breakng-t-pot-msg - 12/10/16 Period recipes where you are supposed to break the pot to remove the food. NOTE: See also the files: pottery-msg, pottery-whels-msg, chicken-msg, chck-n-pastry-msg, pies-msg, dough-contain-msg, merch-pottery-msg, potry-utn-care-msg, pottery-cookng-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 ************************************************************************ Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 16:55:05 -0500 To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org From: "Cindy M. Renfrow" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Steamed Puddings... Here's one using a clay pot. The pot is broken to remove the Appraylere. Harleian MS. 279 - Leche Vyaundez xxvij. Appraylere. Take [th]e fleysshe of [th]e lene Porke, & se[th]e it wel: & whan it is so[th]e, hew it smal; nym [th]an Safroun, Gyngere, Canel, Salt, Galyngale, old chese, myid Brede, & bray it smal on a morter; caste [th]in fleysshe in to [th]e spicery, & loke [th]at it be wil y-ground, & temper it vppe with raw Eyroun; [th]an take a longe Pecher, al a-bowte ouer alle [th]at it be ransched; [th]an held out [th]in grece, & fulle [th]i Pechir of [th]in farsure, & take a pese of fayre Canneuas, & doble it as moche as [th]ou may ceuyr [th]e mou[th]e with-al, & bynd it fast a-bowte [th]e berde, & caste hym to se[th]e with [th]in grete Fleysshe, in lede o[th]er in Cauderoun, for it be wyl so[th]in; take [th]en vppe [th]in Pecher, & breke it, an saf [th]in farsure; & haue a fayre broche, & broche it [th]orw, & lay it to [th]e fyre; & [th]an haue a gode Bature of Spicerye, Safroun, Galyngale, Canel, & [th]er-of y-now, & flowre, & grynd smal in a morter, & temper it vp with raw Eyroun, & do [th]er-to Sugre of Alisaunder y-now; & euer as it dryit, baste it with bature, & sette forth in seruyce. Cindy Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 06:55:01 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Jewish Chop Suey And of course the actual recipe is very easy to find by either Googling or just going to His Grace's website and searching An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the 13th Century as Translated by   Charles Perry http://daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/andalusian2.htm#Heading116 A Stuffed, Buried Jewish Dish[42] Pound some meat cut round, and be careful that there be no bones in   it. Put it in a pot and throw in all the spices except cumin, four   spoonfuls of oil, two spoonfuls of penetrating rosewater, a little   onion juice, a little water and salt, and veil it with a thick cloth.   Put it on a moderate fire and cook it with care. Pound meat as for   meatballs, season it and make little meatballs and throw them [p. 21,   recto] in the pot until they are done. When everything is done, beat   five eggs with salt, pepper, and cinnamon; make a thin layer [a flat   omelette or egg crepe; literally "a tajine"] of this in a frying pan,   and beat five more eggs with what will make another thin layer. Then   take a new pot and put in a spoonful of oil and boil it a little, put   in the bottom one of the two layers, pour the meat onto it, and cover   with the other layer. Then beat three eggs with a little white flour,   pepper, cinnamon, and some rosewater with the rest of the pounded   meat, and put this over the top of the pot. Then cover it with a   potsherd of fire[43] until it is browned, and be careful that it not   burn. Then break the pot and put the whole mass on a dish, and cover   it with "eyes" of mint, pistachios and pine-nuts, and add spices. You   might put on this dish all that has been indicated, and leave out the   rosewater and replace it with a spoonful of juice of cilantro pounded   with onion, and half a spoonful of murri naq?'; put in it all that was   put in the first, God, the Most High, willing. Johnnae Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:31:48 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Jewish Chop Suey On Oct 30, 2009, at 11:01 AM, Susan Lin wrote: I was fine with the recipe until I got to the "break the pot" part.    Do they really mean break the pot or just take the lid off? Shoshanna ... Then break the pot and put the whole mass on a dish, and cover   it with "eyes" of mint, pistachios and pine-nuts, and add spices. ... ============= There are a number of candy recipes where a mixture candies in a pot and to get the finished dish out, one breaks the actual pot. Pots were cheap enough to allow for this is the best guess. Johnnae Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:52:46 -0400 From: Robin Carroll-Mann To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Jewish Chop Suey On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 11:01 AM, Susan Lin wrote: <<< I was fine with the recipe until I got to the "break the pot" part. ?Do they really mean break the pot or just take the lid off? >>> According to Charles Perry's footnote, this is a version of adafina (called cholent among Ashkenazi Jews), which is left to cooked slowly overnight so that a hot meal can be served on the Sabbath. There are two other chicken recipes in that section of the cookbook that call for sealing the lid in place with dough.  (A chicken recipe in de Nola also uses a dough seal.)  After many hours of baking, the dough seal would turn into something hard that had to be broken open. And if the pot was made of clay, it might be easiest to break that. As Johnnae observed, clay is cheap. Since this recipe doesn't specify sealing the lid with dough, this is speculative, but it fits with what we know about cooking methods of the time. Brighid ni Chiarain Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:14:33 -0500 From: Judith Epstein To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Jewish Chop Suey On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 11:01 AM, Susan Lin wrote: <<< I was fine with the recipe until I got to the "break the pot" part.    Do they really mean break the pot or just take the lid off? >>> It sounds like either dafina or a forerunner of pot pie. I would guess   that one should break the dough seal, rather than the pot itself,   given how wasteful it would be to break the pot. You could break it   wrong and wind up spilling your dafina all over the counter, instead   of merely making a nice neat crack that leaves the food intact and   edible. Judith / no SCA name yet Master Albrecht Waldfurster's Egg Middle Kingdom, Midlands, Ayreton, Tree-Girt-Sea (Chicago, IL) Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:55:06 -0700 From: lilinah at earthlink.net To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Jewish Chop Suey On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 11:01 AM, Susan Lin wrote: <<< I was fine with the recipe until I got to the "break the pot" part. Do they really mean break the pot or just take the lid off? >>> Judith replied: <<< It sounds like either dafina or a forerunner of pot pie. I would guess that one should break the dough seal, rather than the pot itself, given how wasteful it would be to break the pot. You could break it wrong and wind up spilling your dafina all over the counter, instead of merely making a nice neat crack that leaves the food intact and edible. >>> Johnnae mentioned: <<< Pots were cheap enough to allow for this is the best guess. >>> Brighid ni Chiarain responded: <<< According to Charles Perry's footnote, this is a version of adafina (called cholent among Ashkenazi Jews), which is left to cooked slowly overnight so that a hot meal can be served on the Sabbath. There are two other chicken recipes in that section of the cookbook that call for sealing the lid in place with dough.  (A chicken recipe in de Nola also uses a dough seal.)  After many hours of baking, the dough seal would turn into something hard that had to be broken open. And if the pot was made of clay, it might be easiest to break that. As Johnnae observed, clay is cheap. Since this recipe doesn't specify sealing the lid with dough, this is speculative, but it fits with what we know about cooking methods of the time. >>> Most common cookware was relatively low fire red clay, it was cheap and as close to "disposable" as they had in Europe and much of the Near and Middle East. Many recipes in the Arabic-language corpus call for cooking in a new pot. So breaking the pot wouldn't have been a big deal. There are a number of other recipes in the Arabic-language corpus that also instruct to break the pot of a cooked dish in order to serve. -- Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM) the persona formerly known as Anahita Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:08:20 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Jewish Chop Suey Could you adapt it to a slowcooker and use one of the liners? (Reynolds? Slow Cooker Liners) How about layering in an oven bag and lifting everything out while in the bag? Johnnae On Oct 30, 2009, at 2:58 PM, Susan Lin wrote: <<< okay after reading all of this the question now is - what is the substitute because I'm not breaking a pot - even if I had a cheap earthenware one.  And since it's likely I would use a piece of cast iron - it's not an option. Shoshanna >>> Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:21:32 -0700 From: lilinah at earthlink.net To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Jewish Chop Suey Shoshanna wrote: <<< okay after reading all of this the question now is - what is the substitute because I'm not breaking a pot - even if I had a cheap earthenware one.  