fish-msg - 1/17/08 Medieval fish dishes. Fish in the SCA. Recipes. Medieval fried fish. Whale and porpoise. NOTE: See also the files: seafood-msg, salt-msg, salt-comm-art, stockfish-msg, drying-foods-msg, pickled-foods-msg, fish-pies-msg, frogs-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ From: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com> To: sca-cooks at eden.com Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 11:11:51 -0400 Subject: Re: sca-cooks fish A couple of cooks, Michael F. Gunter included, wrote: > > I'd like to try some medieval fish recipes and this sounds good. > > > I was planning on making waffres at Coronation but they got changed to > something else in the planning process. Waffres are basically a tuna or > salmon mousse in pastry. I'm hoping to do them at my dream "small intimate > feast of 200. > > > Unfortunately, since I am in Ansteorra I am unlikely to ever get fish at > > a feast. (meat is good. vegatables are what meat eats. fish is just > > another vegatable. etc.) > > I'm hoping to do some fish dishes in the future, but it's just so expensive! > > > Anyone have any good recipes using salted fish? I've never had any and > > since that was a staple in parts of medieval europe, I'd like to try > > some. > > Once again something that was going into Coronation but was cut because my > source of salt cod was going for $8 a pound! > > > Stefan li Rous > > Gunthar How recently was the price of $8/lb quoted? It wouldn't have been right before Easter, would it? You might consider checking it again. Also, for what it's worth, a pound of salt cod, soaked to desalt, weighs in at around two and a quarter pounds before cooking. Adamantius, whose Province includes the Fulton Fish Market. From: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com> To: sca-cooks at eden.com Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 16:13:17 -0400 Subject: Re: sca-cooks fish Angelina Capozello wrote: > Hmmm, here's a question, what did medieval fisherman and sailors eat? We > all know the later centuries of British naval fare (biscuit, salt beef or > pork, peas, grog, etc.) Our Canton of Ivyeinrust is holding a sea > collegium in the near future, and I'd like to help with the cooking. > Any recipes for salt fish, etc., or sources where I can find recipes would > be greatly appreciated! > > Rafaela di Napoli It seems likely that sailors would eat such fish as they either couldn't sell or wouldn't keep well without extensive preparation. So, until fairly recently, on the Mediterranean coast, sailors ate things like bouilliabaise, traditionally made from a variety of fish, some rather bony and/or fatty. The dish appears to be far older than the comparatively recent addition of tomatoes might suggest. The rest of the ingredients sound to me like a pretty classic medieval fish pottage: olive oil, leeks, fennel, wine, oranges, mixed fish and saffron, served on sops of toast. Adamantius From: Aldyth at aol.com Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 16:26:14 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SC - Re: sca-cooks fish In a message dated 97-04-15 03:01:06 EDT, Clarissa writes: << 1) lots of folks don't like fish - at least at all the events in Ansteorra and the East and Atlantia where I have seen fish served it has been the least eaten dish at the event. 2) bones! 3) I don't much like fish I do like shellfish but the folks I know with shellfish allergies are violently allergic (even the smell can get 'em) so I have never cooked it for a feast. >> Aldyth here. I have been to MANY feasts where fish was served. I said served, not eaten. I will cook fish for feasts, and have. When trout is donated for our Hunters Feast each winter, it is cooked and almost all eaten. I recall another feast which featured seafood (Spanish, I believe) and one course was whole mackerel. I think the problem I found with the mackerel might be the problem with fish in general. They were cooked whole (as per the recipe) and served "naked." Most sea dwelling fish have a dark fat vein that if not removed makes them "fishy" tasting. I have no doubt that our esteemed ancestors thought that fish was supposed to taste that way. Our modern palates have evolved, and unless we have prefer that fishy taste, we seem to stay away from it. How many of us would really use liquamen as the Romans did, on toast, and in every dish they made..(almost). Freshwater fish don't taste as fishy when prepared, but you still have to think about that fat vein in most of them. I also don't usually do fish (unless specifically asked) for a feast because of the expense involved. Wyoming is expensive to have fresh fish trucked into. I have a supplier for hake, but at $5 a pound it is prohibitive. Mistress Aldyth Aldyth at aol.com From: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com> Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 01:57:03 -0400 Subject: Re: SC - fried fish and other foods Mark Harris wrote: > I'm assuming you are talking about coating the fish in flour or batter > and frying it in grease or oil. (like British fish and chips?) > > So, my question for anyone is, Is such fried food period? I'm wondering > about other meats too, not just fish. I thought fried chicken was from > the American South but I'm not sure. There are late-period recipes for frying chicken, but it doesn't seem like crisp was what was being aimed for. It seems to be more of a situation where the the chicken is browned in a frying-pan, and thesauce ingredients are adeded to finish cooking. By modern standards it is really braised. In answer to the inevitable next question, I am only awake at this hour because my wife was having a computer problem, and may be able to find the original source in the morning. > If so, what was the cooking medium in period? Olive oil? lard? fish oil? > Did they use breading or just cook it in the oil? Seems as though the commonest method would be to fry with no coating at all, using olive oil or "whyte grees": effectively lard or rendered suet. Taillevent mentions frying certain fish dishes with no coating of flour, presumably he wouldn't mention this unless the habit existed. The recipe for cuminade de poissons in Le Menagier de Paris calls for the fish to be fried before adding it to the sauce...that I have a redaction for already on disk, which I will post in the a.m. if anyone wishes. > Stefan li Rous Hot cha cha, Adamantius From: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com> Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 10:44:14 -0400 Subject: SC - Fish recipe, Was "Fried Foods" Uduido at aol.com wrote: > Please do post the recipe! :-) You are right on the button about not coating > the fish with flour or whatever. So far as chicken is concerned, if you fry > it slowly with the SKIN attached it developes a nice crusty exterior without > the addition of extraneous material. The main secret to frying without a > coating is to constantly monitor the fat's temperature and make sure that it > does not rise to a level where the food is dessicated or burned before the > interior is cooked. > Lord Ras Okay, here's my redaction for Le Menagier's cuminade de poisson. You'll notice that it allows for the fish to be baked rather than fried. That is only because I was originally serving 400 with this recipe, before I cut it down. It was served at East Kingdom Twelfth Night, A.S. XXIX. Enjoy! Adamantius _______________________________________________________________________ Cuminade of Fish Poultry flavoured with cumin. Cut it into pieces and put it to cook in a little wine, then fry it in fat; then take a little bread dipped in your broth and take first ginger and cumin, moisten them with verjuice, bray and strain and put all together with meat or chicken broth, and then color it either with saffron or with eggs or yolks run through a strainer and dropped slowly into the pottage, after it is taken off the fire. Item, best it is to make it with milk as aforesaid and then to bray your bread after your spices, but behoveth it to boil the milk first lest it burn, and after the pottage is finished let the milk be put into wine (meseemeth this is not needful) and fry it. Many there be that fry it not, nathless it tastes best so. (Bread is the thickening and afterwards he saith eggs, which is another thickening, and one should suffice, as is said in the chapter concerning the creton'. Verjuice and wine.