desserts-msg - 3/7/08 Medieval and SCA dessert recipes. Sweets. NOTE: See also these files: recipes-msg, pastries-msg, cheesecake-msg, gingerbread-msg, candy-msg, cookies-msg, sugar-msg, honey-msg, hais-msg, 3-Span-Sweets-art, bread-pudding-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 ************************************************************************ Newsgroups: rec.org.sca From: epsteine at spot.Colorado.EDU (Emily Epstein) Subject: Re: period desserts to share??? Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Date: Mon, 25 Apr 1994 19:14:51 GMT berman at cauchy.math.lsu.edu (Glenn Berman) writes: >share with everyone in the kitchen. So the question is what is a recipe >for a period dessert (or similiar snack type item) that would keep fairly >well and can be made by someone with the skills of a math grad student >(really good at proportions but no real cooking skill). Greetings from Alix Mont de fer. I'm sorry this will be too late to be of use at the event in question, but here's one of my favorites. I don't have the bibliographic citation for the original handy, but it's from a late 16th or early 17th century source, if memory serves. They're tasty, hold up well in both heat and cold, and don't mind humidity either (but don't leave them out in the rain). They also freeze reasonably well. Enjoy! Alix Mont de fer/Emily Epstein epsteine at spot.colorado.edu SHREWSBERY CAKES Beebe, Ruth Anne. Sallets, Humbles & Shrewsbery Cakes. Boston: Godine, 1976. p.64 To make Shrewsbery Cakes Take a quart of very fine flour, eight ounces of fine sugar beaten and sifted twelve ounces of sweet butter, a Nutmeg grated, two or three spoonfuls of damask rosewater, work all these together with your hands as hard as you can for the space of half an hour, then roll it in little round Cakes, about the thickness of three shillings one upon another, then take a silver Cup or a glass some four or three inches over and cut the cakes in them, then strew some flower upon white papers & lay them upon them, and bake them in an Oven as hot as for Manchet, set up your lid till you may tell a hundredth, then you shall see the white, if any of them rise up clap them down with some clean thing, and if your Oven be not too hot set up your lid again, and in a quarter of an hour they will be baked enough, but in any case take heed your Oven be not too hot, for they must not look brown but white, and so draw them forth & lay them one upon another till they bee could, and you may keep them half a year the new baked are best. 2 c. flour 4 oz. (1 c.) sugar 6 oz. (3/4 c.) butter 2 T rosewater 1/2 t. nutmeg Combine dry ingredients. Cut in butter as for pie crust. Moisten with rosewater. Work with your hands until well blended. Roll out 1/8-1/4 in. thick Cut with a round cutter ca. 3 in. in diameter, stamp with a floured cookie stamp. Bake at 325 15-20 min., until done, but not browned. From: Dottie Elliott (10/4/95) To: Mark Harris, sjohns at mail.utexas.edu, fischer at cse.unsw.edu.au Subj: To Make an Excellent Cake [From Master Cariadoc's online Miscellany] ==> To Make an Excellent Cake (GOOD) [original recipe found in] Digby p. 219/175 To a peck of fine flour take six pounds of fresh butter, which must be tenderly melted, ten pounds of currants, of cloves and mace, 1/2 an ounce of each, an ounce of cinnamon, 1/2 an ounce of nutmegs, four ounces of sugar, one pint of sack mixed with a quart at least of thick barm of ale (as soon as it is settled to have the thick fall to the bottom, which will be when it is about two days old), half a pint of rosewater; 1/2 a quarter of an ounce of saffron. Then make your paste, strewing the spices, finely beaten, upon the flour: then put the melted butter (but even just melted) to it; then the barm, and other liquours: and put it into the oven well heated presently. For the better baking of it, put it in a hoop, and let it stand in the oven one hour and a half. You ice the cake with the whites of two eggs, a small quantity of rosewater, and some sugar. [redaction by David Friedman and Elizabeth Cook] Scaled down: (1/16th) 2 c flour 3/8 lb = 1 1/2 sticks of butter 5/8 lb currants = 2 c = 10 oz 1/4 t cloves 1/4 t mace 1/2 t cinnamon 1/4 t nutmeg 1/2 T sugar 2 T sack (or sherry) 1/4 c ale yeast settled out of homemade mead or beer (or 1 t dried yeast dissolved in 3 T water) 1 T rosewater 8 threads saffron Icing: 1/8 egg white (about 2 t) 1/4 t rosewater 2 T sugar Mix flour, spices, and sugar. Melt butter, mix up yeast mixture, and crush the saffron in the rosewater to extract the color. When the butter is melted, stir it into the flour mixture, then add sack, yeast mixture, and rosewater-saffron mixture. Stir this until smooth, then stir in currants. Bake at 350deg. in a greased 10" round pan or a 7"x11" rectangular pan for 40 minutes. Remove from pan and spread with a thin layer of icing; We usually cut it up into bar cookies. [Clarissa's notes: This is best if iced several hours before serving (and then kept cold) so the sugar can seep in. This is a very dry cake and the icing is a must. I added just a tad more butter, rosewater and sherry than called for to get it a little moister. I used raisins. It does rise but only a little. Each cake can be cut into 8 or 12 pieces depending on what else you are having.] From: ddfr at best.com (David Friedman) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Period Dessert Recipes Date: 13 Feb 1996 17:50:05 GMT dpirko at uoguelph.ca (Denise Pirko) wrote: > Okay, one more plea for help from me. We are holding a dessert revel in > two weeks up here and we need some recipes for those of us who want to > make things. If anyone has any easily found resources, or recipes could > you please either post them here, or mail me back??? Thank you... > -Katya You will find quite a lot of period desert recipes at: http://fermi.clas.virginia.edu/~gl8f/cariadoc/miscellany.html and a few more at: http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Medieval/Medieval.html David/Cariadoc -- ddfr at best.com From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu> To: sca-cooks at eden.com Subject: sca-cooks special diets Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 14:35:13 -0400 (EDT) > I eat the Dean Ornish diet... Strict vegetarian (except for skim milk > products) and less than 10 grams of fat a day. No nuts, oil or butters, > avocado (New World, feh) etcetera. > > I've found a few period recipes I can adapt, but they taste poorly that way. A few weeks ago the University that pays my salary held a health fair, including a "Healthy Desserts Contest". I entered a recipe my wife and I had recently worked out for our Catalan feast: "Figues alla francesa". Take a bunch of figs (ideally a mix of white and black), stem them but leave them otherwise whole, steam them in white wine for half an hour or so, then add spices (we used cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper, etc.) Serve all by itself (or, if you're in the 20th century, pour hot over vanilla ice cream). Not only did it go over well at the feast, but it took second place at the mundane contest. Zero fat, zero animal products, and extremely simple to make. Steve / Joshua From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu> Subject: Re: sca-cooks special diets To: sca-cooks at eden.com Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 14:59:51 -0400 (EDT) Tibor wrote, in reference to "figues alla francesa": > Your dessert sounds fascinating. May I share it with others? Sure. In fact, take a look at the more detailed description in "http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/sca/cooking/st.val.feast.html". Steve / Joshua From: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com> Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 14:32:27 -0400 Subject: Re: SC - any suggestions ?? grobin wrote: > I'm currently working on a menu for the Fall Coronation, Three Rivers > will be hosting