And since it's likely I would use a piece of cast iron - it's not an option. >>> I'd say, cook it in any pot of appropriate material for the cooking method which has a mouth the same width or wider than the base. When finished cooking and cooled enough to handle, carefully turn upside down into a dish that is a little wider than the mouth of the pot and capacious enough to hold the food. Well, ok, one trick is to have the serving dish be relatively heat resistant (i.e., no plastic :-), place it bottom up with its mouth over the mouth of the pot, then, holding them in place together, invert both dish and pot so that the pot empties into the dish. Won't necessarily have the same result as breaking a cheap low-fire ceramic pot, but beats destroying modern cookware or expensive re-creation cookware. -- Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM) the persona formerly known as Anahita Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:22:49 -0400 From: Robin Carroll-Mann To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Jewish Chop Suey On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 2:58 PM, Susan Lin wrote: <<< because I'm not breaking a pot - even if I had a cheap earthenware one. ?And since it's likely I would use a piece of cast iron - it's not an option. >>> If you're using cast iron, why not use dough to seal it?  You might need a knife to open it, but it wouldn't harm the pot. Brighid ni Chiarain Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:24:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Euriol of Lothian To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Jewish Chop Suey I would also say it beats having fragments of said cheap low-fire clay pot winding up in your food too. Euriol of Lothian, OP Clerk, Order of the Pelican, Kingdom of ?thelmearc Chronicler, Barony of Endless Hills ----- Original Message ---- Shoshanna wrote: <<< okay after reading all of this the question now is - what is the substitute because I'm not breaking a pot - even if I had a cheap earthenware one.  And since it's likely I would use a piece of cast iron - it's not an option. >>> I'd say, cook it in any pot of appropriate material for the cooking method which has a mouth the same width or wider than the base. When finished cooking and cooled enough to handle, carefully turn upside down into a dish that is a little wider than the mouth of the pot and capacious enough to hold the food. Well, ok, one trick is to have the serving dish be relatively heat resistant (i.e., no plastic :-), place it bottom up with its mouth over the mouth of the pot, then, holding them in place together, invert both dish and pot so that the pot empties into the dish. Won't necessarily have the same result as breaking a cheap low-fire ceramic pot, but beats destroying modern cookware or expensive re-creation cookware. -- Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM) the persona formerly known as Anahita Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:40:54 -0300 From: Suey To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org Subject: [Sca-cooks] Break the Pot Susan Lin wrote: <<< I was fine with the recipe until I got to the "break the pot" part.  Do they really mean break the pot or just take the lid off? >>> They really do mean to break the pot for hygienic reasons. Soapstone pots, especially, were used only once because they absorb organic residue. Nowadays we overlook this instruction as pots are made of other materials which do not absorb food being cooked in them. Suey Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:41:44 -0400 From: Craig Daniel To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Jewish Chop Suey How about buying a terra cotta flower pot? Those are awfully cheap, the saucers they come with can be used as lids and sealed on with dough, and they should be foodsafe (I've heard of them being used as cloches for baking before without trouble, anyhow). Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:49:20 -0400 From: Karstyl To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Break the Pot <<< They really do mean to break the pot for hygienic reasons. Soapstone pots, especially, were used only once because they absorb organic residue. Nowadays we overlook this instruction as pots are made of other materials which do not absorb food being cooked in them. Suey >>> Porous pots are not necessarily non-hygienic. Especially if you heat them when you cook. There was also a lack of understanding of germ theory in period, so this would not be a period reason to not re-use a pot. The reason given for using new pots in certain recipes is that an old pot would absorb flavors. In something like a tagine this is considered a good thing, the flavors transfer from one dish to the next and build on each other. In some dishes you would not want the flavor of old food, so the instructions would include to use a new pot. Also, if they used a new pot for everything, it would probably not be written down in a few recipes, it would either be in every recipe or, more likely, just assumed for each. -Hrefna Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:47:24 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Break the pot On Oct 30, 2009, at 4:52 PM, Suey wrote: <<< I do not recall any English recipes calling for breaking those pots.   