--If you would make your pottage with milk behoveth not to use wine or verjuice.) "Commine" for a fish day. Fry your fish, then peel almonds and bray them and dilute with pure' or fish broth and make milk of almonds; but cow's milk is more appetising, though not so healthy for the sick; and for the rest do as above. Item, on a meat day, if you cannot have cow's milk, you may make the dish of milk of almonds and meat as above.=94 Le Menagier de Paris, trans. Eileen Power; Harcourt, Brace New York 1928 I envision this dish as something like fish fillets in an almond - curry flavored cream sauce. Almond milk made with cream or half-and-half is appropriate for a fish-day, and eliminates the need for any additional thickener. Since neither Le Menagier nor his source, Taillevent, mentions a garnish of any kind, I've decided to cheat and top the whole shebang with fried onions; both a consistently appropriate medieval garnish for pale pottages, and a way to introduce a flavor I feel will improve the dish. The dish is intended as a spoon-food, so the fish should be either in chunks or soft enough to break up easily. For eight servings: 2 pounds white, lean ("non-fishy") fillets or steaks, such as cod, bass, monkfish, etc. oil, butter, lard, or bacon fat 1/4 pound finely ground blanched almonds (1 cup) 1 pint half and half 1 small onion, finely grated or pureed (capricious and unnecessary but good) 1-inch chunk ginger root, grated or 1 1/2 tsp ground ginger 3-4 Tbs ground cumin seed 1 pinch saffron, salt and pepper Season the fish with salt and pepper and either saute or bake at 400 degrees F in a greased pan. Vegetable oil is best for this. Cook for about eight minutes per inch of thickness of your fish, til fish is barely opaque inside and flaky. Keep the fish warm. Meanwhile, cook the onion and ginger over low heat in a saucepan, with a little more oil. When they are soft and aromatic, but no longer volatile (you'll know it when you see it), add cumin and saffron. Do not brown. Add half and half and mix thoroughly. Raise heat a bit and bring it to a boil. Beat with a whip and add the almonds in a steady stream. Bring back to a boil, stirring frequently. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and add more cumin if you feel like it. You can blenderize and/or strain the sauce if you want it smoother and/or thinner. Pour it over the fish and mess it forth. From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter) Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 10:07:20 -0500 Subject: Re: SC - fried fish and other foods Hi, Katerine here. Stefan asked about fried fish in period. I don't pay as much attention to fish recipes as I do to others, so I can't speak offhand with authority to what English recipes _did't_ do, I am fairly certain the medieval corpus includes recipes for fish fried on a skillet ( unbreaded) using (but not precisely in) olive oil. - -- Katerine/Terry From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter) Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 10:10:06 -0500 Subject: Re: SC - fried fish and other foods Hi, Katerine here. Adamantius writes: >Seems as though the commonest method would be to fry with no coating at >all, using olive oil or "whyte grees": effectively lard or rendered >suet. Taillevent mentions frying certain fish dishes with no coating of >flour, presumably he wouldn't mention this unless the habit existed. Are you certain that either lard or suet was ever used? I ask, because all records show virtually no consumption of fish outside of days of abstinence, when both lard and suet would be forbidden. - -- Katerine/Terry From: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com> Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 13:21:20 -0400 Subject: Re: SC - fried fish and other foods Ron Martino Jr wrote: > Batter coated deep frying, agemono (tempura, etc.), was introduced to > Nippon by Europeans in the 16th century, and the Japanese took the idea > and made it their own, as they do with many things. I don't know any > details, though, such as what the Portuguese were frying, what was used > for the batter, or what oils were used. There are various Iberian versions of the shrimp fritter that still exist today, made from little brown shrimp too small to be individually peeled and deveined. Kind of like whitebait pancake in Britain. The fish being too small to individually batter and fry, you just mix them into a batter and fry it as a cake. That may well be what the Portuguese version of Tempura would have looked like. By the way, the word "tempura" seems to be a variant on a Latin term, and not a Japanese word at all. It may well be a corruption of "tempora" as referring to the time of Lent, or possibly that it is fried for a certain time, and no more. I don't have the information in front of me or I would tell you more. Adamantius From: L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt <liontamr at postoffice.ptd.net> Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 18:30:19 -0500 (CDT) Subject: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #75 I have to contribute a favorite tale of a traditional wierd fish dish: Stargazy Pie, made with a regular double pie crust, whole fresh Sardines, Gammon, and Saffrom Milk. The heads of the fish are left to poke out of the crust, staring upwards (thus "Stargazy"). Classify it under *Things that make ya go HMMM?* Top that, whydoncha! Aoife From: "Karen Farris" <farrisk at macom.com> Date: Fri, 09 May 97 08:57:37 EDT Subject: SC - Fried Whiting I found a set of thin English Heritage books on a recent trip to the motherland. This one is from 'Food and Cooking in 16th Century Britain: History and Recipes' by Peter Brears. He cites the source as 'The Boke of Cokery' by Richard Pynson with Temple Bar London 1500. He furthermore states the only known copy of this work is in the collection of the Marquis of Bath, Longleat House. I hope this helps the battered fish debate and am glad to be able to lay my hands on them after recently moving to Dragonspine. For .95p each I couldnt go wrong with the purchase, but am curious to know if there are any errors with his redaction. Lillian Clare du Chateauroux To fry Whitings: First flay them and wash them clean and seale them, that doon, lap them in floure and fry them in Butter and oyle. Then to serve them, mince apples or onions and fry them, then put them into a vessel with white wine, vergious, salt, pepper, clove and mace, and boile them together on the Coles, and serve it upon the Whitings. Brears redacts the recipe thusly, 8 oz apples or onions, minced butter or oil for frying 1/2 pt white wine 1 tbls wine vinegar 1 tsp salt 1/4 tsp pepper 1/4 tsp ground mace a pinch of ground cloves 1-1 1/2 lb whiting fillets Fry the apples or onions in a little butter or oil in a small sauce pan until thoroughly cooked, but not browned. Stir in the wine, vinegar, salt, pepper, and spices. Allow to cook for a few minutes, then keep hot ready for use. Remove any skin from the fillets, dust them with flour, fry in butter or oil for 15 minutes and serve with sauce. From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Date: Fri, 09 May 1997 17:22:01 -0400 Subject: Re: SC - Fried Whiting Terry Nutter wrote: > Hmmmm. I know when Pynson was -- he was a printer, not a cook -- and the > language of the recipe is suspiciously modern. I suspect it's been updated. > That said: Pynson set _Noble Boke off Cookry_ in print; the only surviving > copy of the Pynson printing is, you guessed it, in the Longleat collection. > I suspect this may be it. There is no