thinly peel the rind from lemons, making sure there is no pith

(white). gently boil in 3-4 changes of water (helps to keep 2 pans boiling

at all times---the process is quicker that way) to remove bitterness, then

simmer in a simple syrup of one part sugar to one part water, for 10

minutes. Remove, dip into granulated sugar, and allow to somewhat dry. You

can do the same with the porange peel, which is also probably candied. That

amount of grated raw peel might be overwhelming, thus the surmise about

preserved peel.

And yes, in this case (a recipe from the late 1500s) "lib." means pound

(lb.).

Good Luck. I may have to go back and try this again!

Cheers

Dame Aoife

- -----Original Message-----

From: Lorix <lorix at trump.net.au>

To: Bethany Public Library <betpulib at ptdprolog.net>

Date: Monday, June 05, 2000 7:43 AM

Subject: SC - Just checking whether you are the Aoife who sent this message

M'lady,

I am looking for a recipe I seem to remember seeing in the last 6

months containing apples & chestnuts. Of course, now that I want to

try ot out I can't find it! Anyway, a did a search the following

recipe turned up in the floregium sent in 1997. As the sending

address was different I was unsure if you were the same person who

sent the original missive.

If you are, please can you answer the following questions:

1/ Can you tell me how this recipe turned out?

2/ What exactly is 'Cordecidron'?

3/ Does lib. in recipe equate to lb (pounds)?

Thanks, Lorix

Chestnut Pye

Posted by Aoife, L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt <liontamr at ptd.net> on

16/10/97: From: Subject: SC - Apples and Chestnuts

(Mrs. McClintock's Receipt Book, 1700s): Chestnut Pye - To Make A

Cheftnut Pye Take 2 dozen of Apples, 100 Chefnuts, a lib. of Almonds,

2 lib. of Currans, half a lib. of Rafins, half a lib. of Sugar, half

an Ounce of Cinnamon, 3 Drop of Nutmeg, a Quarter of a lib. of

Cordecidron, as much Orange-peel; flice your Apples, fkin the

Chefnuts, and blanche the Almonds, put a layer of Appls in the Bottom

of the Pye, put a Layer of Chefnuts, a Layer of Almonds, Currans,

Raifins, Cordecidron, Orange-peil and Spices; Give it good ftore of

fweet Butter on the Top, then put on the Lid, and fend it to the oven;

when 'tis near fired, pour in a

Mutchkin of white Wine at the Lumb. (Lumb is a vent or funnel in a

pie. Mutchkin is .212 litres or 2.996 gills, if that actually helps!)

My Modern 'transaltion' To Make a Chestnut Pye:

2 dozen apples (sliced)

100 chestnuts (skinned)

1 lb of almonds (blanched)

2lb currants

? lb raisins

? lb sugar

? ounce cinnamon

3 drops of nutmeg

º lb Cordecidion (what is this exactly?)

? lb orange peel

Put a layer of apples at the bottom of the pye, a layer of chestnuts,

a layer of almods, currants, raisins, cordecidron (?), orange peel &

spices. Put some sweet butter on the top, then put on a lid & send it

to the oven. When it is nearly done, pour in .212 litres of white

wine through a vent in the pie.

Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2000 21:28:57 EDT

From: ChannonM at aol.com

Subject: SC - Re: PLATINA, Date Pie LONG

Hi everyone,

I was working on this recipe this weekend and wanted to share. Let me know

what you all think.

Date Pie

Platina- ON Right Pleasure and Good Health

Milham translation

#43Torta ex Dactylis

Amygdalas bene tunsas cum iure piscium et aqua rosacea dissolves. Dissolutas

in catinum per sataceum transmittes. Dactylorum exossatorum selibram, parum

passularum, quattuor aut quinque ficos, risi item bene cocti uncias tris in

eodem mortario conteres. Parum deinde petroselini, atriplicis, amaraci

manibus confracti ac in oleo fricti gladiolo concides. Non erit ab re si cum

his iocuscula aut adipem piscis condideres. Unciam praeterea passularum

Corinthiarum, selibram sacchri, parum cinnami, plusculum gingiberis, modicum

croci simul aut seorsum teres, superioribusque admiscebis. Verum ut magis

haec spissentur, aut semunciam amyli aut ova lyci indes, extendesque in

testum bene untum et subcrustatum infixis ubique nucleis pineis bene mundis.

Lagana vero si placebit pro superiore cursta extendes. Coqui lento igne hoc

pulmentum debet. Tenue item ut sit necesse est. Coctum saccharo et aqua

rosacea suffundatur. Alit hoc quidem et multum, tarde concoquitur, hepar

iuvat, dentes corrumpit, pituitam auget.