it. I'm kinda stuck...I'm trying to put together a > formal feast with "palette cleansers" inbetween each remove. I'm not > sure just how peiod sorbet is, so until i can find some documentation to > its authenticity, i won't use it. > Does anyone have any good suggestions ?? > Thanx again > Christopher Well, maybe not GOOD suggestions, but... . First off, sherbet in period is a somewhat cool beverage / spoon food of friut juice and/or pulp, sweetened with honey, and cooled by evaporation. Probably in relation to, say, 120 degree Fahrenheit temperature weather in the Nabataean desert, quite refreshing. You might consider something like two or three very different sallets. They aren't all greens. Fresh grapes might be another possibility, depending on when/where you are seeing this feast happening. Ditto various melons. Adamantius From: Phil & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Date: Thu, 1 May 97 13:39:01 -0400 Subject: Re: SC - Hello & Questions >Lady Rowan the Capricious here. > >I want to know if there are any kinds of cake >type frostings or icings that were used in >period cooking? > >Rowan Icing, yes. You find in sources like Gervase Markham and Kenelm Digby cake recipes that include instructions to sprinkle a cake with finely powdered sugar and put it back in the oven to glaze. This produces a hard-crack sugar shell. I believe some cakes are sprinkled with rosewater first, but I could be confusing some vague memory here... Adamantius From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 23:19:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SC - Hello & Questions At 1:39 PM -0400 5/1/97, Phil & Susan Troy wrote: >Icing, yes. You find in sources like Gervase Markham and Kenelm Digby >cake recipes that include instructions to sprinkle a cake with finely >powdered sugar and put it back in the oven to glaze. This produces a >hard-crack sugar shell. Note that Digby is about fifty years out of period, Markham somewhat less. I suspect you would find similar things in the late sixteenth century, but I don't know that cuisine very well. You could look at Hugh Platt. Alys Katherine (MK) has looked into some of these question and would be a good person to check with. She does elaborate sugar paste plates, which are presumably a closely related technology. David/Cariadoc http://www.best.com/~ddfr/ From: Tovah at hubert.rain.com (Tovah) Date: 08 May 97 04:47:01 GMT Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Another Rose Recipe Here is a rose recipe for those who study the culinary arts of the medieval period. I have not as yet fully deciphered the recipe, so please feel free to let me and the other gentles know how the cake comes out. Tovah of Misty Isles Lady of North Keep a.k.a The Rose Lady --------<-< at --------<-< at --------<-< at --------<-< at --------<-< at To Make A Cake With Rose Water, The Way Of the Royal Princess, The Lady Elizabeth, Daughter To King Charles The First Take halfe a pecke of flowre (flour), half a pinte of rose water, a pint of ale yeast, a pint of creame. A pound an a half of butter, six egges (leave out the whites) four pounds of currants, one half pound of sugar, one nutmeg and a little salt. Work it very well and let it stand half an hour by the fire and then work it again and then make it up and let it stand another hour and a halfe in the oven; let not your oven be too hot. The recipe was found in -- The Queen's Closet Opened. By W.M. Cook to Queen Henrietta Maria From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter) Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 17:52:53 -0500 Subject: Re: SC - Regional cooking Hi, Katerine here. Clare St. John asks: >What's a cuskynole? The two English recipes for cuskynoles I'm familiar with are in an Anglo-Norman collection edited by Constance Hieatt and Robin Jones and in one of the MSs in _Cury on Inglysch_. The second, if I recall correctly, is a translation of the first into Middle English. Unfortunately, we're moving shortly, and my books are packed. Since I don't remember the recipes vividly, I'll let someone else handle that one. Cheers, - -- Katerine/Terry From: rousseau at scn.org (Anne-Marie Rousseau) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 23:12:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SC - Gold Leaf-A use << Has anyone tried using gold (or silver) leaf to decorate foods? >> For our big blow out Baronial Banquet this year we did Elizabethan, and attempted to document EVERYTHING. Food, service, beverages, decorations, entertainment. One of the dishes we serverd was "gilded jello", or A White Leach (from Dawson, 1596) Take a quart of newe milke, and three ounces weight of Isinglasse, halfe a pounde of beaten suger, and stirre them thogether, and let it boile half a quarter of an hower till it be thicke, stirring htem all the while: then straine it with three spoonfull of Rosewater, then put it inot a platter and let it coole, and cut it in squares. Lay it fair in dishes, and lay golde upon it. Our reconstruction: Serves 16 5 tsp gelatin (about 2 1/4 packets) 2 cups whole milk 1/2 heaping cup sugar 5 tsp rosewater 1 sheet gold leaf 1 beaten egg white Heat a large pan of water to just below a simmer. Mix the gelatin in 4T of the milk with a whisk in a small bowl, suspended in the simmering water (like a double boiler). Keep whisking till it's completely dissolved. In a saucepan, heat the remaining milk, stir in the gelatin, add the sugar and bring to a simmer. Keep simmering, stirring for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the rosewater. Rinse a 8x8 glass pyrex pan with cold water, and pour the jello stuff in. Cover with saran wrap and allow to set. It will set faster in the fridge, and will take several hours. Cut into 1" cubes and guild every other square in a checky pattern. This part can be tricky, find someone who is familiar with working with gold leaf. Decorate with fresh pansies and other pretty things (we used ribbons, flowers, etc). This delicate jelly flavored with rosewater, decorated with edible gold is reminiscint of firni and other middle eastern rosewater puddings. Isinglass is a gelling agent from the swim bladders of fish, and I have yet to find a source. We used gelatin (Knox brand) instead. For easty removal of the squares, use a glass pan, and rinse with cold water right before you pour the stuff in. It was a beautiful addition to our banquetting table! Gilded Jello! And chekcy, like our kingdom arms. - --Anne-Marie +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Anne-Marie Rousseau rousseau at scn.org Seattle, Washington From: "Nick Sasso (fra niccolo)" <grizly at mindspring.com> Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 09:50:17 -0400 Subject: Re: SC - Gold Leaf-A use Anne-Marie Rousseau wrote: > ><< Has anyone tried using gold (or silver) leaf to decorate foods? >> > > For our big blow out Baronial Banquet this year we did Elizabethan, and > attempted to document EVERYTHING. Food, service, beverages, > decorations, entertainment. One of the dishes we serverd was "gilded jello", > or A White Leach (from Dawson, 1596) > Take a quart of newe milke, and three ounces weight of > Isinglasse...... Isinglass is a substance from the air bladders of fish and is used occasionally in beer brewing. It is actually available from better homebrew supply stores for those who are adventerous enough to try it. niccolo From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 11:29:40 -0400 Subject: Re: SC - Gold Leaf-A use Isinglass is _supposed_ to come from the swim bladders of sturgeon, isin or ising (I forget which) being an Anglo-Saxon term for the sturgeon. You can get it powdered in homebrew supply shops; it's used in fining or clarifying beers, wines, etc. Perfectly edible (at least as much as liquamen ; ) ), but for practical purposes unflavored animal gelatin is a fine substitute. Adamantius Date: Sat, 2 Aug 1997 18:30:54 -0500 From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter) Subject: Re: SC - introduction with a question Hi, Katerine here. Lady Fiona asked about desserts. It's hard to say what's my favorite; I know a lot of them. Here are some options: 1. I have a version of Pears in Confit that, if I have a favorite, probably wins the stakes. Problem: lots of wine. It's significantly boiled, so that I doubt anyone could become tipsy even drinking the sauce in quantity, but still.... And it's probably not optimum for serving to children (I don't know how old the scouts you work with are) anyhow. Palates change as we get older, and I'm not sure this is something kids would go wild for. OTOH, I do, and everyone I've served it to does. Moderately complex. 