p-marinating-msg

This document is also available in: text or RTF formats.

p-marinating-msg - 7/16/09

Period marinating of meats.

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

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

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

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 17:58:06 -0400

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

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] marinating meat

Debra Hense wrote:

> How common is it in medieval recipes to specify

> that the meat be marinated in oils or sauces

> before cooking?

> I thought that most of the adjustments for the

> humors came from the cooking methods and

> the sauces added or stewed in, rather than

> marinated and grilled or baked.

> I ran into this because a fellow judge told an

> entrant that to improve their entry they should

> have marinated the meat in the sauce before

> cooking it. Not that it appeared in the recipe

> instructions... But she said she had seen one

> recipe where it was done, but couldn't tell

> what the source was.

Wasn't there a cormarye recipe posted, like, yesterday or the day

before? This is a pork loin dish marinated for several hours in things

like red wine, crushed garlic, carway seed, and coriander seed prior to

roasting. I forget what else is involved (pepper?), but it's an

excellent dish. IIRC, it is from The Forme of Cury. That may well be the

source that the judge was referring to. However, there doesn't seem to

be huge scads of evidence to suggest that this was widespread practice

in other dishes. It occurs to me that middle-class people living in

towns, for example, frequently bought their sauces ready-made, and I

expect it would call for a much greater volume of sauce to use it as a

marinade (what with there being no plastic bags and such).

You might also make a claim for Tarpeian Lamb, which is an Apician dish

for which a paste is made from pounded onion and spices (kinda like a

curry paste, actually, except uncooked before using) which is spread on

the meat, then roasted. The meat is then finished in liquid, IIRC, and

the onion-y crust presumably dissolves back into the sauce. But there's

no extensive period of marination.

Overall, though, apart from a simple lack of too many recipes calling

for marination, at least as far as I know, it would seem to have been

preferred practice in most of period Europe to parboil certain meats

before larding them for roasting, or else boiling, then frying.

Adamantius

Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 22:42:21 -0500

From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] A reference Please?

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

<<< do any of you learned and generous people have a handy reference

to when (or if) oil and vinegar sauces turned into pre-cooking marinades?

All I need is a starting point..

Betsy >>>

You might start with a recipe from Harleian 279, "To make Steyks of venson

or bef. Take Venyson or Bef, & leche & gredyl it up broun; then take Vynegre

& a litel verious, & a lytil Wyne, and put pouder perpir ther-on y-now, and

pouder Gyngere; and atte the dressoure straw on pouder Canelle y-now, that

the steyks be al y-helid ther-wyth, and but a litel Sawce; & then serue it

forth."

The mixture of vinegar, verjuice and wine appears to be used as a basting

sauce with pepper and ginger sprinkled on for seasoning. Cinnamon is added

just before serving.

Somewhat earlier, Apicius (269) provides, "Aliter assaturas; petroselini

scripulos VI, laser scripulos VI, gingiberis scripulos VI, lauri bacas V,

condimenti, laseris radicen scripulos VI, origani scripulos VI, ciperis

scripulos VI, costi modice, piretri scripulos III, apii seminis scripulos

VI, piperis scripulos XII, liquaminis et olei quod sufficit."

"Another way to roast meast; Six scruples of parsley, six scruples of

silhium, six scruples of ginger, five bay berries, seasonings, six scruples

of silphium root, six scruples of oregano, six scruples of cyperus, a bit of

costus root, six scruples pyrethrum, six scruples of celery seed, twelve

scruples of pepper, sufficient garum and oil." Whether this is a marinade

or a baste is open to question. I suspect it may have been used in both

manners. The liquid portion of the recipe are olive oil and garum or

liquimen, fermented fish sauces that take the place of vinegar.

Bear

Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 10:40:08 -0400

From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Gervase Markham and "faux venison"

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

On May 27, 2009, at 9:55 AM, Vandy J. Simpson wrote:

<<< I'm working on a menu for a late-period feast. One of the books I'd

been reading, Tudor Food and Cookery, mentions that "Gervase Markham

suggested that by marinating beef or ram-mutton in vinegar, beer and

turnsole (a bluish colourant) you could produce counterfeit venison

for a pie!" >>>

"111. Of baking red deer, or fallow, or anything to be kept cold.