Date Pie

Soak well-pounded almonds with fish juice and rose water. When they are

soaked, pass through a sieve into a bowl. Grind in the same mortar a half

pound of pitted dates, a few raisins, four or five figs, as well as three

ounces of well-cooked rise. Then cut up with a small knife a little parsley,

orach, and marjoram, torn by hand and fried in oil. It will not be out of the

way if you cut up livers or fish fat with these. Besides, grind together, or

separately, an ounce of Corinthian raisins, a half pound of sugar, a little

cinnamon, a little more ginger, and a bit of saffron, and mix into the above,

So that it may really thicken more, put in either a half ounce of starch or

pike eggs, and spread out in a well-oiled earthenware pot with a lower crust

with well-washed pine nuts stuck everywhere in it. If it will really please

you, spread crepes instead of an upper crust. This mixture ought to be cooked

in a slow fire. Also, it is necessary for it tho be thin. Wehn it is cooked,

it should be covered with sugar and rose water. This really also nourishes a

great deal, is slowly digested, helps the liver, damages the teeth, and

increases phlegm.

Redaction

1.5 cups ground almonds

.5 cups rose water

1 cup fish juice (.125 tsp insinglass in 1 cup water, stirred well)*

Combine above, let sit for 10-15 minutes. Pour into a mesh strainer and let

drain for sometime, stir occasionally to assist the draining.

.5 lb dates

.125 cup yellow raisins

4-5 figs

3 ounces (.5 cup) well cooked rice (1.5 cup water to .5 cups long grain rice)

Combine in food processor till thick consistency.

1 tsp Flat leaf parsley

, 3-4 baby spinach leaves, .5 tsp fresh marjoram chopped well and fried in 1

tsp olive oil**

1 ounce currants (.333 cups)***

.5 lb sugar (6 TB turbinado, 5 TB packed demerera)****

1.5 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger*****

4-5 saffron threads crushed

3.5 tsp unbleached wheat flour

Grind the above in food processor then add to the above ingredients.

Line a large shallow baking pan or two pie plates with pastry (I used

commercial pie dough, this was a spur of the moment thing)

Stick pine nuts (.333 cups) into the pastry bottom

Spread filling into the pastry.

Top with upper crust or crepes (I did 2 pies, one with pastry top the other

with a crepe)

Cook 325 degrees farenheit for 45 minutes.

Combine .25 cups demerera sugar and .25 cups turbinado with .125 cups rose

water. Mix well untill mostly disolved. Pour over the top of the pie.

Eat.

Notes

*The fish juice issue threw me for a while. I was debating whether this was a

garum (ie Roman fish sauce) type thing or if it was just a fish broth. There

were a few recipes later in the manuscript that used fish juice to make the

dish thicker which lead me to believe that this was much more like using a

gelatine than using the liquid as a source of flavour. Isinglass being a

source of gelatine is a fish derivative and fit the bill. If anyone has any

input here, feel free to jump in.

**The translation says ‘a little’, I interpretted this to mean a generous

pinch

***Someone posted (was it Bear?) that they believed Corinthian raisins not to

be currants but actually were a specific type of raisin. I could not for the

life of me remember the type and rationale, if someone recognizes this please

post in comment.

***I wanted a deeper flavour to the icing than just what white sugar could

give so I combined these sugars. I also felt this was a closer attempt at a

period sugar that would have been more commonly used than pristine white

sugar (also, pure white sugar was often noted when needed). I chose to work

with the Apothecaries scale for weight which makes a pound equal to 12

ounces vs the modern 16. This choice was based on conversations on this list

specifically regarding the Menagier ratios for hippocras I believe (out of

memory at the moment), but I have taken to being liberal with that

interpretation from the Menagier to other period works. Feel free to comment

on this.

****In retrospect, I will use 2 tsp ginger as the recipe calls for ‘a little

cinnamon, a little MORE ginger’

It was a fun experiment and was quite yummy. So far only my family has tried

it. My husband upon being questioned felt that it was ìfineî and if you ìlike

dates, you will like this pieî.I preferred the pastry top, my husband the

crepe and my oldest son ate both his and his younger brothers share and asked

for more of both. Iíll be bringing it to fight practice tomorrow, weíll see

what the response is then. BTW the undissolved turbinado sugar looked as

delightfull as it tasted, it added a beautiful crystaline finish to the top

of the pie. Fresh mint leaves would be a nice garnish.

Hauviette

Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 17:34:12 +0100

From: Christina Nevin <cnevin at caci.co.uk>

Subject: Subject: Re: SC - My First Feast as Head Cook

niccolo difrancesco wrote:

I recommend Whole Pear Pies that can be found in Medieval Kitchen,

IIRC. It is paers baked in pastry crust with butter and granulated sugar.

they are to DIE for. The bottom crust is candied and glorious. You do four

or so in a crust. We did three in a crust in bread loaf pans for support.