2. I have a version of a dish that the collection it's in calls simple a bake mete. It's essentially douceties (cream custard pies) with pears in them. Simplicity itself to make, but lucious. 3. I'm very fond of the version of Flaun of Almayne in Cariadoc's Miscellany. It's another pie, with ground apples, pears, and raisins in a custardy base. 4. If you leave the pears out of the second, you have douceties. You can make these wonderfully neat looking by coloring. The period versions I know are colored with saffron, parsley juice, or strawberry juice. In the latter case, you can make them even prettier by arranging artfully shaped strawberry slices on top. I'll be happy to post recipes for the first two (the recipe for the fourth follows by obvious deductions) later tonight. Cheers, - -- Katerine/Terry Date: Sat, 2 Aug 1997 21:33:41 -0500 From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter) Subject: SC - Dessert Recipes Hi, Katerine here. Here are the two recipes I mentioned earlier. Enjoy! A bake Mete (Two Fifteenth Century H279 Vyaundez Furnez xxxii) This pear custard pie is simple, excellent, and nearly foolproof. If you leave out the pears, you have medieval pie called "Doucetez" (H279 Vyaunde Furnez xv). Recipe: Take an make fayre lytel cofyns; than take Perys, and ghif they ben lytelle, put .iij. in a cofynne, & pare clene, & be-twyn euery pere, lay a gobet of Marow; & yf thou haue no lytel Perys, take grete, & gobet ham, & so put hem in the ovyn a whyle; than take thin commade lyke as thou takyst to Dowcetys, and pore ther-on; but lat the Marow & the Pecyz ben sene; & whan it is y-now, serue f[orth]. Modern English: Make fair little coffins (pie crusts); then take pears, and if they are little, put three in a coffin, and pare them clean, and between every pear, lay a chunk of marrow. And if you have no little pears, take big ones, and cut them into pieces, and so put them in the oven a while. Then take your filling like you use for douceties, and pour it over them; but let the marrow and the pieces [of pear] be seen. And when it is done, serve it. Amounts as I make it: one 9-in deep dish pie crust 1/4 cup milk 1 1/2 bosc pears 1/4 cup sugar 2 cups cream 4 strands saffron 6 egg yolks Step-by-step: 1. Prebake pie shell 20 minutes at 350. 2. Peel pears and slice as you would slice apples for apple pie. 3. Arrange pear slices in the crust. 4. Mix remaining and pour over pears. 5. Bake 1 hr 15 min at 350. 6. Remove from oven and let sit for 15 to 30 minutes. Notes: "Mete" means "foodstuff", not meat. I omit the marrow: it's hard to get, we don't need it in our diet (they did), and it probably adds little to the taste. I omit prebaking the fruit; modern pears are too big to put in whole, so I may as well slice them small enough to cook while the custard does. Be sure to use cooking pears! Most eating pears lose all flavor when baked. Peeres in confyt (Curye on Inglysch, Forme of Cury 136) This is spiced pears stewed in wine; absolutely lovely! Recipe: Take peeres and pare hem clene. Take gode rede wyne & mulberies other saundres, and seeth the peeres therin, & whan thei buth ysode take hem up. Make a syryp of wyne greke, other vernage [sweet italian white wine], with blanche powdur other white sugur and powdour gynger, & do the peres therin. Seeth it a lytel & messe it forth. Take pears and pare them clean. Take good red wine and mulberries or saunders, and boil the pears in it, and when they are boiled, take them out. Make a syrup of Greek wine, or vernage, with blanche powder or white sugar and ginger, and put the pears in it. Boil it a little and serve it forth. Amounts as I make it: 4 Bosc pears 2 cup semi-sweet Sauterne 1 1/4 cup burgundy 1 cup water 3/4 cup water 8 T sugar 2 tsp saunders 1/2 tsp ginger 1 1/2 T sugar Step-by-step: 1. Peel, core, and quarter pears. 2. Simmer in red wine, first water, saunders, and first sugar for 1 hr 5 min (until soft), adding water as necessary to keep pears covered with liquid. 3. Drain and rinse. Discard cooking liquid. 4. Combine remaining ingredients. 5. Simmer gently for 30-45 min, letting sauce cook down (and alcohol cook off). 6. Put pears in syrup and simmer another two or three minutes. Notes: The result is delicately flavored red pears in a yellow-white sauce; both delicious and beautiful. Again, cooking pears! Always cook with cooking pears! Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 13:35:27 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - recipe request (dessert, Irish/English or whatever) Russell Gilman-Hunt wrote: > I am an Irishman, looking to make an appropriate dessert for > a potluck later next month. I have 2 dogs, 4 cats and an > 8 month child, and a wife. . . I need something I can do in > maybe an hour. I am from the 12th century (~1130). > > So I am looking for a recipe for a dessert, perferably in some > variant of English from that time period. (heck, ANY Irish > 12th century ideas would be welcome!) I'm a pretty good cook, > but a lousy confectioner (made lollipops once; I wound up with > sticks floating in a nice green sugar sauce that tasted of food > coloring). > > English would be OK, or something brought back from the first > Crusade or something (persona history is still a little vague.) I'm not aware of any Irish dessert recipes from the period you mention, nor English ones either. There are some 12th-13th century accounts of meals and feast menus in English, I believe, but you won't really find any English recipes from any earlier than the fourteenth century, and probably no Irish recipes from before the 17th or 18th centuries, with a couple of inappropriate exceptions. Would you settle for a nice, slightly simplified 14th century English daryol? 1 commercial frozen pie shell 5 eggs 3 cups cream or half-and-half ~1/2 cup sugar (light brown granulated, or a mixture with white, is nice) or to taste 1/4 tsp salt 1 big pinch saffron Bake the pie shell blind (filled with pie beans or topped with another pie pan so it doesn't puff up) in a preheated 375 degree F. oven for ten minutes or so. Allow to cool a bit. (Leave the oven turned on.) While the shell is cooling, beat together the other ingredients until fully mixed. Pour into the shell and return to the oven for 25 - 40 minutes, just until a toothpick, when poked into the center, comes out clean. Serve at room temperature. From The Forme of Cury, #191: "Daryols. Take creme of cow milk, o6er of almaundes; do 6erto ayren with sugur, safroun and salt. Medle it yfere. Do it in a coffin of ii ynche depe; bake it wel and serue it forth." As usual, I am substituting the numeral "6" for the M.E. character "thorne", as ASCII often does ugly things when trying to reproduce the actual character. It's more or less equivalent to a "th". Adamantius Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 20:12:38 -0500 From: L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt <liontamr at ptd.net> Subject: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #281 How about Apple Charlet (the distant cousin of Apple Charlotte). You need apple puree, sweetened w/ sugar, made with sauteed apple slices, butter, spices. It needs to be very thick. Next take the crusts off of white bread slices. Butter one side. Arrange butter-side down in a loaf pan, covering the sides, too. If you're feeling creative, cut the bread up to make geometric shapes. But every cranny must be covered. Pour in the apple puree. Cover with more bread butter side up. Bake in a moderate oven until bread begins to brown. Remove and cool about 15 minutes-1/2 hour. Unmold onto plate. Squeeze with lemon juice lightly and sprinkle with sugar. Serve with cream. Sorry--no documentation. It's lost in the nether regions of my brain in a file I used about 10 years ago. But it's so yummy and kid-approved, i remembered it. Aoife---still waiting for dinner at 9 pm. Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 21:22:50 -0400 (EDT) From: Bronwynmgn at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - recipe request (dessert, Irish/English or whatever) << I am an Irishman, looking to make an appropriate dessert for a potluck later next month. I have 2 dogs, 4 cats and an 8 month child, and a wife. . . I need something I can do in maybe an hour. I am from the 12th century (~1130). >> Greetings, fellow centuryman (born in 1135 myself..) How about these: FINNISH BERRY PUDDING (from Knowne World Handbook - I think it may be a "modernized" variation of a Scottish dessert that involves oatmeal and berries, but I'm not sure) Ingredients: 3 cups strawberry or raspberry puree 4-6 Tbsp sugar 1/2 cup UNCOOKED Cream of Wheat Special utensils: Electric beater Quantity: 3-4 times the recipe feeds 60. - - Bring puree to a boil over moderate heat and add sugar. Add cream of wheat and stir continuously. Reduce heat and cook for 3-6 minutes, until mixture becomes a thick puree. - - Transfer to a large bowl. Whip with an electric beater at high speed until mixture doubles in bulk and becomes light and fluffy. - - Serve as soon as possible. Delicious with a little whipped cream. No one would believe the ingredients if you told them. For something more demonstrably period, and nearly as easy, (From Pleyn Delit, attributed to "Ancient Cookery", which is appended to the "Form of Curye" in the printed editions.) "Chireseye Take Chiryes at the Fest of Seynt John the Baptist and do away the stonys; grynde hem in a morter, and after frot hem wel in a sieve so that the Jus be wel comyn owt; and do than in a pot, and do therein feyr gres or Botor, and bred of wastrel ymyncid, and of sugur a god party, and a porcion of wyn; and wan it is wel ysoden and ydressed in Dyschis, stik therein clowis of Gilofre and strew thereon sugur. Cherry Bread Pudding 2 cups fresh sour pie cherries; stoned, or 20 oz (2 cans) pie cherries, drained, plus the juice of 1/2 lemon 2 cups breadcrumbs (we used wheat bread dried in the oven and crumbled) 1/3 cup sugar 3/4 cup red wine (or 1/2 cup wine plus 1/4 cup water or juice from canned cherries) 1 tbsp butter The easiest way to make this is with a blender: if you have one, put in all the ingredients except butter and blend, then put in pan, adding butter. If not, mash the cherries and force through a strainer, then mix with other ingredients before proceeding. Cook, stirring constantly, over a medium fire for about 5 minutes, or until well thickened. Pour into a serving dish, or individual dishes, and let cool - or chill in a refrigerator. Sprinkle with ground cloves (sparingly), if you wish, with or without extra sugar. This is particularly good served with cream - or with Creme Bastarde. VARIATION After stirring over heat for a moment or two, pour into a greased baking dish and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes. Serve hot or cold." Brangwayna Morgan Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 10:31:56 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Shortbread Peters, Rise J. wrote: > Does anyone have (a) a period shortbread recipe > and/or (b) a good modern shortbread recipe? I don't know of a period shortbread recipe. It probably evolved from sgian oatcake recipes, many of which call for fat to be rubbed into meal, sometimes sweetened slightly, but not always, and baked on a griddle or bakestone of some kind. No period recipes for them, either, but the people who've researched such things are pretty sure that sgians (scones) existed in period, despite the lack of direct documentation. (Neolithic ones have been found, for example). Get enough Englishmen into an honest Celtic land ; ), and you find things like wheat flour, butter, and sugar entering into your oatcakes. There goes the neighborhood. (Aoife, please, I swear I'm only joking! Put down that knife! If I give you my recipe for shortbread, will you forgive me?) Loosely adapted from Malachi McCormick's "Irish Country Cooking", Clarkson N. Potter, 1988. Text is mine. SHORTBREAD Eaten at tea-time for New Year's Day in Ireland and Scotland, (often in round cakes which probably denote the shape of the sun) Yield: Makes 2 eight-inch cakes. Time: 20 minutes plus 1 hour baking. 12 ounces butter or margarine (3 sticks) 1/2 cup sugar 3 cups flour 1/2 cup rice flour or cornstarch 1/2 tsp salt 1. Preheat oven to 325" F. 2. Using your fingers, cream the butter and sugar together until smooth. You can use a knife at first to cut the butter up into small pieces, but the fingers are the best for finding lumps and breaking them up. 3. Combine the other dry ingredients and add them, in three batches, to the butter mixture. Work the flour into the butter, (fingers again) until there is no dry flour left. Form the dough into a ball. 4. Cut the ball into two equal pieces and shape each piece into a round flat cake about 3/4 inch thick. Place into two 8-inch round cake pans, lined with wax paper, or on a cookie sheet. If you want you can flute the edges or decorate the cakes with any pattern you like, using a fork, a knife, your fingers or whatever. Using a knife, score lines about 1/4 inch deep into the surface of the cakes; an asterisk (*) is traditional, but crosshatching is good too. This helps the cakes cook faster and when they are done, you break the cakes along these lines to serve. 5. Bake one hour at 325" F. The cakes shouldnt really brown, and they will seem soft at first, but will crisp up as they cool. Break along the lines and serve. Adamantius Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 11:10:13 -0400 From: marilyn traber <margali at 99main.com> Subject: Re: SC - recipe request (dessert, Irish/English or whatever) Russell Gilman-Hunt wrote: > I am an Irishman, looking to make an appropriate dessert for > a potluck later next month. I have 2 dogs, 4 cats and an > 8 month child, and a wife. . . I need something I can do in > maybe an hour. I am from the 12th century (~1130). > > So I am looking for a recipe for a dessert, perferably in some > variant of English from that time period. (heck, ANY Irish > 12th century ideas would be welcome!) Jusselle dates, the recipe is outremerish. very large pitted dates bread crumbs beef broth cream cheese almonds make a paste out of the cream cheese and crumbs, moistened with the broth, pipe into the hollows in the dates,, stuff in an almond to cap the opening and serve well chilled margali Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 12:08:46 -0400 (EDT) From: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy at abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU> Subject: Re: SC - Shortbread Peters, Rise J. wrote: > Does anyone have (a) a period shortbread recipe > and/or (b) a good modern shortbread recipe? Good? 1-2-4, butter sugar flour, cups. Mix with hands, bake at 325 until just starting to golden. I like to season the top with cinnamon or other flavorings. This one's not necessarily period, but it IS good. Tibor (Thank you, Cynthia, for teaching me this one) Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 18:11:31 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Re: Gunthar, look at this Personally, I didn't pick up on the request for info on fruitcakes and/or