recipe in the manuscript version (or I > should say, in the appalling Napier edition thereof) with "whitings" in > the title. But the title may have been modernized with the recipe. Perhaps > someone who knows fish better than I can suggest a medieval equivalent? If > so, I can look up quickly and find out whether this is indeed an NBoC recipe, > and if so, provide the NBoC-via-Napier version, which may tell us something. Yes, it does sound a bit idiomatic of modern speech, doesn't it? The recipe for mortrews of fish in Utilis Coquinario calls for, among others, merlyng. This is probably a cognate of merlin, which is still a French term for whiting. Also, whiting being a rather bland, soft fish, it is perfect for mortrews (or as perfect as any fish can be for mortrews). Taillevent uses the term "merluz" for a similar, though slightly larger fish. The whiting known in England is the Northern Whiting, a cousin of the various hakes, which are in turn related to cod. They are distinguished by relatively large pectoral fins like wings, small scales, and a weird cartilage rib-cage, like a box, in an otherwise ordinary bony-fish skeleton. They get up to about two or three pounds these days, which indicates nothing about what they may have weighed in period. Adamantius Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 10:04:54 -700 MST From: "Jeanne Stapleton" <jstaplet at adm.law.du.edu> Subject: Re: SC - Re: sca-cooks fish > Stefan, > I don't cook fish for events for a variety of reasons: > > 1) lots of folks don't like fish - at least at all the events in > Ansteorra and the East and Atlantia where I have seen fish served it > has been the least eaten dish at the event. 2) bones! 3) I don't > much like fish > > I do like shellfish but the folks I know with shellfish allergies > are violently allergic (even the smell can get 'em) so I have never > cooked it for a feast. > > Clarissa ***WARNING*** Non-redacted-from-period-source but doable at SCA feast fish-recipe-that-even-fighters-will-eat about to follow: Fish rarely gets served at SCA feast, and I can understand why; Clarissa admirably summed up the reasons above. HOWEVER: I do have a signature dish that feasters scrape the pans on and I've had fighters ask me for the recipe. At a Coronet feast in Oertha, all of it was consumed and there were leftovers on the Boeuf Bourguignonne. HALIBUT BERENGARIA For every "panful" (rectangular baking dish--about six nice-sized fillets or chunks) of halibut (the real catch: in Oertha, I could get fresh frozen halibut cheaply!--other firm white fish work quite well, also), pour over sauce made of: 1 cup sour cream 1 cup melted butter 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese Cover dish with foil and bake about 40-45 minutes at 350 (depending on size of oven and number of pans). Remove foil for the last five minutes of baking time to allow sauce to brown and get that nice cheesy crust. It is not low in calories nor cholesterol. jstaplet at adm.law.du.edu University of Denver Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 22:11:11 -0400 (EDT) From: Uduido at aol.com Subject: SC - Re: sca-cooks fish-longish << ***WARNING*** Non-redacted-from-period-source but doable at SCA feast fish-recipe-that-even-fighters-will-eat about to follow: Fish rarely gets served at SCA feast, and I can understand why; Clarissa admirably summed up the reasons above. HOWEVER: I do have a signature dish that feasters scrape the pans on and I've had fighters ask me for the recipe. >> Another way which was successful for me with the results that there was nary a piece left was to dip whiting fillets in beer batter and deep fry it. I added ground galengal and cubebs to the batter. The only complaint I had was from someone who was allergic to fish and didn't read the menu. I try to serve a fish dish at every feast I do. The reactions are always the same. If they like fish, they love it. If they don't, they hate it. As far as shellfish goes. A bushel of clams was donated for a feast. We steamed them and sent them around to each table for anyone who would like them. Once again they all disappeared. I think that serving fish at a feast for the most part is frowned upon because the responces are so emotional both yea and nay from the diners that most cooks just don't want to deal with it. My feelings are serve it. If people don't want it they can always eat off-board ( meaning bring their own food) or eat something else they do like. I NEVER withhold an item from the menu just because I don't personally like it. Mundanely, I make the best potato Salad (or so I've been told. :-)). It gives me the dry heaves just to smell it! :-0 Lord Ras Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 20:04:27 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #218 L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt wrote: > Aoife > P.S. Have you ever "Made a pudding in a breast/belly of __fill in the blank___?" I remember an extremely late or post-period recipe for "To Bake a(n) ____ (some kinda fish) With A French Puddynge in His Bellye", if I remember correctly. I have also boned out a leg of lamb and filled it with a stuffing of the mixture that goes into a haggis. Does that count? My all-time favorite one of these is in Isaak Walton's "The Compleat Angler" (Roughly contemporary to Sir Kenelm Digby or the Diaries of Samuel Pepys, ~1669 or so). It involves roasting a whole pike, drawn through the gills, with a pound of butter, the juice of several Seville oranges, some lemons, pickled oysters and/or anchovies, the liver of the fish, pureed through a sieve, claret wine, and an optional clove of garlic. This turns into a sauce while the fish is roasted, and the sauce pours out of the fish when you cut into it. Adamantius Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 20:30:47 -0400 (EDT) From: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy at abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU> Subject: Re: SC - Novice Only Redacti A quick note on what "draw" meant for that perch.... "Take a preche, and drawe him in (th)e throte" To draw would be to gut. You can gut a fish, basically, two or three ways. The classic is to cut from claspers to head, along the bottom edge of the fish. (Where you cut sole, I dunno :-) The other is to gut the fish through the gill holes, and not notch the belly. I believe the Pike recipe Adamantius wrote about is done that way, and the belly stays intact. Good for stuffing. I suspect that the "throte" means to slit the belly and remove the grotesque bits. A classic recipe from my childhood, written in a period style.... I'm challenging myself today.... (Comments welcomed) "Blue fysche ygrilled. Take {th}e yong blou fish, draw hym clene from the throte. Take garlic fyne, and whole mint foils, and mustard ground rough, and put thereto in the stomack. Wrap, and cooke on the gridiron till it be enow. Serve." Take young bluefish (also snapper works), gutted and cleaned, and place minced garlic, mint, and rough ground mustard in the belly. Wrap in oiled tin foil, and cook on the barbeque grill, about 7 minutes on a side. Serve hot. I know they grilled things, but I don't think they wrapped them in tin foil... (:-) So I didn't know how to say it properly. Tibor From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 12:43:47 -0400 Subject: Re: Re- SC - Meat for a week Mark Harris wrote: > Cariadoc explained: > A fowl is taken, roasted, jointed and thrown in a jar into which are put > coriander, pepper, cumin and cinnamon. Verjus is added, and mint, tarragon > and fresh thyme are cut over it, and good oil is poured over it. Fresh > spices are minced onto it, and it is decorated with chopped cucumber. > > >>>>> > Could someone please post a redaction of this for me? I'm afraid I'm not > quite up to redacting my own yet. This sounds similar to preserving soft > cheese in oil that we discussed a while back. I'm not sure how much of > each of these spices to use. How would you serve this? Take the pieces > out