I second Niccolo's recommendation. I made these for the Lammas Feast last

year, and they went with a whoosh! Plus they are so easy to do that even

people like myself (who should never be allowed near the baked goods section

of the feast), find them simple to make.

Here is the original and my redaction:

Whole Pear Pie MK#97 (VT XV Le Viandier de Guillaume Tirel dit Taillevent)

Pies of raw pears. Stand three large pears in a pie and fill the gaps with

about a quarteron [aprx 4 ounce/120g] of sugar, cover well, and glaze with

eggs or saffron, and put it in the oven.

Cut 3 large pears in halves, place in a pie (I used store-bought

shortcrust pastry, but you can always make this yourself) and cover with

sugar, preferably caster. Cover. Glaze with eggs or saffron and bake.

Despite the amount of sugar this dish isn't over-sweet, and the

flavor comes through nicely. I don't particularly like pears (mainly the

texture) but this is one of my favorite dessert dishes.

Ciao

Lucrezia

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Lady Lucrezia-Isabella di Freccia | mka Tina Nevin

Thamesreach Shire, The Isles, Drachenwald | London, UK

Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 20:58:25 -0400

From: ranvaig at columbus.rr.com

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Apple and pear pie?

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

> I remember some years ago running across a recipe, probably in the

> Elizabethan corpus somewhere, for a mixed apple and pear pie.

> Anyone have any ideas where I might find something like this?

This is from the feast booklet from The Barony of the Middle March's

Twelfth Night

Tartys in Applis, Diverse Servicia #82

Tak gode applys & gode spyces & figys & reysouns & perys, & wan they

are wel ybrayd colour wyth safroun & do yt in a cofyn, & do it forth

to bake wel.

Take good apples and good spices and figs and raisins and pears, and

when they are chopped small, color with saffron and put them in a

pastry crust and do it forth to bake well.

This was served as apples and pears as a filling for a bread ring.

The "Five gold rings" for a Twelve Days of Christmas theme.

Ranvaig

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 20:29:11 EDT

From: Etain1263 at aol.com

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Apple and pear pie?

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

karobert at unm.edu writes:

> [recipe] for a mixed apple and pear pie.

Tartys in Applis

Tak gode applys & gode spycis & figys & reysons & perys, & wan they arn we

ybrayd colour wyth safroun wel & do yt in a cofyn, & do yt forth to bake wel.

DS 82 (in Curye on Inglysch) ..or to make it easier: Pleyn Delit 120

Etain

Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2007 08:21:05 +0100

From: Volker Bach <carlton_bach at yahoo.de>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period German menus

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Am Donnerstag, 8. Februar 2007 09:34 schrieb ranvaig at columbus.rr.com:

> Do you know anything more about the Hungarian torte with many leaves

> (layers), that sounds interesting. I wonder if it has a meat filling

> or is sweet?

If this is the one you mean, it's sweet. And good.

HUNGARIAN APPLE TART

Nim Epffel / die klein gehackt seyn / wie man sie zu einer Turten zurichtet /

mach ein an Teig von schoen weissem Mehl / mit warmem Wasser / unnd mach in

nicht gar zu dick. Auff den Boden mach ein Blat von Eyern unnd Butter / so

wirt der Teig desto muerb / thu die Epffelfuell darauf / nim den Teig den du

von Wasser gemacht hast / zeuch in mit der Handt fein duenn au? / wie ein

Schleyer / und mach solcher Bletter zwentzig oder dreyssig auffeinander /

unnd bestreich ein jegliches Blat / ehe du es aufeinanderlegst / mit frischer

Butter / und wenn du sie hast auffeinander gelegt / so beschneits fein

rundt / und scheubs in Ofen / und schaw verbrenn es nit / so baeckt sichs

geschwindt / und lauffen die Bletter fein auff. / Ists aber an eim

Fleischtage / so bestreich sie mit Speck / der fein zerlassen ist / un gibs

warm auff ein Tisch / bestraew es mit Zucker / so ists schowen un zierlich.

Un also macht man die Ungerische Turten.

Take apples chopped finely, as you prepare them for tarts and make a dough

with fine white flour and warm water, not too thick. Place a layer of dough

made with butter and eggs on the bottom so it is nicely crumbly. Spread the

apple filling on that. Now take the dough you made with water and pull it

apart with your hands, as thin as a veil. Make twenty or thirty of these

leaves, all stacked on top of each other, and before you stack each one,

spread it with fresh butter. Once they are stacked, trim the edges into a

circle shape and place it in the oven. Watch out so it does not burn. It

bakes quickly and the leaves rise nicely. If it is a meat day, use melted

lard instead of butter. Serve it warm, sprinkled with sugar, so it is good

and pretty. Thus Hungarian tarts are made.