plum pudding in period for several reasons. The dark plum pudding that became symbolic of Victorian England is pretty much that: Victorian. There are various steamed bag puddings in very late and post period, but their resemblance to plum pudding is superficial at best. As for fruitcakes, again, while there are several recipes from very late and post-period, they don't resemble modern fruitcake very much. The closest you'll find to period fruitcake (a conceptually dubious term) is Italian pannetone, or Spanish or Latin American pan dolce with fruit. There might be a modern form of brioche with raisins that might come close too. Generally any leavened bread dough with some butter and raisins or currants in it, possibly with some grated spice or other, and a glazing of sugar on top, is pretty much what would have been known as "cake" in period. Without the fruit, of course, it was simply bread. Virtually none of the dark, brown, fruity masses with a hit of hard liquor existed in period, so far as I know. Adamantius Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 18:21:04 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: SC - Plum Pudding >Bear, may I please request a copy of that recipie? Pretty please?? > >Dragonfyr Sure. You'll have to do your own redaction. I never got around to cooking it up. Plum Pudding Glasse, Hannah; The Art of Cookery, 1747 Take a Pound of Suet cut in little Pieces, not too fine, a Pound of Currants, and a Pound of Raisins stone, eight Eggs, one half the Whites, the Crumb of a Penny-loaf grated fine, one half a Nutmeg grated, and a Tea Spoonful of beaten Ginger, a little Salt, a Pound of Flour, a Pint of Milk; beat the Eggs first, then one half the Milk, beat them together, and by degrees stir in the Flour and Bread together, then the suet, spice and Fruit, and as Milk as will mix it all well together and very thick; boil it five Hours. Notes: Gloss on recipe card says, plum pudding with dried plums Elizabethan in origin, later replaced by raisins and currants. (no attribution) Use a pudding cloth to cook. About a 15" square of tight weave cotton or linen. Wet thoroughly, dust with flour, put in bowl flour side up. Pour batter into the cloth lined bowl. gather the edges and tie closed with string just above where the pudding stops bulging. Cook in boiling water, totally submerged. Lift occasionally to keep from sticking. Add water as needed. Drain and cool slightly in collander before serving. Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 15:54:00 -0700 From: DUNHAM Patricia R <Patricia.R.DUNHAM at ci.eugene.or.us> Subject: Re: SC - Fruitcake/Plum pudding (WAS: Roman Cheese Cake) I poked around for a few minutes yesterday, and what I remember of the responses on the list boil down to: Lorna Sass' Chrismas Feasts book says that the 18th C was the age of the pudding, tho she gives one pudding in the 17th C section, too... I have a reference to an "blasphemous and ungodly plum pudding" of Oliver Cromwell period (late 1640s) -- recipe seems fairly like modern plum pudding, but the printed version has baking soda in it, so... and I found a reference to a plum pudding in my 1st ed. Pleyn Delit (Constance Heiatt) that has a footnote that it's not at all like the Victorian plum pudding... My Martha Washington (internally dated by editor Karen Hess to ca. 1550-1625) to a number of puddings, most of which sound quite light and custardy, tho a number do include thickening with bread crumbs... Someone said something about Italian (Siena) Panforte being the closest periodish equivalent of fruitcake... I've always wanted to make one of those, and have a couple of recipes... They come in both chocolate and non-choc versions. Chimene Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 15:39:34 -0800 From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> Subject: SC - Apple Pies (was: Small Feasts) Clarissa asks: >Do you have a period recipe for apple pies??!!!! I am looking for one! From _A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye_ (16th c.): To make pyes of grene apples Take your apples and pare them cleane and core them as ye wyll a Quince, then make youre coffyn after this maner, take a lyttle fayre water and half a dyche of butter and a little Saffron, and sette all this upon a chafyngdyshe tyll it be hoate then temper your flower with this sayd licuor, and the whyte of two egges and also make your coffyn and ceason your apples with Sinemone, Gynger and Sugar ynoughe. Than putte them into your coffin and laye halfe a dyshe of butter above them and so close your coffin, and so bake them. [end of original] So this is a covered sweet pie; except for the details of the crust, and the absence of cornstarch to thicken the juice, it isn't too different from my mother's apple pie--assuming you cut up the apples, which it doesn't ever say. It could also be like the medieval quince pies, where you core the quince from the top, fill up the hole with sugar and sometimes ginger, stand three quinces in a pie shell, cover, and bake. Elizabeth of Dendermonde/Betty Cook Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 12:02:59 -0500 From: L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt <liontamr at ptd.net> Subject: SC - Apples and Chestnuts I found the following recipe for Apple and Chestnut Pie in a paper I wrote long ago, which I am re-vamping for the kingdom newsletter. It should take care of both the apple and the chestnut surplus. I havn't tested it, however it sounds good. Aoife Chestnut Pye To Make A Cheftnut Pye (Mrs. McClintock's Receipt Book, 1700s) Take 2 dozen of Apples, 100 Chefnuts, a lib. of Almonds, 2 lib. of Currans, half a lib. of Rafins, half a lib. of Sugar, half an Ounce of Cinnamon, 3 Drop of Nutmeg, a Quarter of a lib. of Cordecidron, as much Orange-peel; flice your Apples, fkin the Chefnuts, and blanche the Almonds, put a layer of Appls in the Bottom of the Pye, put a Layer of Chefnuts, a Layer of Almonds, Currans, Raifins, Cordecidron, Orange-peil and Spices; Give it good ftore of fweet Butter on the Top, then put on the Lid, and fend it to the oven; when 'tis near fired, pour in a Mutchkin of white Wine at the Lumb. (Lumb is a vent or funnel in a pie. Mutchkin is .212 litres or 2.996 gills, if that actually helps!) Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 10:39:21 -0600 From: L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt <liontamr at ptd.net> Subject: SC - Ice Cream in Period (not) > Now a question for the list--what about ice cream? I'm fairly sure >I've heard that the Romans made ices, but I don't have anything indicating >that the frozen custard concept existed. Anyone know for sure? > > Ldy Diana I spent some time studying this one, since I was actually served an ice-cream at an event long ago. Ignorantly, I continued to believe it was period, simply because someone had included it in their menu! I have discovered the following facts: Several cultures had fruit "ices", including the Maya. This consisted of a fruit syrup possibly sweetned with honey, poured over specially imported snow (from near-by mountains). Ice cream makes its first truly historical appearance (is given leterary mention)at the table of Mrs. Martha Washington (NOT the woman who owned/added to the M.W. Cookbook , but the 1st American President's Wife). It seems her inclusion of icecream was a big novelty, and one she imported from Europe, being a new invention. This, naturally, happened after the American Revolution, which took place OOP for us. We know that the Tudors had cold "Banquet" houses (basically a semi-buried ice-house, tarted up nice for visitors), where they served cold dessert type foods to the favored amongst their guests after the big celebrations. We know ice was in there, but we do not know that cream was poured over fruit, sugar, etc, and churned in a cold area to produce "Iced Cream". The likliest possibility is that sorbet is within our period. Other