strawberries-msg – 11/28/07
Period strawberries and strawberry recipes.
NOTE: See also the files: berries-msg, grapes-msg, cherries-msg, marmalades-msg, fruits-msg, fruit-pears-msg, fruit-apples-msg, beverages-msg, fruit-pies-msg.
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From: "Jamey R. Lathrop" <jlathrop at unm.edu>
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 16:01:42 -0600 (MDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Strawberries
On Wed, 18 Jun 1997, JANINE BRANNON wrote:
> 'tis the season, and I find myself with an overabundance of strawberries
> due to taking overzealous children on a picking expedition. So....
>
> "are strawberries period" and "any recipes?>
>
> Magdalene
Yes, strawberries are period, and I've quickly dug up two recipes (I saw
at least two others, but I'm short on time today). I have no redactions to
offer, since I haven't actually tried them. They both look good-- I guess
I'm going to have to go to the Farmer's Market tomorrow. :-)
From _Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books_:
1. HARLIEAN MS 279., Recipe .Cxxij. Strawberye.
Take Strawberys, & waysshe hem in tyme of yere in gode red wyne;
[th]an strayne [th]orwe a clo[th]e, & do hem in a potte with gode Almaunde
mylke, a-lay it with Amyndoun o[th]er with [th]y flowre of Rys, & make it
chargeaunt and lat it boyle, and do [th]er in Roysonys of coraunce,
Safroun, Pepir, Sugre grete plente, pouder Gyngere, Canel, Galyngale;
poynte it with Vynegre, & a lytil whyte grece put [th]er-to; coloure it
with Alkenade, & droppe it a-bowte, plante it with [th]e graynys of
Pome-garnad, & [th]an serue it forth.
A rough (very rough!) translation: take strawberries in season, wash them
in good red wine and put them trough a sieve or strainer. Mix it in a pot
with almond milk, wheat starch or rice flour (to make it thick), and bring
it to a boil. Add currants, saffron, pepper, a good quantity of sugar,
powdered ginger, canel (cassia bark or cinnamon), galingale. Make it acid
with vinegar and add a little lard. Color it red with alkanet. I'm
making the assumption (perhaps absolutely incorrectly), that the "droppe
it a-bowte..." part means that you've made this mixture stiff enough that
you can drop spoonfuls (or the entire mess) of the stuff on a serving dish
and implant them with pomegranate seeds to make it look like large
strawberries. Not having tried this recipe, I don't know how well/easy
that would work, but it would certainly look neat! Alternatively, I
suppose you could put it in a dish and garnish with the pomegranate seeds.
From _A Book of Cookrye_, "gathered by A.W.", printed by E. Allde, 1591.
Tarte of Strawberies. Season your Strawberyes with sugar, a very little
Sinamon, a little ginger, and so cover them with a cover, and you must lay
upon the cover a morsell of sweet Butter, Rosewater and Sugar, you may Ice
the cover if you will, you must make your Ice with the white of an egge
beaten, and Rosewater and Sugar.
This one looks pretty straightforward. Strawberries mixed with sugar and
a little cinammon and ginger, placed in a dish and covered with a pastry
crust. Then you have two choices of how to finish the crust-- butter,
rosewater and sugar, or an icing of beaten egg white, rosewater and sugar.
Anyway, I hope these give you a place to start!
Lady Allegra Beati
Barony of al-Barran
Outlands
From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu>
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 21:49:07 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Strawberries
> "are strawberries period" and "any recipes?"
Jamey already posted the recipe I was thinking of, the "Strawberye" from
_Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books_. A fair number of SCAdians have
tried this one over the years, resulting (as usual) in a wide range of
completely different dishes. A friend of mine in Calafia did a very
tasty version that she served in a pie crust... I _must_ have her
redaction around here somewhere....
> OOOH - OOOH What about that "fruit roll-up" type thing? Would fresh
> strawberries be good for that?
I don't know of period use of strawberries for that sort of dish, but
quinces were certainly used that way. Indeed, we have probably two
pounds of "quince pastes", which my wife redacts as somewhat thicker
than a modern commercial fruit roll-up, in Ziplocs in the freezer right
now. I don't want to post her redaction without permission, but it's
basically quinces boiled until soft, mashed, mixed with hypocras spices
and red wine, simmered for a long time (stirring more and more often
as it thickens), then poured out onto a cookie sheet to cool.
mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib
Stephen Bloch
sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu
http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/
Math/CS Dept, Adelphi University
From: linneah at erols.com
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 23:01:15 -0400
Subject: Re: SC - Strawberries
JANINE BRANNON wrote:
> 'tis the season, and I find myself with an overabundance of strawberries
> due to taking overzealous children on a picking expedition. So....