1/2 lb flour

1/2 lb butter

water

1/2 lb flour

1/4 lb butter

1 egg

water

salt

3-4 apples

sugar

butter

flour

Make 1/2 cup of flour into a stiff paste with water. Reserve. Work 1/4 lb

butter into 1/2 lb flour, add a pinch of salt and work it into a soft dough

with egg and water. Roll out and use to line a buttered and floured pie dish.

Peel, core and chop apples and sugar to taste (cinnamon and cloves also

harmonise). Spread this on the pie crust. Divide the water paste into 20

pieces and roll or pull them apart as thin as possible. Brush with melted

butter and stack. (it is also possible to make conventional puff pastry by

rolling out the paste, placing bits of butter on it, folding it over, rolling

it out again and repeating the process as often as needed) Place on top of

pie dish, covering the content completely, and trim edges neatly. Bake at

175 degrees C till slightly browned, sprinkle with sugar and serve.

Giano

Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2007 10:29:00 -0500

From: "Barbara Benson" <voxeight at gmail.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period German menus

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

> Do you know anything more about the Hungarian torte with many leaves

> (layers), that sounds interesting. I wonder if it has a meat filling

> or is sweet?

From what I have been able to determine - a Hungarian Torte is more of

a method of making a pie/tart than a specific dish. As good Giano

posted his redaction, it seems to be a pie with a specific type of

lower crust, a filling and then lidded with the equivalent of puff

pastry as opposed to your standard two crust pie.

I have seen different recipies in Rumpoldt for Hungarian Torte with

any number of different fillings, if you are looking for something

specific - let me know and I will see if I can find it. I had good

luck with that when planning my feast. There are tons of recipies for

Dumpling/Meatballs and I decided I wanted to do a lamb meatball. I

looked through the chapter on lamb - and voila there was a lamb

meatball recipie. (sort of, actually it said to make lamb meatballs

referr to earlier chapter on veal - but they were delish - prepared

braised in an almond sauce).

Serena da Riva

Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 14:23:49 -0400

From: "Barbara Benson" <voxeight at gmail.com>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] Dredge?

To: "Cooks List" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

In doing research I came across the following recipe in The Good

Huswife's Handmaid:

http://www.uni-giessen.de/gloning/ghhk/

To bake Peaches.

TAke Peaches, pare them, and cut them in two peeces, & take out the

stones as cleane as you can for breaching of the Peach: then make your

pie three square to bake fowre in a pie, let your paste be verie fine,

then make your dredge with fine Sugar, Synamon and Ginger: and first

lay a little dredge in the bottome of your pies: Then put in Peaches,

and fill vp your coffins with your Dredge, and put into euery coffin

three spoonfuls of Rosewater. Let not your Ouen be too hot. &c.

The "make up your dredge" thing implies to me a technique that they

are not making terribly clear. "Filling up your coffins" with your

dredge implies to me that there is a lot more going on here than

sugar, cinnamon and ginger. There has to be more to it. There is only

one more recipe in the manuscript that calls for a dredge and it is

the next one:

To bake pippins.

TAke your pippins and pare them, and make your coffin of fine paste,

and cast a little sugar in the bottome of the pie. Then put in your

Pippins, and set them as close as ye can: then take sugar, sinamon,

and Ginger, and make them in a dredge, and fill the Pie therewith: so

close it, and let it bake two houres but the Ouen must not be too hot.

Very similar. Has anyone stumbled across anything similar. It has to

be some sort of additional filling or technique. Any thoughts would be

greatly appreciated.

Serena da Riva

Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:39:57 -0700

From: Dragon <dragon at crimson-dragon.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Dredge?

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Barbara Benson wrote:

The "make up your dredge" thing implies to me a technique that they

are not making terribly clear. "Filling up your coffins" with your

dredge implies to me that there is a lot more going on here than

sugar, cinnamon and ginger. There has to be more to it. There is only

one more recipe in the manuscript that calls for a dredge and it is

the next one:

Very similar. Has anyone stumbled across anything similar. It has to

be some sort of additional filling or technique. Any thoughts would be

greatly appreciated.

---------------- End original message. ---------------------

Actually, I think it is exactly as simple as it looks. The mixture

used is called the dredge, in this case the sugar, cinnamon and

ginger, in verb form it means to coat something in a dry mixture (as

in to dredge in flour).

These recipes make fruit pies, the sugar cinnamon and ginger will

combine with the juices from the fruit during baking to produce a

flavorful syrup that will (hopefully) thicken and set from the pectin

in the fruit as the pie cools. Modern recipes often add a starch to

the dredge to improve the thickening action but if you have good,

properly ripened fruit, it really should not be an issue.

I'd suggest a slight modification to the recipe instructions by

coating the fruit in the dredge and then placing in the crust. It

will be better distributed and should give a much better result.