dishes served would have included custards, gelatin moulds, etc. If you think about it, you can see the progression from the "refrigerated" dishes of the Tudor period to the experimentation with cooking cold dishes (sorbet, custards, sweet gelatines, etc), once keeping ice houses became popular. From there we have a jump to the relative cheapness of sugar and then the discovery of the properties of sweetened frozen cream. That evolution would have taken a little while. So no, it does not appear that Iced Cream was period. Does anyone have documentation for Sorbet? Aoife Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 10:56:54 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Ice Cream in Period (not) >I spent some time studying this one, since I was actually served an >ice-cream at an event long ago. Ignorantly, I continued to believe it was >period, simply because someone had included it in their menu! > <deleted> >So no, it does not appear that Iced Cream was period. Does anyone have >documentation for Sorbet? > >Aoife The Microsoft Bookshelf places the origin of ice cream in Italy about 1559. It reaches England in the 17th century and America in the 18th century. It was called "iced cream" in 1673 and is first mentioned as "ice cream" by an American in 1744. Of course, there's not a word about where they referenced the information. Just for fun, here's the entry on sherbet: sher*bet (shur?bit) noun 1. Also sher*bert (-burt?). A frozen dessert made primarily of fruit juice, sugar, and water, and also containing milk, egg white, or gelatin. 2. Chiefly British. A beverage made of sweetened diluted fruit juice. 3. Also sherbert. Australian. An alcoholic beverage, especially beer. [Ottoman Turkish, sweet fruit drink, from Persian sharbat, from Arabic ?arbah, drink, from ?ariba, to drink.] Word History: The word sherbet has been in the English language for several centuries (first recorded in 1603) but not as a name for what one normally thinks of as sherbet. The word came into English from Ottoman Turkish sherbet or Persian sharbat, both going back to Arabic ?arbah, "drink." The Turkish and Persian words referred to a beverage of sweetened, diluted fruit juice that was popular in the Middle East and imitated in Europe. Eventually in Europe sherbet came to refer to a carbonated drink. Because the original Middle Eastern drink contained fruit and was often cooled with snow, sherbet was applied to the frozen dessert (first recorded in 1891). It is thus distinguished slightly from sorbet, which can also mean "a fruit-flavored ice served between courses of a meal." Sorbet (first recorded in English in 1585) goes back through French (sorbet) and then Italian (sorbetto) to the same Turkish sherbet that gave us sherbet. It's not much help, but it gives and idea of where to start looking. Bear Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 13:43:22 -0500 From: Tara Sersen <ladycharissa at geocities.com> Subject: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #504 Ice Cream question... In reference to the question about whether or not ice cream is period, I found this on the web... From: http://www.foodsci.uoguelph.ca/dairyedu/ichist.html Ice Cream History and Folklore Most of the following material has been extracted from "The History of Ice Cream", written by the International Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers (IAICM), Washington DC, 1978. As you will note below, however, much of the early history of ice cream remains unproven folklore. Once upon a time, hundreds of years ago, Charles I of England hosted a sumptous state banquet for many of his friends and family. The meal, consisting of many delicacies of the day, had been simply superb but the "coup de grace" was yet to come. After much preparation, the King's french chef had concocted an apparently new dish. It was cold and resembled fresh-fallen snow but was much creamier and sweeter than any other after-dinner dessert. The guests were delighted, as was Charles, who summoned the cook and asked him not to divulge the recipe for his frozen cream. The King wanted the delicacy to be served only at the Royal table and offered the cook 500 pounds a year to keep it that way. Sometime later, however, poor Charles fell into disfavour with his people and was beheaded in 1649. But by that time, the secret of the frozen cream remained a secret no more. The cook, named DeMirco, had not kept his promise. This story is just one of many of the fascinating tales which surround the evolution of our country's most popular dessert, ice cream. It is likely that ice cream was not invented, but rather came to be over years of similar efforts. Indeed, the Roman Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar is said to have sent slaves to the mountains to bring snow and ice to cool and freeze the fruit drinks he was so fond of. Centuries later, the Italian Marco Polo returned from his famous journey to the Far East with a recipe for making water ices resembling modern day sherbets. A newly published book, by Caroline Liddell and Robin Weir, Ices: The Definitive Guide, publ. by Hodder and Stoughton, 1993, ISBN 0-340-58335-5, suggests that the historical basis of these tales is skeptical. What follows is from the opening of the first chapter of their book: Most books are full of myths about the history of ice cream. According to popular accounts, Marco Polo (1254-1324) saw ice creams being made during his trip to China, and on his return, introduced them to Italy. The myth continues with the Italian chefs of the you Catherine de'Medici taking this magical dish to France when she went there in 1533 to marry the Duc d'Orleans, with Charles I rewarding his own ice-cream maker with a lifetime pension on condition that he did not divulge his secret recipe to anyone, thereby keeping ice cream as a royal perogative. Unfortunately, there is no historical evidence to support any of these stories. They would appear to be purely the creation of imaginative nineteenth-century ice-cream makers and vendors. Indeed, we have found no mention of any of these stories before the nineteenth century. They go on to refute the claims about Marco Polo, Catherine de'Medici, and Charles I (in particular, while the IAICM reference credits DeMirco as the Charles I chef, apparently while other various sources credit 10 different men, there are no records of such a pension being paid to any of Charles I's cooks). They do go on in their book to discuss history for which there is a record, with (I think) the earliest written record being something made in China. <Big snip- go to the homepage if you want to see the later history. This is all that's pertinant to us :) > So, I guess the answer is no, ice cream isn't documentable. I'm as disappointed as you are :/ I have, however, often heard about the ices that were made in ancient Rome, and later in Italy. I don't know how much more widespread these would have been. Does anyone know? Are they akin to modern Italian Ice, or more like a sorbet or sherbert, like the legends say? ;) - -- Marjorie Date: Thu, 1 Jan 1998 22:33:25 -0800 From: David Friedman <ddfr at best.com> Subject: Re: SC - Byzantine Cuisine >Does anyone know if Halvah or Halwa is period? > >Aoife The word means, roughly, "sweet dish," and there are lots of period Hulwah's, including one in the _Miscellany_.. I have not yet found anything very close to the dish that is currently called "Halvah," however. David/Cariadoc Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 14:47:17 -0800 From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> Subject: Re: SC - First try at redaction To Make an Excellent Cake The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby, Opened To a peck of fine flour take six pounds of fresh butter, which must be tenderly melted, ten pounds of currants, of cloves and mace, 1/2 an ounce of each, an ounce of cinnamon, 1/2 an ounce of nutmegs, four