Do you? >>> This is from Delights for ladies 1609 33 - To candie Nutmegs or Ginger with an hard rock candy. Take one   pound of fine sugar, and eight spoonfuls of Rose-water, and the weight   of six pence of Gum Arabique, that is cleere: boyle them together to   such an height, as that, dropping some thereof out of a spoon, the   sirup doe rope and runne into the smallnesse of an haire: then put it   into an earthen pipkin; wherein place your Nutmegs, Ginger, or such   like: then stop it close with a sawcer, and lute it well with clay,   that not aire may enter: then keepe it in a hot place three weeks, and   it will candy hard. you must breake your pot with a hammer, for   otherwise you cannot get out your candy. You may also candy Orenges or   Lemmons in like sort, if you please. Johnnae Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:49:28 -0400 From: Karstyl To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Break the pot Hrefna wrote: > Porous pots are not necessarily non-hygienic. . . . Suey wrote: <<< I have never seen a PS saying do not throw out a tagine cause one wants the flavors to transfer from on one dish to the next. I have only seen 'break the pot'. A curious point is that we have to break the pot in Spain where pots were clay or of other materials. During the Middle Ages, Spain was exporting clay pots to England. I do not recall any English recipes calling for breaking those pots. Do you? Also I cannot find my reference but I clearly remember someone between the 13th C Al-Andalus MS and Nola saying that the cooks did not trust the dishwashers. They took the pots outside and lay them on the ground bottom side up so the pots acquired the bad elements from the earth! When you publish that ditty make sure you quote me hey ;-) ! Suey >>> The note about tagine's is one from modern sources, but I used it as a point of what is carried over in an unglazed clay pot. I have, and use, a few unglazed clay pots. I never fear poisoning my guests. It would make more sense for an area that made more pots to treat them as more disposable. I do know that there were pots being made in Britain throughout the middle ages, that is where I have studied pottery forms the most. They had both production centers and at home/small town potters. I would think that the fuel to fire the pots would be way more expensive then the clay and the labor to make them, so maybe Spain had more fuel, or cheaper fuel. Imported pots were always more expensive, they are heavy, bulky, and break easily. There were imported pots, but many of the home cooking hearth pots were not imported. (I would add sources, but I am on my way out to a Halloween party, and am still sewing my costume.) Most of the 'break the pot' recipes I remember have to do with the contents solidifying and the neck being smaller then the body, so if you did not want to break up your food, you would have to break the pot. The bit about cooks not trusting the pot washers with the clay pots shows that they did wash them, if they were never washed then you would not complain about the washers! -Hrefna Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:40:25 -0400 From: Elise Fleming To: sca-cooks Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Break the Pot There is also the English recipe (1400s?) about making a meat dish in the shape of a jar - appraylere.  You can see two videos of it on the Tudor Cook YouTube site: http://www.youtube.com/Gandi54 . Scroll down to find "basting the appraylere" and "appraylere removed from its jug". Both videos were shot two years ago. Alys K. -- Elise Fleming alysk at ix.netcom.com http://home.netcom.com/~alysk/ Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:51:27 -0400 From: Elise Fleming To: sca-cooks Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] to break or not to break is the question Greetings!  I think our modern view is clouding the issue here.  We think clay pots are something to be kept and relatively costly (to us).  We wouldn't toss out our pans.  But... we do.  We use disposable foil containers for roasting meats, baking pies, and so on.  We think nothing of throwing out valuable metal dishes.  To us, they cost nothing and are disposable. Stefan wrote: <<< But are we really referring to breaking the pot, vs. breaking the (a) seal of dough or whatever? We've been working from a translation, not the original wording. What language was it originally written in? Could the word translate as "breaking the pot" but actually be a colloquialism that actually meant breaking the seal, although literally it means breaking the pot? There are modern examples such as "breaking a record". >>> I helped translate the Anonymous Andalusian recipes from Spanish into English, and it was breaking the pot, not the seal.  Perry agreed with the translation of pot when he went back to the Arabic.  While the English don't seem to have broken pots with the frequency mentioned in the Anonymous Andalusian recipes, perhaps the Spanish were more accustomed to making cheap clay pots and using them in a disposable fashion.  