Dragon

Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:13:44 -0700

From: Dragon <dragon at crimson-dragon.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Dredge?

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

<<< I'd suggest a slight modification to the recipe instructions by

coating the fruit in the dredge and then placing in the crust. It

will be better distributed and should give a much better result.

Dragon >>>

But the recipe doesn't call for just coating the fruit, it asks you

to "fill vp your coffins," which is, I suspect, the confusing

part. Unless you have very small pieces very closely packed, you're

going to end up with a *lot* of "dredge" in your coffin.

---------------- End original message. ---------------------

I think this is one of those things that may well be open to

interpretation and may also be very much influenced by the

differences in ingredients between now and then. Remember that white,

refined sugar was available but not common. I think that is very

significant in that it is likely that the sugar in use for most such

recipes would have been "cone" sugar which would have had to be

grated before use. If you have ever used this type of sugar, it has a

rather light, slightly moist, and fluffy texture somewhat like a

light brown sugar unless you compact it. If you just sprinkle it in,

you won't have quite as much sugar in the pie as you might think.

You could literally fill the coffin with the sugar and yes, this

would be a lot of sugar, even with the cone sugar. But it also

doesn't say to pack the sugar in and around the fruit. If you use

modern granulated sugar, it will pack in much more densely because

the grains are uniformly small and have no molasses content so they

don't stay separate and light like the grated cone sugar would so you

would use more.

In either case, it's going to produce a syrup when you bake the pie.

With the larger quantity of sugar it will be a very heavy syrup. My

suggestion for rolling the fruit in the dredge was to make it

somewhat lighter.

Dragon

Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:22:48 -0400

From: Gretchen Beck <grm at andrew.cmu.edu>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Dredge?

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

--On Thursday, August 07, 2008 2:23 PM -0400 Barbara Benson

<voxeight at gmail.com> wrote:

<<< Very similar. Has anyone stumbled across anything similar. It has to

be some sort of additional filling or technique. Any thoughts would be

greatly appreciated. >>>

The OED gives:

{dag}1. A sweetmeat; a comfit containing a seed or grain of spice; a

preparation made of a mixture of spices; cf. DRAG?E. Obs.

c1350 Med. MS. in Arch?ol. XXX. 390 Ye sed is good fastende to ete, And ek

in drage after mete. [1377-86 see DRUG n.1] 1401-2 Mem. Ripon (Surtees)

III. 208 Et in jlib. dragge empt., 5d. [1402-3 dragy]. 14.. Noble Bk.

Cookry (Napier) 27 Cast on a dridge mad with hard yolks of eggs. c1440 Anc.

Cookery in Househ. Ord. (1790) 454 Make thenne a dragee of the yolkes of

harde eyren broken. c1440 Promp. Parv. 130/1 Dragge (v.rr. dragy, dradge),

dragetum. 1481-90 Howard Househ. Bks. (Roxb.) 367 Item..payed for a box of

drege xx. d. 1530 PALSGR. 215/1 Dradge, spyce, dragee. 1544 T. PHAER Regim.

Lyfe (1560) Ivjb, By eatyng of a litle dredge, made of anyse seede and

coriander. 1601 HOLLAND Pliny II. 108 A drage or pouder of it [thyme] with

salt, brings the appetite againe. 1616 SURFL. & MARKH. Country F. 48 Take

fasting a Dredge made of Annise, Fennell, Caraway, and Coriander seed.

The DOST (Dictionary of the Scots Tongue):

Dragy, Dregy, n. Also: dragie, draigie, dreg?, droggie; pl. drageis,

dregis. [ME. dragy, dreg? (c 1350), dreg? (1481-90), OF. dragie, dragee.]

1. A kind of sweetmeat or comfit. Also pl. comfits of this kind. (1)

Per empcionem ... duodecim librarum de dragy, expenditarum in domo; 1329

Exch. R. I. 141. Sexaginta librarum de dregy; Ib. 221. De ... lx libris

de drege ; 1331 Ib. 409. Dragy na sic thing brekis nocht fasting, na

drink sa that it be sobirly tane; Asl. MS. I. 41/11. For sax quartis vyne

and sax buistis dragie; 1583-4 Misc. Spald. C. V. 55. (2) Ane pund of

grene and reid dregis; 1575 6th Rep. Hist. MSS. App. 657/2. Tua dosane

buistis of drageis; 1582 Edinb. Test. XI. 355 b. Tua pund wecht cullourit

drageis; 1597 Ib. XXXI. 175 b.

The Middle English Dictionary has essentially the same thing:

(a) A sweet confection, sweetmeat; a sweet sauce or condiment; (b) a sweet

medicinal preparation; (c) fig. a reward or bribe; ~ of sin, pleasure of

sin, incentive to sin.