ounces of sugar, one pint of sack mixed with a quart at least of thick barm of ale (as soon as it is settled to have the thick fall to the bottom, which will be when it is about two days old), half a pint of rosewater; 1/2 a quarter of an ounce of saffron. Then make your paste, strewing the spices, finely beaten, upon the flour: then put the melted butter (but even just melted) to it; then the barm, and other liquours: and put it into the oven well heated presently. For the better baking of it, put it in a hoop, and let it stand in the oven one hour and a half. You ice the cake with the whites of two eggs, a small quantity of rosewater, and some sugar. [end of original] Scaled down: (1/16th) 2 c flour 3/8 lb = 1 1/2 sticks of butter 5/8 lb currants = 2 c = 10 oz 1/4 t cloves 1/4 t mace 1/2 t cinnamon 1/4 t nutmeg 1/2 T sugar 2 T sack (or sherry) 1/4 c ale yeast settled out of homemade mead or beer (or 1 t dried yeast dissolved in 3 T water) 1 T rosewater 8 threads saffron Icing: 1/8 egg white (about 2 t) 1/4 t rosewater 2 T sugar Mix flour, spices, and sugar. Melt butter, mix up yeast mixture, and crush the saffron in the rosewater to extract the color. When the butter is melted, stir it into the flour mixture, then add sack, yeast mixture, and rosewater-saffron mixture. Stir this until smooth, then stir in currants. Bake at 350 in a greased 10" round pan or a 7"x11" rectangular pan for 40 minutes. Remove from pan and spread with a thin layer of icing; We usually cut it up into bar cookies. Elizabeth/Betty Cook Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 19:35:06 -0800 From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <acrouss at gte.net> Subject: SC: Another Very Good Cake Was: Re: SC - Digby's Excellent Cake Hi all from Anne-Marie. Just for comparisons sake, here's another cake from Digby. You'll notice lots of similarities to the one in Cariadoc and Elizabeths work. There's a few differences too. We found that even the short half hour of rising makes a difference. We chose golden raisens mostly becuase I prefer them :) This cake is pretty good at room temperature. When warm, however, the sack and nutmeg combine and become aromatic and heady...Wonderful stuff! If you use or publish this recipe, all I ask is that you let me know. Enjoy! This one is a favorite with some of us in the Guild here in Madrone. - --AM Another very good Cake (Digby p212) Take four quarts of fine flour, two pound and half of Butter, three quarters of a pound of Sugar, four Nutmegs, a little Mace, a pound of Almonds finely beaten, half a pint of Sack, a pint of good Ale-yeast, a pint of boiled Cream, twelve yolks, and four whites of eggs; four pound of Currans. When you have wrought all these into a very fine paste, let it be kept warm before the fire half an hour, before you set it into the Oven. If you please, you may put into it two pound of Raisens of the Sun stoned and quartered. Let your Oven be of a temperate heat, and let your Cake stand therein two hours and a half, before you ice it; and afterwards only to harden the ice. The ice for this Cake is made thus. Take the whites of three new-laid eggs, and three quarters of a pound of fine Sugar finely beaten; beat it well together with the whites of the eggs, and ice the Cake. If you please you may add a little Musk or Ambergreece. Another Very Good Cake from Digby p212 (amounts from original in proportion, just scaled down) 3 1/4 c flour 2 sticks butter, softened Cut in butter with fork/your hand until mealy (no lumps) Add 1/3 c. sugar 2 t nutmeg 1/4 tsp mace 1 c currants 2/3 c. golden raisens 3/4 cup ground almonds mix well to blend. Beat well together: 1/2 c half and half, warmed to body temp. 1/4 c. sack (Dry Sack, available from the liquor store, NOT cooking sherry!) 1 egg 2 egg yolks Dissolve 1t yeast in 1/3 cup beer or warm water.. let it sit on the stove with the oven on till it's a bit burbly and warmed up. Add to beaten egg stuff. Mix well with a fork. Add to dry ingredients. Mix well. It's a heavy dough, like cookie dough. Butter and flour a ring mold. Spoon the dough into the ring mold, and cover with a towl. Let rise in a warm place 1/2 hour (it will not apprciably rise). Bake in a 350o oven for 1 hour 15 minutes. Do not overbake...check by sticking with a knife. It will come out damp looking, but not gooey. Remove from ring mold onto a cookie sheet. Drizzle with icing of 2 egg whites and 2 cups powdered sugar. Return to oven for a couple minutes to harden icing. Serve warm if possible. Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 21:23:08 -0800 From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> Subject: Re: SC - Hulwa / Halva At 12:04 PM +1100 2/11/98, Charles McCathieNevile wrote: >Does anybody know when Halva (as sold in shops) appeared, and whether it >has antecedents? I suppose I am looking for a chronology of desserts really. The word means "sweets" and appear in period Islamic cookbooks, but none of the recipes I have seen corresponds to what we now call Hulwa. The one I do is similar to divinity. I believe there is a sweet in _al-Baghdadi_ that uses sesame seeds in a way that can be interpreted as somewhat like the modern Hulwa, although not the same. I experimented with it a long time ago, but I don't think it is in the Miscellany. David/Cariadoc http://www.best.com/~ddfr/ Date: Thu, 19 Feb 98 14:25:23 CST From: "Melissa Martines" <melissa.martines at mail.corpfamily.com> Subject: SC - Roman Desserts I've received several private requests for the recipes for the Roman desserts I mentioned in my post to Rebecca, so I thought the whole list might enjoy them. BTW, Rebecca mentioned she had tried the cottage cheese dish and her test tasters had said it was too weird. When Roz and I did this for the feast, it was served to our three "above the salt" tables who paid extra money and got extra dishes for the "adventurous diner" (this allowed us to serve some strange Roman dishes like fish stew, garum and snails.) So, the cottage cheese may be too weird for the average feast eater, but I like it :) (These are the recipe sizes for one table of 8) Gustum De Piris (Poached Pears) 4 fresh pears, peeled and sliced off the core 1 c. Tokay (or really sweet red) wine 1 c. water 1/2 c. honey Mix wine, water and honey. Warm until thoroughly mixed, then add pear slices. Boil, then simmer 10 minutes or until tender but still firm. Remove from heat and chill. Before serving, drain off most of liquid. Patina de Persicis (Peach Custard) 1 30 oz. can peaches in heavy syrup 4 eggs 1 5 oz can evaporated milk 1/2 c. sugar Blend all ingredients (food processor is handy). Bake at 350 for 40 minutes. Serve warm or cold. Mel et Caseum (Cottage Cheese and Honey) 1 lb. cottage cheese 1/2 c. honey 1 tsp. poppy seeds Mix cheese and honey thoroughly. Sprinkle with poppy seeds and serve. THLady Morgan MacBride Shire of Glaedenfeld Meridies Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 02:08:39 EST From: korrin.daardain at juno.com (Korrin S DaArdain) Subject: SC - Recipes x3 M'Lords and M'Ladys, I thought people might enjoy these. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Custard with Dates and Raisins, Spiced From "The Tudor Kitchen's Cookery Book" Hampton Court Palace; Printed in The Oregonian Newspaper Food Day Mar 10, 1998. Creamy, rich custards are as popular today as they were in Tudor times, and the method of making them is very similar. Spices and dried fruits were added or other flavorings such as marigold petals, which would also add a rich golden color. If you want to make the custard alone, omit the pastry from this recipe and bake in an oven proof dish, but instead of putting the dried fruit on the base, sprinkle it over the top after cooking. Pastry: 2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup butter 2 tb sugar Cold water to mix Rub the flour and butter together until it resembles fine crumbs, stir in the sugar if you want a slightly sweet crust. Add about 2 to 3 ts of cold water and mix into a firm dough; knead lightly until smooth. Roll out pastry and line a deep, 8-inch springform cake tin. Bring the pastry right up the sides, moulding with your fingers, if necessary. Pinch the top edge to decorate, prick the base and chill for about half an hour. Line the pastry case with foil or wax paper and baking beans, place on a baking sheet and bake at 400 deg for 25 minutes, removing the foil or paper and beans for the last 5 minutes. While crust bakes, make filling. Filling: 2 cups whipping cream 3 tb sugar 2 tb butter 3 cloves 1/2 ts ground mace 1 pinch saffron 3 egg yolks Heat the cream with the sugar, butter, cloves, mace and saffron until just on the point of boiling. Allow to cool for 5 minutes. Reduce oven to 350 deg. Beat the yolks in a bowl and strain the hot cream on top, wisking to mix well. Sprinkle the chopped dried fruit onto the pastery base and pour in the custard. Return to the oven for about 30 minutes, until just firm and very slightly wobbly in the center. Remove and cool. The center of the custard should then firm as it cools without over cooking. Refrigerate if not serving right away. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Korrin S. DaArdain Dodging trees in the Kingdom of An Tir. Korrin.DaArdain at Juno.com Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 21:03:13 EST From: geneviamoas at juno.com Subject: Re: SC - turkish recipe page? Woops!!! Sorry it is under Ancient Roman Recipes and is called Dulcia Domestica (housemade dessert) credited to Apic.7, 13, 1 . Try <www.tubears.com> 50,000 Recipes - Ancient Roman Recipes. Or see below. I first found it at last years Atlantian Kingdom Arts and Sciences Festival . Dulcia Domestica - Housemade Dessert Ingredients: 200g Fresh or dried dates 50g coarsely ground nuts ( almonds ) or stone-pine Kernels a little bit of salt Honey or Red wine with honey (to stew) Instructions: Take the stones out of the dates and fill them with nuts or stone pine kernels. Sprinkle a bit of salt on the filled dates and stew them in honey ( or honey sweetened red wine ) The dates have to be cooked in on low heat until their paring starts to come off. ( about 5 - 10 min. ) Note: you may also fill some dates with ground pepper. suggested in the original it is not my idea. Enjoy - Genevia Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 22:09:20 -0800 From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> Subject: Re: SC - turkish recipe page? >Dulcia Domestica - Housemade Dessert > >Ingredients: >200g Fresh or dried dates >50g coarsely ground nuts ( almonds ) or stone-pine Kernels >a little bit of salt >Honey or Red wine with honey (to stew) > >Instructions: > >Take the stones out of the dates and fill them with nuts or stone pine >kernels. Sprinkle a bit of salt on the filled dates and stew them in >honey ( or honey sweetened red wine ) The dates have to be cooked in on >low heat until their paring starts to come off. ( about 5 - 10 min. ) > >Note: you may also fill some dates with ground pepper. suggested in the >original it is not my idea. Here is the original recipe, from the Flowers and Rosenbaum translation, which I gather is the most reliable: Stone dates, and stuff with nuts, pine-kernels, or ground pepper. Roll in salt, fry in cooked honey, and serve. Does anyone know what "cooked honey" is? It occurs to me that it might be honey that had been cooked down, as you cook down a sugar syrup (except that it is harder to do with honey without burning). That would be at a temperature above boiling, which might explain why the recipe describes it as "frying" ("frigis") rather than stewing or boiling. David/Cariadoc Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 10:02:46 -0400 From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow) Subject: Re: SC - turkish recipe page? <snip> > >Here is the original recipe, from the Flowers and Rosenbaum translation, >which I gather is the most reliable: > >Stone dates, and stuff with nuts, pine-kernels, or ground pepper. Roll in >salt, fry in cooked honey, and serve. > >Does anyone know what "cooked honey" is? It occurs to me that it might be >honey that had been cooked down, as you cook down a sugar syrup (except >that it is harder to do with honey without burning). That would be at a >temperature above boiling, which might explain why the recipe describes it >as "frying" ("frigis") rather than stewing or boiling. > >David/Cariadoc Hello! Here is Vehling's translation for comparison: "Dulcia Domestica Et Melcae Home-made Sweets Dulcia Domestica #294 Little home confections (which are called dulciaria) are made thus: little palms or (as they are ordinarily called) dates are stuffed - after the seeds have been removed - with a nut or with the nuts and ground pepper, sprinked with salt on the outside and are candied in honey and served." Louise Sugar asks: >does honey caramelize when cooked? if so it sounds like taffy >apples/dates to me :D I've done honey candy (see Pynade in the Harleian MSS.), and you *can* get the honey to a taffy state (either soft ball or hard ball). I've also cooked the honey longer, and thrown in some nuts (a few days ago, just for grins) The result was candied nuts that were crisp when dried on a baking sheet for a few minutes. Caveat: I neglected to blanch the nuts first & the tannins leached out, making the end product bitter. Cindy/Sincgiefu renfrow at skylands.net Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 12:42:51 -0800 From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> Subject: Re: SC - turkish recipe page? At 10:02 AM -0400 3/27/98, Cindy Renfrow wrote: >Hello! Here is Vehling's translation for comparison: > >"Dulcia Domestica Et Melcae > >Home-made Sweets Dulcia Domestica >#294 Little home confections (which are called dulciaria) are made thus: >little palms or (as they are ordinarily called) dates are stuffed - after >the seeds have been removed - with a nut or with the nuts and ground >pepper, sprinked with salt on the outside and are candied in honey and >served." Flowers and Rosenbaum give the original Latin as well, and I think it is pretty clear that they are following it and Vehling (as usual) is not. For example, the construction for the alternative stuffings is "vel ..vel ..." (or ... or) which doesn't seem consistent with "nuts and ground pepper." David/Cariadoc http://www.best.com/~ddfr/ Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1998 10:39:16 -0500 From: vjarmstrong at aristotle.net (Valoise Armstrong) Subject: SC - Weixeltorten Yesterday evening I attended a great potluck feast at the nearby shire of Lagerdamm. There were only a couple of dozen people there but everyone made an effort to bring period foods, even the store-bought items were limited to roast chicken, loaves of bread and other dishes that didn't jar with the attempt to keep things in persona. The dinner conversation didn't stray to out of period topics and even those who seemed awkward with this kind of 'high persona' event seemed to enjoy themselves. I made the decision to attend on fairly short notice and did something I usually try to avoid - I took a dish that I had not pre-tested. Granted, it's a fairly simple fruit pie, but I have a personally-imposed rule about trying out experiments on large groups of unwilling victims. Turned out pretty good, though, and I thought I'd share with the list. It's a sour cherry tart from Sabina Welserin. I've replaced the period 's' forms with modern ones in the German text. 130 Ain weixeltorten zu machen Nim die weixlen, thu die stain heraus, mach ain boden wie zu den andern torten, nim ain semmelmel, geriben von ainem dem brot, vnnd reschts jm scmaltz, schits auf den boden, see zucker vnnd rerlen darauff, thu dan die weixlen darauff, lass das gesafft jn der schissel, besee es woll mit zucker vnnd mit zimet, mach ain boden darjber, lasst es sittlich bachen. 130 To make a sour cherry