I'm not sure that the Spanish used dough coffins with the frequency that the English recipes mention their use. As to leaving fragments of clay in the food, I'm wondering if there is a commonality among the texture/thickness/solidity of the foods where the pots were broken.  I certainly wouldn't expect a broken pot with a soupy mixture, but I would suspect that with solid foods, and with skill, there wouldn't be lots of little bits of clay pot hiding in the resultant food. Alys K. -- Elise Fleming alysk at ix.netcom.com http://home.netcom.com/~alysk/ Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:57:38 -0700 From: David Friedman To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Jewish Chop Suey <<< There are two other chicken recipes in that section of the cookbook that call for sealing the lid in place with dough.  (A chicken recipe in de Nola also uses a dough seal.) >>> As does "Capon Stwed" in _Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books_. But we've never had to break the pot. -- David/Cariadoc www.daviddfriedman.com Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 08:15:55 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] to break or not to break is the question One important thing to remember about the confectionery instructions is that the expensive part was the sugar followed by the spices or   fruits. Breaking a pot to get the finished candied product out was just easier and apparently worked. Johnnae Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 08:21:13 -0400 From: Johnna Holloway To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Break the Pot 1430's actually. xxvij - Appraylere. Take the fleysshe of the lene Porke, and sethe it   wel: and whan it is sothe, hew it smal; nym than Safroun, Gyngere,   Canel, Salt, Galyngale, old chese, myid (Note: Crumbed) Brede, and   bray it smal on a morter; caste thin (Note: Thine)fleysshe in to the   spicery, and loke that it be wil y-ground, and temper it vppe with raw   Eyroun; than take a longe Pecher, al a-bowte ouer alle that it be   ransched; (Note: Rinsed) than held (Note: Cast) out thin grece, and   fulle thi Pechir of thin farsure, and take a pese of fayre Canneuas,   and doble it as moche as thou may ceuyr the mouthe with-al, and bynd   it fast a-bowte the berde, (Note: Rim) and caste hym to sethe with   thin grete Fleysshe, in lede other in Cauderoun, for it be wyl sothin;   take then vppe thin Pecher, and breke it, an saf thin farsure; and   haue a fayre broche, and broche it thorw, and lay it to the fyre; and   than haue a gode Bature of Spicerye, Safroun, Galyngale, Canel, and   ther-of y-now, and flowre, and grynd smal in a morter, and temper it   vp with raw Eyroun, and do ther-to Sugre of Alisaunder (Note:   Alexandria) y-now; and euer as it dryit, baste it with bature, and   sette forth in seruyce. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books http://www.medievalcookery.com/cgi/display.pl?tfccb:180 Johnnae On Oct 30, 2009, at 7:40 PM, Elise Fleming wrote: <<< There is also the English recipe (1400s?) about making a meat dish   in the shape of a jar - appraylere.  You can see two videos of it on   the Tudor Cook YouTube site: http://www.youtube.com/Gandi54 . Scroll   down to find "basting the appraylere" and "appraylere removed from   its jug". Both videos were shot two years ago. Alys K. >>> Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:53:49 -0400 From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] to break or not to break is the question On Oct 31, 2009, at 2:19 PM, Cheri or Anne wrote: <<< I'm just wondering if it would be akin to baking a chicken in clay on a fire? anne >>> Probably. My suspicion is that while ceramic pots, and even terra   cotta, are something of a fancy foodie commodity now, they were cheap, plentiful, and easily replaced in many of the cultures our period   recipes represent. I STR Le Menagier speaks of throwing away burnt   pots (as well as the plethora of period references to putting foods   into a new, clean, "fair" pot). Talk to anyone using or making period-type clay pots today, and within minutes you get a dozen horror stories of pots that cracked when   improperly used, placed too near the coals, or through simple   cussedness. Now note the Islamic recipes that speak of using a hot potshard as a   means of browning foods on the top without an oven or broiler; I   suspect broken clay pots were an everyday thing for these people,   rather like coming up with uses for stale bread. Broken potshards also turn up as rubble for filling hollow wall   structures, for example. If a recipe says to break the pot, my suspicion is that if the   translation is accurate, they probably mean exactly that; or at least   the seeming outlandishness of the statement to us is no reason to   assume the translation is wrong. Adamantius Edited by Mark S. Harris breakng-t-pot-msg 2 of 11