As I recall, Markham (the English Huswife) says about the same thing with

his cherry tart recipe, but doesn't use the word 'dredge':

Take the fairest Cherries you can get, a npicke them cleane from leaves and

stalkes, then spread out you coffin as for your Pippin-tart, and cover the

bottome with Suter, then cover the Suger all over with Cherries, then cover

those Cherries with Sugar, some sticks of Cinamon, and here and there a

Clove, then lay in more cherries, and so more Suger, Cinamon and Cloves,

till the coffin be filled up; then cover it and bake it in all points as

the codling and pipping tart, and so server it; and in the same manner you

may make Tarts of Gooseberries, Strawberries, Rasberries, Bilberries, or

any other Berrie whatsoever.

toodles, margaret

Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 17:19:45 -0400

From: "Barbara Benson" <voxeight at gmail.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Dredge?

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Dragon >

Actually, I think it is exactly as simple as it looks. The mixture used is

called the dredge, in this case the sugar, cinnamon and ginger, in verb form

it means to coat something in a dry mixture (as in to dredge in flour). >>>

I hesitate to assume that they are using the modern concept of

'dredging' here, which is why I am inquiring of this list if there are

other ideas.

Dragon>

These recipes make fruit pies, the sugar cinnamon and ginger will combine

with the juices from the fruit during baking to produce a flavorful syrup

that will (hopefully) thicken and set from the pectin in the fruit as the

pie cools. >>>

Peaches are an incredibly low pectin fruit and I doubt they will leach

enough to set up this volume of sugar.

Dragon>

I'd suggest a slight modification to the recipe instructions by coating the

fruit in the dredge and then placing in the crust. It will be better

distributed and should give a much better result. >>>

Assuming we know what the intended result is. I try very hard to go

into redacting recipes without any preconceived notions of how it will

turn out. This way I can avoid skewing my results towards a more

modern dish and instead attempt to get something as close to the

period as possible.

Sandra >

But the recipe doesn't call for just coating the fruit, it

asks you to "fill vp your coffins," which is, I suspect, the confusing

part. Unless you have very small pieces very closely packed, you're

going to end up with a *lot* of "dredge" in your coffin. >>>

That was my initial reaction also, the cutting instructions seem clear

that you are to cut the fruit in two and remove the pit with minimal

"breaching" or breaking of the peach. I believe the halves are

intended to go into the pie as intact as possible. This leaves an

awful lot of room for "dredge". Of course, period peaches were

probably much smaller, but their rounded nature will leave a goodly

amount of head room.

Thank you all for your feedback.

Serena

Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 09:39:08 -0400

From: "Nick Sasso" <grizly at mindspring.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Dredge?

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

-----Original Message-----

Sandra > But the recipe doesn't call for just coating the fruit, it

asks you to "fill vp your coffins," which is, I suspect, the confusing

part. Unless you have very small pieces very closely packed, you're

going to end up with a *lot* of "dredge" in your coffin.

That was my initial reaction also, the cutting instructions seem clear

that you are to cut the fruit in two and remove the pit with minimal

"breaching" or breaking of the peach. I believe the halves are

intended to go into the pie as intact as possible. This leaves an

awful lot of room for "dredge". Of course, period peaches were

probably much smaller, but their rounded nature will leave a goodly

amount of head room.

Thank you all for your feedback. Ciao! Serena > > > > > > >

Are we assuming a large coffin? Is there a dimension somewhere that I

missed? If we assume a rather shallow one with dimensions rather tight to

our fruit in question, then it ain't so much as we think. And "fill" may be

taken a bit too literally. I've seen this as a general instruction in a few

other recipes, and took it to mean to add a fair quantity . . . rather than

"fill all remaining air space available, to the brim". On the other hand,

pippins and peaches (at least modern ones) seem to be rather juice throwing

fruits when baked. There would be prodigious syrup made.

On looking at the online reference, though, I found a big clue a few recipes

up. It gives specific directions to Fill almost full . . . though again no

dimensions are given. If we follow this trend, then we are to add great

amounts of sugar (if grated and fluffy or fine and dry) to the pie to make

some serious thick syrup to serve in.

To bake Peares, quinces, and wardens.

YOu must take and pare them, and then coare them: then make your paste with

faire water and Butter, and the yolke of an Egge, and sette your Orenges

into <<26a 1597>>

the paste, and then bake it well: Then fill your paste almost ful with

Sinamon, Ginger and Sugar: also apples must be taken after the same sort,

sauing that whereas the core should be cut out they must be filled with

butter euerie one: the hardest apples are best, and likewise are Peares and

wardens, and none of them all but the Wardens may be perboiled, and the ouen

must be of a temperate heat, two houres to stand is enough.

niccolo difrancesco

Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:29:38 -0700

From: Dragon <dragon at crimson-dragon.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Dredge?