of the oil and warm them up? Rinse them off like salt fish? (I assume > not, but...) This sounds a lot like the Spanish fish dish escabeche, which is apparently derived from Arabic sources. Small "pan-dressed" (deheaded, gutted, and scaled) fish or fish steaks are seasoned liberally with salt, fried in oil and removed from the pan. Then onions (and sometimes sweet or hot peppers in some recipes) are very briefly sauteed in the same pan with peppercorns, bay leaves, and other appropriate pickling spices. This vegetable mixture is alternately layered in a stone crock with the fish, and the oily pan is deglazed with a generous amount of vinegar (ideally about half as much vinegar as oil, but 1:1 is okay, so long as the total liquid is enough to cover the fish), and the liquid is brought to a boil and poured over the fish. The crock is then covered. This will keep for a few days at room temperature and for at least a week or two in the refrigerator, perhaps more depending on your tolerance for bacteria, which was probably generally somewhat higher in period. I know I have seen recipes for this in late- or just-post-period European sources (c. 1600 C.E.). Interesting to note how fine restaurants where I live have begun making this dish with chicken (usually breastmeat medallions) as a wonderful modern innovation on an ancient classic ; ). Adamantius From: "Nick Sasso (fra niccolo)" <grizly at mindspring.com> Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 15:12:41 -0400 Subject: Re: SC - Definition > For those of us who are .... vocabularily challenged<g>, what is > "liquamen"? > > =Caitlin "liquamen": another name for garum. A fermented fish sauce used in ancient Rome. Made by layering in a well sealed barrel, fatty fish such as mackerel or sardine, strong herbs, and about 1 1/2" of salt. Layer this until the barrel is filled and seal. Leave in the sun for about seven days. After this fermentation, stir daily for 2-3 weeks until it has turned to liquid. You'll find a detailed description of various methods and varieties on pages 27-29 in _A Taste of Ancient Rome_ by Giacosa. I have used oriental fish sauce, but it lacks the punch described of the original. Maybe adding the strong herbs to steep for a while in the fish sauce would help. Ant other suggestions would be appreciated as this is a common Roman condiment in cooking. Giacosa also offers two suggested preparations for garum on p. 29 for those who wish to avoid the seven day fermentation :o) - -- In Humble Service to God and Crown; fra nicol difrancesco (mka nick sasso) Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:57:07 -0400 (EDT) From: Uduido at aol.com Subject: SC - Beer Batter <<Do you have a recipe for this beer batter ...<snip>>...? BEER BATTER (Not Medieval) 1 egg, beaten 3/4 cp beer 1 tsp melted fat 1cp siftef flour 1/2 tsp salt 3/8 tsp cubeb berries, ground 1/4 tsp galingal, ground Combine egg, beer and fat. Add flour and salt; beat until smooth. Let stand 30 minutes. TO USE: Heat deep hot fat to 375 degrees F. Dip fish fillet in bater. Drop carefully into hot fat. Fry 'til costing is light , crisp and golden brown. Drain on unglazed paper. Copyright 1997, L. J. Spencer. <<Is there any evidence of beer being used in the batter of any medieval dishes? I know this is a British traditional food, but I don't know if it is medieval.>> I do not have any documentation that this is "period". But all of the ingredients are period. :-) It is a way I am able to serve fish and get it eaten in what you could term a "medievalish" manner. :-) However, if anyone knows for sure or has a period recipe that might be interpreted in this way, please do share. <<If you are actually mixing your batter using beer, do you prefer a lighter or a darker beer or does it matter? >> I always use regular light colored beer for this batter. To my taste darker beers and/or ales tend to leave a somewhat more pronounced flavor that overpowers the delicate flavor of the fish. Lord Ras Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 21:40:57 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Beer Batter Uduido at aol.com wrote: > BEER BATTER > (Not Medieval) <snip> Actually, with saffron instead of the galingale and the grains of paradise, this would probably qualify as a proper medieval pancake or fritter batter. Whether or not the idea of dipping fish into it is medieval, is a different matter ; ) Adamantius Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 09:32:47 -0400 (EDT) From: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy at abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU> Subject: SC - My redaction..... Boiled Perch "Perche boiled. Take a preche, and drawe him in (th)e throte, and make to him sauce of water and salt; And whan hit bigynneth to boile, skeme hit and caste (th)e perche there-in, and seth him; and take hum uppe, and pul him, and serve him forth colde, and cast uppon him foiles of parcelly. and (th) sau[c]e is venegre or vergous." 1 whole perch boiling salted water flat parsley cider vinegar Start a pot of salted water boiling. Gut, scale and rinse the perch, removing the guts and head. Use those to make a fish stock out of the boiling water. Remove the head and entrails, and boil the fish for five minutes, or until done. Remove and pat dry, bone and skin the fish, removing the tail as well. Take the resulting filets, chill in the refrigerator. Just before serving, sprinkle with chopped parsley leaves and a few drops of vinegar. Serve cold. Tibor Date: Thu, 31 Jul 97 10:54:06 -0600 From: "Stephanie Rudin"<rudin at okway.okstate.edu> Subject: Re[2]: SC - My redaction..... Just a note from someone who poaches fish quite often. Boil is probably not the best term to use. You want to poach fish at a nice simmer, not a roiling boil, especially a smaller fish. Mercedes Date: Thu, 4 Sep 1997 19:02:18 +0000 From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net> Subject: Re: SC - extraneous misc. And it came to pass on 4 Sep 97, that Marisa Herzog wrote: >I wish I could find where I had seen bitter orange listed as > a probable verjuice source In various recipes in the _Libro de Guisado_ (Catalan/Spanish, 16th century), orange juice is listed as an alternative to verjuice or vinegar, and is used as the primary sauce ingredient in many of the fish dishes. Presumably this would be from sour/bitter oranges; I believe that the sweet varieties are modern. Barbara Santich, in _The Original Mediterranean Cuisine_, says, "The standard accompaniments to fried fish were lemon juice (or the tart orange juice of the time) or green sauce." She comments elsewhere in the book that vinegar and verjuice were interchangeable in many recipes, and that lemon juice or the juice of bitter oranges were other substitutes. > -brid Brighid ni Chiarain of Tethba Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom Date: Sun, 12 Oct 1997 01:42:16 -0400 From: marilyn traber <margali at 99main.com> Subject: Re: SC - back on topic (was re: below the salt) kat wrote: > Can anyone suggest one or two above-the-salt-type recipes for the > final remove of a feast I am trying to put together in March? Cod a la bretonne-made with whole cods instead of the fillets-better presentation take leeks, celery and carrots in fine julienne, saute til almost done in butter in parchement[or multiple layers commercial aluminum foil if doing on covered grill outdoors] place 1/3 of the veggies. place fish next stuffed with 1/3 of the veggies, add fresh thyme leaves, fresh parsley leaves and fresh basil leaves, salt and white pepper to taste, wrap in gauze to keep it from falling apart when you remove it from the foil then top with the rest of the veggies, dot with butter, sprinkle with white wine and arrange slices of lemon. seal in well. place on very large cooking sheet and bake at 425*f 10 minutes per inch of thickness or place on the grill and cover with a large piece of metal to hold the heat in for about the same. take out, place the veggies on the platter, then carefully