>
> "Are strawberries period" and "any recipes?"
>
> Magdalene
If you can't find anything to do with them right away, wash and stem them, put
them on a waxpaper covered cookie sheet and freeze them. Transfer them to a
plastic container or bag and keep in the freezer. They will keep for quite a
long time. They will turn to mush after thawing so the recipies in which you
choose to use them should take that into concideration.
Linneah
From: "Christina M. Krupp" <ckrupp at zoo.uvm.edu>
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 10:24:33 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SC - Strawberries
Yes, strawberries are "period" (whatever you construe that to mean!) and,
more importantly, we do have several good recipes showing their use in
mainstream medieval Europe.
However, allow me to qualify and elaborate on that statement a bit. Our
twentieth-century strawberries aren't the same as medieval ones (as is the
case with so many fruits and vegetables!)
Before contact with the New World, the European Strawberry was a tiny,
tasty, seedy fruit, not much bigger than our wild strawberries or field
strawberries -- the ones that are about a third to a half an inch in
diameter.
The settlers of the Virginia colonies discovered a New World variant of
the strawberry, still small, having different virtues. Botanists tried to
cross-breed the two types, with no success. Then, in 1712, a third type
of strawberry was discovered in Peru, and brought back to England. It
was larger, yellowish, and had a pineapple scent. The British
experimented with growing these to the size of eggs!
Finally, a Frenchman named Duchesne managed to crossbreed the Chilean
strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis) with the Virginia strawberry (F.
virginiana), and that forms the basis for the large, red strawberries we
see in supermarkets today (Fragaria ananassa).
(I think that our tiny wild field strawberries are a better match to
medieval strawberries than those monstrous tasteless grocery-store
berries. And, since it's almost strawberry season here in Vermont, I'm
going out to pick some next week -- yum!)
Information is from:
Sokolov, Raymond: Why we eat what we eat, how the encounter between the
New World and the Old changed the way everyone on the planet eats. New
York: Summit Books, 1991.
Countess Marieke van de Dal
Mountain Freehold
East Kingdom
From: "Christina M. Krupp" <ckrupp at zoo.uvm.edu>
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 11:27:13 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Strawberries
> > Before contact with the New World, the European Strawberry was a tiny,
> > tasty, seedy fruit, not much bigger than our wild strawberries or field
> > strawberries -- the ones that are about a third to a half an inch in
> > diameter.
>
> Would this be the 'alpine' strawberry I see advertised in the seed catalogs?
> The are often advertised for ornamental use. As I understand, the alpine
> strawberry is not spread by runners like our modern strawberry.
OK, since you asked, here's more about strawberries!
The ubiquitous little European wood strawberry mentioned above is Fragaria
vesca. It was widespread on the European continent and in the British
Isles. Our American tiny field strawberry is a variety of that, Fragaria
vesca americana. (I didn't know that before; I just looked it up. Neat!)
The Alpine strawberry, sometimes called the Alpine Hautbois variety, is a
different species entirely; several varieties have been developed and
I'm not sure which one you've seen. (Technically, this species is
F. eliator; it may also go by the Latin names of F. moschata Duchesne or
F. magna Thuill.) They prefer high altitudes and could have been gathered
wild in the mountains of Germany, Switzerland, and France (not England,
until they were imported in the 1600's.) Early botanists attempting to
domesticate the Alpine strawberries found that they were fussy and
unsuccessful when cultivated. (I would hope that modern varieties of
Alpine strawberry being sold have overcome that trait!) Of course, in
medieval Europe this variety would have been readily available to
mountain dwellers, regardless of their cultivatibility.
I hope that helps!
Marieke
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 13:47:18 EST
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Fragaria...
heilveil at students.uiuc.edu writes:
<< Were these Euro-berries used in recipes in period? >>
According to Waverly Root, all the strawberries used in period recipes were
wild strawberries. From another post I recieved privately the alpine
strawberry was restricted in it's location to higher elevations. We have no
evidence SFAIK that this specific berry was used in recipes but since we have
no evidence it wasn't used and evidence that wild strawberries were indeed
used I would venture the opinion that it's use would be far more accurate than
using the Native American wild strawberry. But NA strwberries would be closer
than commercial varieties. It is all a matter of degree, I would think. :-)
BTW, there were no cultivated varieties of strawberry in existence although
wild strawberries were transplanted to gardens to make them a little more
convenient for harvest purposes.
Ras
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 09:00:21 -0600
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - 14th Century Food
> I think the situation is somewhat similar with strawberries. There are wild
> old world strawberries, but they are much smaller than what we think of as
> strawberries.
Fragaria vesca is normally considered the Old World strawberry. They
apparently have never been in common cultivation, although the wild plants
were occasionally transplanted into gardens. F. moschata, the musky
strawberry, is also European. Both have distinct flavors.