To: grizly at mindspring.com, Cooks within the SCA

<sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Nick Sasso wrote:

Are we assuming a large coffin? Is there a dimension somewhere that I

missed? If we assume a rather shallow one with dimensions rather tight to

our fruit in question, then it ain't so much as we think. And "fill" may be

taken a bit too literally. I've seen this as a general instruction in a few

other recipes, and took it to mean to add a fair quantity . . . rather than

"fill all remaining air space available, to the brim". On the other hand,

pippins and peaches (at least modern ones) seem to be rather juice throwing

fruits when baked. There would be prodigious syrup made.

On looking at the online reference, though, I found a big clue a few recipes

up. It gives specific directions to Fill almost full . . . though again no

dimensions are given. If we follow this trend, then we are to add great

amounts of sugar (if grated and fluffy or fine and dry) to the pie to make

some serious thick syrup to serve in.

To bake Peares, quinces, and wardens.

YOu must take and pare them, and then coare them: then make your paste with

faire water and Butter, and the yolke of an Egge, and sette your Orenges

into <<26a 1597>>

the paste, and then bake it well: Then fill your paste almost ful with

Sinamon, Ginger and Sugar: also apples must be taken after the same sort,

sauing that whereas the core should be cut out they must be filled with

butter euerie one: the hardest apples are best, and likewise are Peares and

wardens, and none of them all but the Wardens may be perboiled, and the ouen

must be of a temperate heat, two houres to stand is enough.

---------------- End original message. ---------------------

Niccolo makes some very good points here and I too actually thought

about most of these things after I had posted my original missive.

I suspect that the idea is to use a coffin that would be fairly close

packed with fruit and while it is still quite a bit of sugar, it

won't be as much as you might think. Just as in modern fruit pies, I

would suspect the emphasis in a period fruit tart to be the fruit and

the size of the coffin used would be a reflection of the quantity of

fruit used.

Also, pectin is not the only thing at work in thickening the

resultant syrup. The cooking of the sugar plays a role in that as

anyone who has ever made candy would be well aware of. Or even if you

have ever made a simple syrup and let it simmer for 15 to 30 minutes

then cooled it, you would see it thicken considerably as it cools.

I'd expect that the sugar syrup would be verging on the soft ball

stage after cooking for two hours in a "temperate" oven. I'm going to

guess that what is meant there is something in the range of 300F to

325F. Does anyone have a better read on what temperature this might

equate to? This just seems about right for everything to cook that

long without burning.

Dragon

Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 12:36:36 -0700

From: "Lady Celia" <CeliadesArchier at cox.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Dredge?

To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Dragon said:

<<I'd expect that the sugar syrup would be verging on the soft ball

stage after cooking for two hours in a "temperate" oven. I'm going to

guess that what is meant there is something in the range of 300F to

325F. Does anyone have a better read on what temperature this might

equate to? This just seems about right for everything to cook that

long without burning.>>

My Mom's apple pie recipe, which this sounds very much like, used to come

out in a very thick syrup... not quite jelled when hot, but pretty stiff

when cooled. I recognize that apples have considerably more pectin than

peaches, but she also says that if baking a peach pie, she'd do so on a

lower temperature, for a longer period of time to adjust. And when using

fresh apples, she bakes on a higher temp to begin with (like a custard pie)

and then finishes on a lower temp, but 400 degrees for 30-45 minutes seems

to be about standard... so, yeah... 300-325 for a slow cook sounds about

right to me.

Celia

Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 02:53:54 -0500

From: "Pat Griffin" <ldyannedubosc at yahoo.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Dredge?

To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Since we are to pare them and core them but not to slice them, I should

think it would be a rather tall coffin, and there would be a lot more air

space than if we sliced them, so a lot of room for sugar to settle into. I

like the idea of filling the core of apples with butter.

And I'd agree with Dragon that a "moderate" oven would be 300 to 325

degrees.

Lady Anne du Bosc Known as Mordonna The Cook

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:53:46 -0500

From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Theatre food in Elizabethan England

On Feb 26, 2010, at 6:32 PM, Daniel & Elizabeth Phelps wrote:

<<< Baked blackberry and elderberry pies

Can anyone suggest a suitable recipe/recipe source.

Daniel >>>

Strange thing about the baked blackberry and elderberry pies--

They turn up as ingredients for wines but I didn't find pies in MWBoC.

In EEBO-TCP (pre 1700 English books), a search on "elderberry" within

full text, near within 40 characters "pie"

turns up 0 as in zero matches. Same result for blackberry.

Black near pie doesn't yield any recipes.

Black tart stuffe is made of prunes.

OED suggests blackberries may also be 1578 Lyte Dodoens vi. iv. 661

The Bramble or Blacke berie bushe.

the Black Currant (Ribes nigrum), the `blackberry' of sense 1 being

there called `Brambleberry'; formerly in some localities the Bilberry,

or Blaeberry; also, according to some, but perhaps erroneously, the

sloe or fruit of the Blackthorn.