put the fish on top, add assorted small garnishes around and serve. If you want a really neat form of period presentation, take regular pastry and make a fish shaped dome lid and blind bake, glazing with saffron and eggyolk wash to make it golden. Place over the fish and veggies and carry in with pomp and ceremoney. margali Date: Sun, 28 Dec 1997 18:28:18 EST From: melc2newton at juno.com (Michael P Newton) Subject: SC - a question on a redaction Relooking thro' my cookbooks, I found _Early American Cooking: Recipes from America's Historic Sites. In which I found the following recipe: To Seeth a Cod or Bass First take a Cod and boile it in water and salt, then take of the broth and put in a little pot, then put thereto as much Wine as there is broth, with Rosemark, Parselie, Time and margerum bounde together, and put them in the pot, put thereto a good manic of sliced Onyons, small raisons, whole maces, a dish of butter and a little suger, so that it be not too sharp not too sweet, and let all these seth together: if the wine be not sharpe enough then put thereto a little Vineger, and so serve it upon soppes with broth. >From _The Second Part of the Good Huswifes Iewell, T. Dawson, 1597 Ok, so I'm cutting it close on the date, and it's from an American Recipes cookbook, but since it has originals recipes, I'd thought I'd practice. By the by, has anyone heard of/seen/ has _The Second Part of the Good Huswifes_? What I'm reading from this recipe is that: after cooking your cod/bass in some water, enough to cover it, you take the fish out and set it aside. To the water, you add an equal amount of wine (white, perhaps?) and simmer the liquids with a tied bundle of a rosemary sprig, a sprig of parsley, some thyme and margerum. to the simmering liquid you add one sliced onion (how much is a manic of onion anyways?)say a 1/2 C of raisins, a couple of blades of mace, a 1/2 C of butter (a dish normally equals 1 stick around our house) and a Tbsp. of sugar. Simmer the sauce together until the flavors meld together, taste, if it's too sweet, add a teaspoon or two of cider vinegar. Lay the Cod/Bass on bread slices and pour the sauce over both. I haven't tried my redaction yet,(still looking for that sale on fish, sigh) but I'd thought I'd go ahead and ask all of your opinions of it. Lady Beatrix Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 19:14:22 EDT From: LrdRas at aol.com Subject: SC - Will's- more recipes Here are the few recipes my co-feastocrat at Will's Revenge, His Lordship Thorstein, was willing to share. :-) Sorry for the lack of documentation but this isn't my work. Enjoy. They are wonderful. :-) Parma fish pie sufficient pastry for a large, 10 in deep-dish double crust pie 2 lb. cooked fish 1 cup raisins 8 prunes 6 figs 10 dates 1/2 cup pinenuts 1 cup dry white wine 2 tablespoons fine oil 2 cup chopped parsley 1 tablespoon chopped fresh marjoram 2 teaspoons fresh sage 2 tablespoons fresh grated ginger 1/2 teaspoon cloves 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon grains of paradise pinch saffron 1 cup white sugar 1 cup almond milk 3 tablespoons rice flour Flake fish and set aside Wash fruit. Cut into small pieces Combine all fruit and pinenuts in bowl and add white wine, set aside In pot over low heat, combine oil and herbs. Add fruit and wine mixture Combine spices and sugar. Stir into fruit mixture. Continue heating until sugar is dissolved. Reserve some almond milk for brushing on crust Add almond milk to rice flour and stir until smooth; add to fruit mixture Fold in 1/2 of fish. Pour into crust. Layer remaining fish on top. Cover with top pastry. Brush with almond milk. Bake at 425 for 10 min. reduce to 375 for another 20-30 minutes. Serve hot or cold. Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1998 15:23:00 -0500 From: allilyn at juno.com (LYN M PARKINSON) Subject: SC - Re: gooseberries + jelly >>Gooseberries. Find me a period recipe (primary source only please) that uses them.<< <snip of info on gooseberry sauces> As an antecedent to the mackeral/gooseberry combo, some fish sauces are definately tart: they contain sorrell, lemon and other piquant tastes, so your combo in in line with prevailing tastes, just not currently documentable. Fruit jellies are so popular with meats in Europe, that tart jellies may sometimes have taken the place of tart sauces. Whoa!!! Hold!!! Just found something else in LaVarenne! 62. Fresh mackerells rosted. Rost them with fennell, after they are rosted, open them, and take off the bone; then make a good sauce with butter, parsley, and gooseberries, all well seasoned; stove a very little your mackerells with your sauce, then serve. Have just glanced at a number of her fish sauces; none seem to have cream or milk added, yet. Is 'short broth' a reduced cooking liquid, do you think? Allison Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 10:01:14 EDT From: LrdRas at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras/Carnival and Ducal University allilyn at juno.com writes: << Actually, how widespread was the use of whaling products? >> According to the documentary it was quite widespread. Incomparable to the Victorian whaling industry, by all means, but not an insignificant part of a fishing town's annual "fish" harvest. << Is this something our noble houses would have had available to order?>> I don't see why they wouldn't be able to aquire it. If they did, it was probably fed to the servants. It is my understanding that whale "bacon" was almost exclusively comsumed by the poor in urban areas. Unfortunately, I am only beggining to look into this subject and currently have litle actual ionformation at hand. << ....<snip>......Perhaps something like the whale oil would have been mainly available to seaside towns, and businesses such as sardines in oil, etc, for export inland as finished products. >> As you can see the possibilities are endless, I was hoping someone on the list may have delved into this area and share the information with us. :-) Ras (spelled A'aql) Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 10:42:32 -0400 From: "Gedney, Jeff" <gedje01 at mail.cai.com> Subject: RE: SC - Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras/Carnival and Ducal University I understand that the Whale was considered "the King's Meat", and all whales that were taken or beached in England were to be reported to and taken possession of by the Crown. The King's men would then distribute whatever they did not take to the town. This was in effect from before 1200, AFAIK. Whale Oil and (especially) Spermaceti were the only really useful lubricants for a lot of Late period machinery and clockworks. vegetable oils and most rendered fats break down too quickly under high load. Whale oils were an important item of commerce, Traded widely, and a single beached Whale could provide as much as 40 or more barrels of the stuff. Ambergris used in perfumery before 1500, and worth a fortune. Whale meat ( though, I am assured, probably not Kosher ) would have been rich and high caloric in protein and fat. As I understand it, it was delicious. Porpoise meat, would have been easier to obtain, and netted or speared, as one would any large fish, such as sturgeon, and was apparently common enough to have recipes in the corpus throughout period. Porpoise was a favored meat of the Tudors, IIRC. Brandu Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1998 11:13:33 -0800 From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> Subject: Re: SC - Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras/Carnival and Ducal University Allison asks: >Actually, how widespread was the use of whaling products? Is this >something our noble houses would have had available to order? How about >households like the Menagier's, or country estates like Lady Fettiplace's >place? Perhaps something like the whale oil would have been mainly >available to seaside towns, and businesses such as sardines in oil, etc, >for export inland as finished products. Menagier writes: "GRASPOIS. This