F. virginiana, was introduced to Europe in the 17th Century. F. chiloensis
was introduced to Europe in the 18th Century. Most modern strawberries are
hybrids based on the North American and Chilean species which easier to
cross breed than the European plants.
For a more complete revelation, I suggest: Darrow, George M., The
Strawberry, History, Breeding and Physiology; Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New
York, 1966.
Bear
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 13:24:07 +1000
From: "Glenda Robinson" <glendar at compassnet.com.au>
Subject: Re: SC - Syllabub - does anyone have a period recipe?
>Hence the syllabub idea. Now I have some
>lovely OOP recipes for syllabub, but I was
>hoping that someone with a better library
>than mine might have a recipe, please,
>please?
Lorix,
There's a lovely recipe in Pleyn Delit - Strawberry Pudding. This can use
frozen strawberries.
I've made it a couple of times, and it's always gone down well.
I'll type up the recipe tonight.
Just be aware that if the electricity goes down for a couple of days with
the Y2k think, you'll lose them if they're frozen. (EEK!!!!!)
It could be better to can them instead. - More later.
Glenda.
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 15:27:32 +1000
From: "HICKS, MELISSA" <HICKS_M at casa.gov.au>
Subject: RE: SC - Syllabub - does anyone have a period recipe?
Another option is to turn the Strawberries into Strawberry cordial.
Fettiplace has a great recipe. And as Strawberries are currently very cheap
in Canberra I just made a huge batch. I'll send the recipe over the
weekend.
It stores well for months and retains a beautiful strawberry colour and
flavour. I often serve it at winter events.
On a more mundane note we have also done the following:
* Mix with equal parts cream and freeze for wonderful soft strawberry
icecream
* I've been told it goes great in champagne.
Meliora.
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 10:23:27 -0400
From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)
Subject: Re: SC - Syllabub - does anyone have a period recipe?
>Lorix asked:
>>Hence the syllabub idea. Now I have some
>>lovely OOP recipes for syllabub, but I was
>>hoping that someone with a better library
>>than mine might have a recipe, please,
>>please?
>
>My files mention that there are several syllabub recipes in "A
>Sip Through Time". This file in the BEVERAGES section of my
>Florilegium mentions several other sources for period recipes but
>there are none in the file itself:
>beverages-msg (93K) 9/ 3/99 Beverages in general. alcholic drinks.
>
<snip>
Hello! Yes, I have 5 syllabub recipes in "A Sip Through Time". Three are
from Digby (1669), the other 2 are from Amelia Simmons' First American CB
(1796). These are all alcoholic drink recipes.
But Lorix was looking for a recipe for frozen strawberries, no? There are
2 recipes for strawberries in the Harleian MSS, 279 & 4016 -- Darioles, &
Strawberye. I've adapted the latter as a sauce, but I suppose you could
make it as a thick pudding if you used thick almond milk or almond cream.
Frozen strawberries are just fine in this dish, since they're being
squished anyway.
"Harleian MS. 279 - Potage Dyvers
Cxxiij. Strawberye. Take Strawberys, & waysshe hem in tyme of [3]ere in
gode red wyne; [th]an strayne [th]orwe a clo[th]e, & do hem in a potte with
gode Almaunde mylke, a-lay it with Amyndoun o[th]er with [th]e flowre of
Rys, & make it chargeaunt and lat it boyle, and do [th]er-in Roysonys of
coraunce, Safroun, Pepir, Sugre grete plente, pouder Gyngere, Canel,
Galyngale; poynte it with Vynegre, & a lytil whyte grece put [th]er-to;
coloure it with Alkenade, & droppe it a-bowte, plante it with [th]e graynys
of Pome-garnad, & [th]an serue it forth.
123. Strawberry. Take Strawberries, & wash them in time of year in good
red wine; then strain through a cloth, & put them in a pot with good Almond
milk, mix it with White flour or with the flour of Rice, & make it thick
and let it boil, and put therein Raisins of Corinth, Saffron, Pepper, Sugar
great plenty, powdered Ginger, Cinnamon, Galingale; point it with Vinegar,
& a little white grease put thereto; color it with Alkanet, & drop it
about, plant it with the grains of Pomegranate, & then serve it forth."
(From Take a Thousand Eggs or More, p. 240.)
> The discussion about methods of making it came
> from having read a recipe where one is supposed to milk the cow
> directly into the wine. The author tried it and found that the
> syllabub curdled and smelled very bad.