1567 Maplet Gr. Forest, The blackberie tree is after his sort bushy

bearing that fruite that eftsones refresheth the Shepherde.

1597 Gerard Herbal (1633) 1417 We in England [call them] Worts,

Whortleberries, Black-berries, Bill-berries.

So maybe we need another sort of berry pie searched???

Johnnae

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:44:08 -0600

From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] Elderberries was Theatre food in Elizabethan

England

<<< Seems like we need to go to the source to determine how they did the

botanical identifications. Then perhaps deconstruct, "CSI fashion" from

the evidence, what other ingredients were in those pies. Determining the

ingredients list we can then attempt to reconstruct the pies. I only hope

that they were not working with the long preserved end products of human

digestion.

Daniel >>>

Davidson in the Oxford Companion to Food gives an interesting quote (American

Botanist, 1905) about elderberry pie not appealing to many palates due to

the rank eldery flavor. A pie needs to be made from full ripe berries that

have been picked and dried. The period recipes I've encountered call for

the flowers rather than the berries.

Bear

Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 13:40:23 -0500

From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Welserin #177

<<< Looking for suggestions as to what kind of cheese to use for this recipe:

177 To Make an Apple Tart

Take apples, peel them and grate them with a grater, afterwards fry them in

fat. Then put in as much grated cheese as apples, some ground cloves, a

little ginger and cinnamon, two eggs. Stir it together well. Then prepare

the dough as for a flat cake, put a small piece of fat into it so that it

does not rise, and from above and below, weak heat. Let it bake slowly.

She specifies Parmesan cheese in some other recipes, though those are more

savory-sounding. Would this be a softer cheese instead of Parmesan?

Helena >>>

Parmesan would likely work, but an aged Parmesan. This isn't a sweet dish,

there is no sugar added beyond what is in the apples. The spicing has a

little bite, so I might try an aged Emmenthaler or Provolone to round out

the flavor. You'll probably need to experiment to get what you like.

Bear

Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 17:13:16 -0400

From: Sharon Palmer <ranvaig at columbus.rr.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Welserin #177

Helena,

I looked at the original German to check which

word was used for the cheese (kes? or K??). I

hope you don't mind my pointing out that I

noticed a translation issue with this recipe.

http://www.staff.uni-giessen.de/gloning/tx/sawe.htm

Teig or Taig can mean either batter or dough.

The sentence that is translated as "Then prepare

the dough (taig) as for a flat cake (fladen)" The

word "fladen" also appears in recipe 160. I think

it is telling you to add a batter or custard

(ormilch), like that recipe but with a little fat

added. So the filling is not just apples and

cheese, but apples and cheese in custard.

You might want to look at 135 which says "Let it

cook together like egg-milk (ormilch)", so it may

mean a cooked custard not just a mix of milk and

egg.

Ranvaig

<<135>> Ain ortorten

Nim 20 or vnnd so?il milch als die air vnnd klopfs woll

vnnderainander, las? vnnderainander sieden wie ain ormilch,

rier dan z?cker dar?nder, mach ain bedellin, streichs

glat, dara?ff th? ain rossenwasser daran vnnd th?s jn die

tortenpfanen, th? gl?t dar?nder vnnd darjber, bach s?

bra?n.

135 An egg tart

Take twenty eggs and as much milk as eggs and

beat it well together. Let it cook together like

egg-milk, then stir sugar into it. Make a pastry

shell and roll it smooth. Then put rose water

therein and put it into a tart pan, put heat

under and over it, bake it until brown.

<<160>> Ain fladen z? machen

Nim ain ormilch, die woll a??gesechnet sey, schlag wider

air darein vnnd weinberlen, schlags a?ff den boden, las? sittig

bachen.

160 To make flat cakes

Take egg-milk, which should be well strained,

beat fresh eggs therein and raisins, throw it in

a pastry crust and let it bake slowly.

<<177>> Ain tortta von epffel z? machen

Nempt epffel, schelts vnnd stosts ain ribeissen, darnach

rests jm schmaltz/ dan thiet daran so?il geriben kes? als epfel,

ain wenig gestossen negelen, ain wenig jmber vnnd zimerrerlach,

zway air, riert es woll d?rchainander, dan mach

den taig wie z? ainem fladen, th?t ain knepflin schmaltz

darein, damit es sy nit anlaff, vnnd vnnden vnnd oben ain

wenig gl?t, las? gemach bachen.

Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 17:22:23 +0000

From: CHARLES POTTER <basiliusphocas at hotmail.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Welserin #177

I used Parmesan cheese in a recipe in the Banchetti and though it was too strong a taste, try provolone or a much milder cheese than Parmesan.

Master B