is salted whale, and should be sliced raw and cooked in water like bacon; and serve with peas", and he has a pea recipe which uses bacon for meat days and this salted whale on fish days. The editor of the French text of Menagier has in a footnote to this: "A lawsuit which lasted several years in the Paris parliament and which had to do with the seven stalls owned by the king in the Paris markets, of which stalls five were for salt fish and two for "craspois", tells us that the "craspois" was only found in Paris in Lent: it was "Lenten bacon", the fish for the poor; during Lent four thousand people lived on "craspois", dried fish and herring." Elizabeth/Betty Cook Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 07:15:48 EDT From: Balano1 at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - A Taste For Whale If you can't find a supply of whale meat to sample, the following may give one an approximation of its taste ;-) In perusing a dusty old book store, I found: An Illustrated History of French Cuisine - From Charlemagne to Charles de Gaulle by Christian Guy, Translation by Elisabeth Abbot, 1962 Contained therein is a chapter titled: The Apotheosis of Whale Meat It begins with a discussion of the re-awakening of French cuisine at the end of the thirteenth century. As famine abated, the French began to give more thought to improving their menus. The markets were filled with all manner of previously unavailable foodstuffs and those which were difficult to come by. "In Paris, which was a tedious journey from the coasts in those days, the fishmarkets were filled with salmon, trubot, brill, mullet, sole, dab, plaice, mackerel, whiting, haddock, sturgeon, weever, conger-eel, sardines, lobster, shrimps, mussels, codfish, red mullet... This era was also the apotheosis of whale meat. In those days the great mammals wandered close to the shores of France and throughout the Middle Ages vast quantities of them were eaten. Whale meat was the crajois or Lenten fare, one of the principal sources of for for the poor who were not discouraged at having to cook that tough meat at least twenty-four hours before it was edible. Nowadays, there is no more whale meat, at least in the French Markets. The last time it was served was in 1892 in a Paris restaurant near the Halles Centrales. One of the guests, Dr. Felix Bremont, tells us: "I can't say anything bad about that whale meat, but neither do I feel I can say much that was good. Take a piece of lean beef and boil it in water in which a stale mackerel has been washed, mix this broth with some sort of piquant sauce and you'll have a dish similar to the one served to me under the name of Escalope de baliene a la Valois (Escalope of whale a la Valois)." Enjoy! - Sister Mary Endoline Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 11:22:49 -0400 From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow) Subject: SC - Re: Baconn'd Herring Breakfasts Back in February we were discussing 'Baconn'd Herring' without resolution as to what it meant. I just ran across this in Le Menagier (The notes are M. Pichon's): "SAUMON frais soit baconn,(1) et gardez l'eschine pour rostir; puis despeciez par dales cuites en eaue, et du vin et du sel au cuire; mengi au poivre jaunet ou la cameline et en past, qui veult, pouldr (2) d'espices; et se le saumon est sal, soit mengi au vin et la ciboule par rouelles.(3) (1)Fum. Voy. Du Cange au mot Baco. (2)Peut-tre faut-il lire pouldre en sous-entendant avec. (3)G. C. , 69." Translation please? Cindy/Sincgiefu Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 12:56:52 -0400 From: Phil & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Fish at Feasts Some fish dishes that I've served with success: hot-smoked whiting (which is ridiculously cheap where I live) and pickled shrimp, both of which are good sitting atop a sallet, egerdouce, fried fillets in a sweet-and-sour sauce with dried fruit (children seem very fond of this one), saumon gentil, poached chunks of extruded minced salmon (basically meatballs), sprinkled with cumin and sitting atop a green sauce (this last prompting a diner to successfully silence an entire feasthall while he told the tale of Fionn Mac Cumhal and the Salmon of Wisdom -- _I_ thought that was pretty cool), steamed mussels in white-wine-vinegar-butter sauce (very similar to your basic French moules mariniere), Apician shrimp isicia, and my all-time favorite, the cuminade de poissons from Le Menagier de Paris. Adamantius Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 21:58:47 -0400 From: Phil & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Fish at Feasts > Sigh! I would love to serve and eat more fish at feasts, but here in the > southern part of the midwest, it would probably break most feast budgets > to have more than one entree be fish or shellfish related. (unless you > made it out of catfish : ) IS there any period recipes using catfish? ) > Beatrix I'm not aware of any under that name, but there are period recipes that simply specify "fish", and there are even those that specify various firm white freshwater fish, some of which are similar in flavor and texture to catfish. In addition, the admittedly post-period "Compleat Angler" by Izaak Walton (a contemporary of Kenelm Digby's) gives instructions for catching, identifying, and, if I remember correctly, dressing and cooking bullheads, which are a variety of catfish found in, unless I've been misinformed, the Southern Midwest of the U.S. The illustration of the bullhead in the book certainly suggests a catfish-y fish of some kind. Adamantius Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 23:43:58 -0400 From: Phil & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Fish at Feasts Craig Jones. wrote: > >Beatrix asks: > > IS there any period recipes using catfish? ) > > > >Actually, I think catfish is New World, but it sure is good. Wondering if > >any of the old world fishes might be similar enough in flavor and texture > >to substitute? Anybody have a clue? > > > >Phlip > > Maybe another bottom dwelling mud sucker, perhaps loach which I've > seen in a few period sources here and there. Bottom-dwelling, maybe, but mud-sucker generally applies more to carp-type fish, which catfish are not. Loaches, now, are pretty similar to catfish: scaleless, with large heads and mouths, and whiskers or barbels. The fish that Walton refers to as a bullhead looks somewhat like an American bullhead catfish (several species of the genus Ictalurus), but apparently is not, unless it is now extinct in Europe. A.J. McClane's "Complete Encyclopedia of Fish Cookery" says that there is only one actual European catfish, Siluris glanis, commonly known as a wels. What language this is supposed to be in is not clear, but McClane clearly states that while there is a fish known as a katfische in German, it is a marine wolffish related to wrasses. I suspect American bullheads were called bullheads by European settlers in the New World who thought they had some resemblance, in one way or another, to the European fish. This isn't unprecedented: in Pennsylvania walleyes used to be called salmon because they were cheap, plentiful, and occupied the same socio-economic niche (i.e. primarily a food for servants and lower middle classes) as the salmon did in Europe at the time many European settlers arrived in PA. This same fish is called a walleyed pike (it isn't even remotely like a pike, except it swims and has scales) in the Northern MidWest of the U.S., and, I think, is commonly known as a yellow pike in Canada. It is, in fact, a type of perch. Loach recipes might do very well using catfish, as a matter of fact, but I don't think there are too many fish recipes that were considered to be immutably for a specific species of fish. Many specify several types of fish, maybe on the assumption you will have access to one or another of them. Adamantius Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 21:50:36 EDT From: LrdRas at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Catching & Cooking carp upsxdls at okway.okstate.edu writes: << IIRC, it takes 90 minutes at 15 lbs pressure. >> The correct pressure would be 10 lb. but the timing is correct. Also remove the dark portions of the meat as these tend to impart a muddy taste to the meat. Carp taken in cold waters or cold seasons such as fall and winter tend to have a firmer flesh and a finer flavor. When taken in warm weather such as summer, they tend to have a muddy, unpleasant fishy flavor and there flesh is soft and insipid. Carp were the most commonly used fish in the monastery fish ponds of the MA. As such they would have been used for everyday types of meals and seldom used, if at all, at major feasts. Ras Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1998 15:46:39 -0500 From: allilyn at juno.com (LYN M PARKINSON) Subject: Re: SC - carp and lebkuchen I was looking up some info on the lebkuchen in some of my German referances, and noticed the statement that carp is traditionally cooked in Germany on Christmas Eve, as it goes back to the monks' ponds. Evidently, they kept carp as a staple. The fattening of the Christmas carp might begin as early as August. So, as soon as we're home from Pennsic, we rush out and feed the fish!!! They didn't say what was used to fatten the carp, or what monks used in place of cardboard boxes of fish flakes. My German family has a herring salad, with beets, for Christmas eve and other special family events, but I think that comes from the great-grandfather who was a trader based in Riga, Russia. Allison Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 23:19:32 EDT From: Mordonna22 at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Fish and Vinegar melc2newton at juno.com writes: > What the heck type of fish is a soal? Sole, a flat fish, a flounder Mordonna DuBois Haven of Warriors Atenveldt Date: Fri, 09 Oct 1998 22:18:20 -0400 From: Phil & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - meat days and fast days - MIXED? Mary Morman wrote: > On Fri, 9 Oct 1998, Phil & Susan Troy wrote: > > Chiquart speaks of the need to be accomodating to the > > guest cooks brought in by His Grace's guests who are on special diets of all > > sorts; I believe he mentions abstaining from meat on meat days, for whatever > > reason, as one such aberrant diet to be accomodated. > > > > Adamantius > > wonderful reference, adam ant! can you get me the quote? From Chiquart's "Du Fait de Cuisine", transl. Terence Scully, Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York 1986, ISBN 0-8204-0352-0, pp. 14-15: "Since at such a feast there may be very high, mighty, noble, venerable and honorable lords and ladies who will not eat meat, it is necessary to have similar amounts of sea-fish and fresh-water fish, both fresh and salted, and these in as varied preparations as can be. "And because the dolphin is king of all the other sea-fish, it will be put first, then congers, grey mullet, hake, sole, red mullet, John Dory, plaice, turbot, lobsters, tuna, sturgeon, salmon, sprats, sardines, sea-urchins, mussels, eels, bogues, ray, calamary, weever and anchovies; the eels, both fresh and salted. "Of freshwater fish: large trout, large eels, lampreys, filets of char, great pike filets, great carp filets, great perch, dace, pollacks, greylings, burbots, crayfish, and all other fish. "Because there are at this feast a few great lords or ladies, as was mentioned before, who will have with them their Chief Cook whom they will order to arrange and cook particular things for them, that Chief Cook should have supplied and dispensed to him, quickly, fully, generously, and cheerfully, anything he may ask for or that may be necessary for his lord or lady, or for the both of them, so that he may serve them as he should." > i'll put it with my reference from the abbot at bury st. edmonds about > instructing the cook to cook and serve a regular meal with meat dishes and > sweets even though the abbot himself only ate fast day foods - this was an > act of charity so that the leftovers could go to the infirmary or to > others at the table, or to the beggars at the gate. Cool! Hope this helps! Adamantius stgardr, East Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 17:48:45 -0800 From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> Subject: RE: SC - meat days and fast days - MIXED? At 12:41 PM -0700 10/29/98, Stapleton, Jeanne wrote: > Cool! does he specify some dishes? To put it mildly, yes. The book is webbed at: http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Medieval/Cookbooks/Du_Fait_de_Cuisine/du_fait_de_c_con tents.html "And as at such a feast there could be some very high, puissant, noble, venerable and honorable lords and ladies who do not eat meat, for these there must be fish, marine and fresh-water, fresh and salt, in such manner as one can get them. And as the sea-bream is king of the other sea fish, listed first is the sea-bream, conger-eel, grey mullet, hake, sole, red mullet, dorade, plaice, turbot, sea-crayfish, tuna, sturgeon, salmon, herrings, sardines, sea-urchin, mussels, eels, boops, ray, cuttle-fish, arany marine, anchovies, eels, both fresh and salted. Concerning fresh-water fish: big trout, big eels, lampreys, filleted char, fillets of big pike, fillets of big carp, big perch, ferrs, palls, graylings, burbot, crayfish, and all other fish." And lots of recipes. David/Cariadoc http://www.best.com/~ddfr/ Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 09:28:04 -0600 From: mfgunter at fnc.fujitsu.com (Michael F. Gunter) Subject: Re: SC - Viking Sweets, my creative adventure > The prunes sound good, Tyrca, but what I am REALLY waiting for is the > Ansteorran Royal redaction of buttery cheese sauce on sushi! > > Allison Easy. From "Master Arglebargle's Booke of Dysshes for the Strange and Pyckee" Dated 1512, Published by Blackfinger Press, London,Wales Tyk goode butter and sethe hyt well, add fat cheese and softe cheese. Season hyt with pepyr and goode spyce. Serue toppd on sippets. Then tyk freshe fysshe and clene hym and cutte hym into leches. Boyle rys til hit bursteth then tyk the rys into thine hand and presse him into balls. Lay the balls on the cheese and topp with the fysshe. Gunthar Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1999 10:33:47 -0500 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - once again bread & FISH Stacie wrote: > Does anyone have a tasty recipe for Lake Erie Walleye.....I have some that > is begging to be taken out of the freezer......I usually just bake it in the > oven with a little lemon and butter (sprinkled lightly with salt and pepper) > but i would like to try something new.... A walleye being basically a perch on steroids, there are some period recipes for perch that should do really well. One that comes to mind is egredouce (fried fish in sweet-and-sour sauce) which is ideally suited since walleye, as I recall, needs to be skinned before eating, so skinless, boneless fillet chunks are a perfect presentation for both the fish and the dish. (Yeah, the recipe doesn't specify the fish is boned, but it does make it easier to deal with the sauce, etc.) From the "Forme of Cury" (which specifies rabbit or kid as the meat, but fish was commonly eaten in this sauce: Egurdouce Take conynges or kydde and smyte hem on pecys rawe, and fry hem in white grece. Take raysons of Corance and fry hem; take oynons, parboile hem and hew hem small and fry hem. Take rede wine, sugar, with powdor of peper, of gynger, of canel; salt; and cast therto; and lat it seeth with a gode quantite of white grece; ans serue it forth. Quantities _loosely_ adapted from Hieatt & Butler's "Pleyn Delit": 2 lbs Lake Erie Walleye ; ) Flour for coating fish lard for frying plus 1 - 2 Tbs for the sauce, or use vegetable shortening 1/2 cup currants 3 onions, parboiled (optional) and minced 1 1/2 cups red wine 1/2 cup vinegar 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon each ginger and cinnamon 1/4 tsp pepper (I like more) 1 tsp salt or to taste H&B call for a