"When you bake red deer, you shall first parboil it and take out the

bones, then you shall if it be lean lard it, if fat save the charge,

then put it into a press to squeeze out the blood; then for a night

lay it in a mere sauce made of vinegar, small drink, and salt, and

then taking it forth season it well with pepper finely beaten, and

salt, well mixed together, and see that you good store thereof, both

upon and in every open and hollow place of the venison; but by no

means cut any slashes to put in the pepper, for it will of itself sink

fast enough into the flesh, and be more pleasant in the eating: then

having raised the coffin, lay in the bottom a thick course of butter,

then lay the flash thereon and cover it all over with butter, and so

bake it as much as if you did bake great brown bread; then when you

have draw it, melt more butter, with three or four spoonful of

vinegar, and twice so much claret wine, and at a vent hole on the top

of the lid pour in the same till it can receive no more, and so let it

stand and cool; and in this sort you may bake fallow deer, or swan, or

whatever else you may please to keep cold, the mere sauce only being

left out which is only proper to red deer.

"112. To bake beef, or mutton for venison.

"And if to your mere sauce you add a little turnsole, and therein

steep beef, or ram mutton; you may also in this manner take the first

for red deer venison, and the latter for fallow, and a very good

judgement shall not be able to say otherwise than that it is of itself

perfect venison, both in taste colour, and the manner of cutting."

--Gervase Markham, "The English Housewife", ed. Michael R. Best,

1986 McGill University Press

It appears to me that what's happening here is that venison is being

marinated [hence "mere sauce"] overnight before being baked in a crust

in an otherwise pretty straightforward manner. Markham is presumably

advocating adding a little bluish coloring to the marinade to enhance

the purple-red shade of the meat and create the illusion of venison.

I have no idea what that would do to the flavor, but with plenty of

pepper, wine, salt, vinegar, and a ton of butter, one never knows.

Texturally, my own experience is that one long-baked red meat in a

pie and served cold, is very much like another, with a dense and

almost waxy mouth feel. Season any two alike, and there'll be some

similarities. Season any two and color one to resemble the other, and,

well, it'll resemble it to some extent.

Adamantius

Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 07:59:55 -0700

From: edoard at medievalcookery.com

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Gervase Markham and "faux venison"

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

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

From: "Vandy J. Simpson"

<<< I'm working on a menu for a late-period feast. One of the books I'd been reading, Tudor Food and Cookery, mentions that "Gervase Markham suggested that by marinating beef or ram-mutton in vinegar, beer and turnsole (a bluish colourant) you could produce counterfeit venison for a pie!"

I'm thinking this may have been something they culled from one of their commentary sources, since I don't see Markham listed in the bibliography. (It's an old faded photocopy...) I *feel* like I've seen something like this somewhere else, but maybe I'm just convincing myself I have.

I've poked through what I can find of Gervase Markham on line, Kirrily Robert's website, but I'm not seeing a recipe that seems to relate to this.

Does anyone out there have any further suggestions? Sources? Memories? I've reached the point where I've read and re-read so many things, my eyes are crossed! >>>

This appears to be a popular trick. In addition the recipe from

Markham's that Adamantius posted, there are three in Menagier:

And if you wish to make a piece of beef taste like venison of deer or

bear, if you are in bear country, take numble or leg of beef, then

parboil and lard it, spit and roast; and let it be eaten with (a sauce

of) wild boar's tail. Let the beef be parboiled, then lard it along its

length and cut into portions, and then put the hot boar's tail (sauce)

in a dish over your beef which first is roasted or boiled in boiling

water and taken out soon, for this is more tender than deer. [Le

Menagier de Paris]

BEEF Like BEAR VENISON. A leg of beef. Do it in a black sauce of ginger,

clove, long and grain pepper, etc. And put in each bowl, two pieces, and

it will taste like bear. [Le Menagier de Paris]

To Counterfeit Bear Venison from a Piece of Beef. Take flank, and let it

be chopped in large chunks as for loin stew, then parboil, lard and

roast: and then boil a boar's tail, and let your meat boil a little, and

throw sauce and all in a dish. [Le Menagier de Paris]

- Doc