Yes, some of the recipes instruct you to milk the cow directly into the
syllabub -- 17th century party humor, I guess. The object was to create a
frothy head on the syllabub (the beverage was drunk from special spouted
glasses, or pots). Some call for a froth of cream & eggwhites to be added
on top of the glasses of syllabub. One of the recipes, which instructs us
to milk the cow into a pint of verjuice, says to skim the resultant curd:
"Take a pint of Verjuyce in a bowl; milk the Cow to the Verjuyce; take off
the Curd; and take sweet-cream and beat them together with a little Sack
and Sugar; put it into your Syllabub pot; then strew Sugar on it, and so
send it to the Table." (Digby, #134)
I haven't tried this one, but I have done a hypocras recipe that included
cream. The cream did form curds when added to the wine & was very
unpleasant to look at. ( I need to repeat this experiment, & try skimming
off the curds. I think I must have spilled some of the curds, but I don't
remember. But I just tried the hypocras last night [lost it in the back of
the fridge for several months :-0] & it has mellowed to a rich, full-bodied
sweet wine with just enough spice to make it interesting. ) What I think
is happening, is that the fat is remaining in the drink & being broken up &
dispersed by the acid in the wine or verjuice, & this is giving the drink a
rich mellow flavor.
Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu
renfrow at skylands.net
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 13:40:44 -0600
From: "Alex Wollangk" <orion at mailbag.com>
Subject: SC - 1430-1450 recipe for Strawberye...
Just came across the following recipe:
Strawberye
Take Strawberys, & Waysshe hem in tyme of yere in gode red wyne; ?an strayne
?orwe a clo?e, & do hem in a potte with gode Almaunde mylke, a-lay it with
Amyndoun o?er with ?e flowre of Rys, & make it chargeaunt and lat it boyle,
and do ?er-in Roysonys of coraunce, Safroun, Pepir, Sugre grete plente,
pouder Gyngere, Canel, Galyngale; poynte it with Vynegre, & a lytil whyte
grece put ?er-to; coloure it with Alkenade, & droppe it a-bowte, plante it
with ?e graynys of Pome-garnad, & ?an serue it forth.
And I thought strawberries were new-world and post period...
(this recipe is dated 1430-1450)
Bran
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 14:01:39 -0600
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - 1430-1450 recipe for Strawberye...
> And I thought strawberries were new-world and post period...
>
> (this recipe is dated 1430-1450)
>
> Bran
Strawberries were known in Antiquity and were harvested wild rather than
cultivated. They were planted in large manor gardens beginning in the 13th
Century and later became a cultivar. There are 3 or 4 European species.,
primarily the woodland strawberry, the musky strawberry and the alpine
strawberry.
Strawberries were found in the New World, but because of different
chromosome counts, interbreeding between the New World and Old World species
is difficult and not very productive. In the 18th Century, the French
botanist Dusquene developed a large and prolific strawberry by crossbreeding
Virginian and Chilean varieties. The resulting berries have taken over the
commercial market in Europe and the US.
The European strawberries are still available, but are difficult to find and
are expensive as they are grown specifically for the gourmet market.
Bear
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 12:55:21 -0800
From: "Laura C. Minnick" <lcm at efn.org>
Subject: Re: SC - 1430-1450 recipe for Strawberye...
Alex Wollangk wrote:
> Just came across the following recipe:
>
> Strawberye
>
> Take Strawberys, & Waysshe hem in tyme of yere in gode red wyne; ?an strayne
> ?orwe a clo?e, & do hem in a potte with gode Almaunde mylke, a-lay it with
> Amyndoun o?er with ?e flowre of Rys, & make it chargeaunt and lat it boyle,
> and do ?er-in Roysonys of coraunce, Safroun, Pepir, Sugre grete plente,
> pouder Gyngere, Canel, Galyngale; poynte it with Vynegre, & a lytil whyte
> grece put ?er-to; coloure it with Alkenade, & droppe it a-bowte, plante it
> with ?e graynys of Pome-garnad, & ?an serue it forth.
We made this at a cooks' night a few years back- it came out something
between a mousse and a pudding, was a gross puke-pink, but tasted pretty
good. The main difficulty we had was finding alkanet, and getting
strawberries and pomagranates at the same time. IIRC, we used dried pom
seeds.
Not a bad recipe though.
'Lainie
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2000 00:22:00 +0100
From: Anna Jartin <anna.jartin at goteborg.utfors.se>
Subject: SV: SC - 1430-1450 recipe for Strawberye...
I have discussed this with some of my friends, and we think it refers to wild strawberries, what we in Sweden call smultron.
I think modern strawberries is some kind of crossbreed between American and European strawberries.
Uta
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2000 20:00:34 EST
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - 1430-1450 recipe for Strawberye...
TerryD at Health.State.OK.US writes:
<< The European strawberries are still available, but are difficult to find
and a