thickener of bread crumbs, but I feel it's gratuitous. The white grease added at the end of the cooking process provides some slight thickening power; you have to have the sauce at a hard boil when you add the lard in tiny bits for it to work. It becomes temporarily emulsified into the rest of the syrupy sauce, cutting some of its sharpness and making it just slightly thicker, but lighter in texture. Another possibility, and far more faithful than breadcrumbs, would be to take perhaps half the solids from the sauce, run them through a food mill, and return them to the sauce. The flour for frying really isn't much of a departure: Taillevent speaks of frying fish _without_ flour, suggesting it was done at least sometimes in 14th century France. The recipe speaks of parboiling the onions before mincing and frying them; it seems to make little or no difference in the finished product, and if you don't buy the medical theory that probably motivates the instruction, you might well omit the extra step. Anyway, I suggest coating the fish with seasoned flour (use a plastic bag), frying it in lard or shortening, removing the fish to keep warm for a few, and make the sauce by removing most of the fat from the pan, sauteeing the onions and the currants, adding the remaining sauce ingredients except for the lard, bringing it to a boil, adding the lard if you want to use it for thickening, otherwise mill, sieve, or puree part of the currants and onions strained from the sauce, adding them back, and pouring the sauce over the fish. The original recipe says you should fry the currants first, then the onions. This suggests to me the onions should not become browned in the frying, and may also be part of why the onions are parboiled first, to be sure they're soft enough. Adamantius stgardr, East Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1999 23:42:26 -0500 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - New pet peeve melc2newton at juno.com wrote: > and was told that they were their own, but that they had used all period > ingredients.( Although Clam Chowder is my favorite, the cream based type, > especially from scratch, I have difficultly believing it's Norman French, > even Generic Norman French... but I degress... ) Your difficulty is understandable. Chowder, especially in the form you refer to, is an at-least-second-generation American interpretation of Breton dishes now known as bourride and matelote, made from herring or other rather small fish, and eels, respectively. The earliest American chowders appear to have been layered, baked constructs like a lasagna, or a fish-based Irish stew, made from salt pork, ship's biscuit, potatoes, onions, fish and fish stock, with butter added as a garnish at the table. Even these are only loosely related to European originals, bearing about as much relation to French soups as if a French immigrant to the New World had said, "Okay, what have we got around here to make a hotpot out of?" Clams don't seem to be as widely eaten in Western Europe as they are in the USA, and if the recipes are anything to judge from, the same seems to have been true in period. Clams were added later, probably in the early 19th century, and "New England Clam Chowder" as we know it today, with milk and cream, potatoes only (and sometimes roux) without ship's biscuit or cracker crumbs, _and_ sans tomato product, seems to appear for the first time in Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School Cook Book in, what, 1896? I'm extremely fond of pointing out to sanctimonious fans of "traditional" NE chowder that tomato was widely used in NE chowders till around 100 years ago, and probably still would be if they could grow good tomatoes in New England and preserve them properly in a ketchup that tasted good. (Real tomato ketchup, a thin but highly flavored, sweet, tangy, and _spicy_ condiment, has gone the way of all flesh, but it was often included in fish and clam chowders until the late 19th century, as an alternative to fresh or canned tomatoes.) Speaking of pet peeves and all...I guess you can tell this is something of a push-button for me. Adamantius stgardr, East Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 22:36:13 -0000 From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" <nannar at isholf.is> Subject: Re: SC - 14th Century Food From: Margo Hablutzel <margolh at nortelnetworks.com> >I am not sure that tuna was eaten in >period, it doesn't seem to be from the right places (could be wrong). The small white tuna (albacore) and the larger bluefin tuna were very common from ancient times in the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean. They were appreciated by the Phoenicians, the Romans and also in the Middle Ages, not least pickled in brine. I think most old recipes that call for tunny fish (the version used until the 19th century) actually refer to albacore. Very popular on fast days! Nanna Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 22:20:03 EST From: LrdRas at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - 14th Century Food margolh at nortelnetworks.com writes: << I am not sure that tuna was eaten in period, it doesn't seem to be from the right places (could be wrong).>> Tuna was a fish used by the Romans. IIRC, there are a few recipes in Apicius that use tuna. It was in fact a Mediterranean fish until the oil tankers all but killed that sea in this century. :-( Ras Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 23:14:10 -0500 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - 14th Century Food Margo Hablutzel wrote: >I am not sure that tuna was eaten in > period, it doesn't seem to be from the right places (could be wrong). No, I'm pretty sure tuna is mentioned as a food in Taillevent's "Viandier". Certainly it was caught and eaten by much of the coastal Roman World. It also figures rather heavily in Chiquart's "Du Fait de Cuisine", as the main fish ingredient in the fish-day version of his Parmesan Pies, among other uses. I believe the feast Chiquart is writing about, several years after the fact, took place in 1405 or so. Technically not the 14th century, but sooo close. Adamantius Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 08:16:05 -0500 From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net> Subject: Re: SC - 14th Century Food And it came to pass on 20 Jan 99,, that LrdRas at aol.com wrote: > Tuna was a fish used by the Romans. IIRC, there are a few recipes in > Apicius that use tuna. It was in fact a Mediterranean fish until the oil > tankers all but killed that sea in this century. :-( > > Ras Tuna appears in 15th century Spanish recipes. Lady Brighid ni Chiarain Settmour Swamp, East (NJ) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 07:17:43 -0500 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - 14th Century Food Shari Burnham wrote: > I don't have a copy of that, could you please provide a recipe for the > Parmesan pies? (the fish-day version?) That sounds like a nummy dish to try > with tuna. Yes, it does. I have a photocopy of the Scully translation, and reproducing it here would involve squinting at small print in not-very-bright light, early in the morning... . So, instead, I'll quote from Elizabeth Cook's translation of "Du Fait de Cuisine", courtesy of HG Cariadoc's web pages: ---------- 40. Now I, Chiquart, would like to give to understand to him who will be ordered to make parma tarts of fish, let him take slices of tuna if he is in a place where he can get marine fish, and if not let him take as much of those of fresh water, that is large filleted carp, large eels and large filleted pike, and of this take such a great quantity as he is told to make the said tarts; and take candied raisins, prunes, figs, dates, pinenuts, and of each of these take what seems to him right to take according to the quantity ofthe said tarts; then, for the said tarts, let them be cut into pieces, cleaned and washed andput to cook well and cleanly; and, being well cooked, draw it out onto fair and clean ta