cook-flowers-msg - 12/1/06
Cooking with flowers. Medieval flower dishes.
NOTE: See also the files: herbs-msg, herbs-cooking-msg, Roses-a-Sugar-art, sotelties-msg, roses-art, lavender-msg, p-herbals-msg, gardening-bib.
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Stefan at florilegium.org
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From: hrjones at uclink.berkeley.edu (Heather Rose Jones)
Newsgroups: rec.food.historic,rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Pre-1600 flower dishes
Date: 11 Mar 1994 05:12:42 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
In article <2lo4oq$isk at alpha.epas.utoronto.ca>,
Michael McKay <mmckay at epas.utoronto.ca> wrote:
> A friend of mine is planning on hosting a feast in July called
>the "Feast of Flowers" and she wants me to cater it with pre-1600
>dishes that employ flowers. Can any of you give me some recipes or sources?
>Thank you.
>
Look for a recipie called "Sambocade". In its original form (many later
corrupted versions appear) it was a fritter of elder flowers. If you can find,
it, there is a facsimile reprint (probably by the "English Experience"
series, but I'm missing some of the title pages) of a 1653 book entitled
"A Book of Fruits and Flowers" that has some relevant recipies -- although
later than your target period. The collection "A Fifteenth Century Cookry
Boke" has the following recipie:
Roseye
Take Almaunde Mylke and flowre of Rys, & Sugre, an Safroun,
an boyle hem y-fere; than take Red Rosys, and grynd fayre in a
morter with Almaunde mylke; than take Loches, an toyle hem with
Flowre, an frye hem, & ley him in dysshys; than take gode pouder,
and do in the Sewe, & caste the Sewe a-bouyn the lochys, & serve forth.
In other words, make a sauce of almond milk and rose petals thickened
with rice flour, and pour it over fried fish.
The same source has sauces/puddings (in the modern sense) flavored with
primroses, hawthorn flowers, or violets. Check it out.
Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glavryn
From: davesg at netaxs.com (David J. Szent-Gyorgyi)
Newsgroups: rec.food.historic,rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Pre-1600 flower dishes
Date: 14 Mar 1994 05:45:28 GMT
Organization: Magyarotropic Medievialophiles
Michael McKay (mmckay at epas.utoronto.ca) wrote:
: A friend of mine is planning on hosting a feast in July called
: the "Feast of Flowers" and she wants me to cater it with pre-1600
: dishes that employ flowers. Can any of you give me some recipes or sources?
: Thank you.
The recipe below is taken from George Lang's THE CUISINE OF HUNGARY. It
is one of seven English-language translations for recipes provided in
the history of Hungarian cuisine at the front of the book. The recipes
are taken from an early sixteenth-century manuscript now in the
Szechenyi Library in Budapest, and from THE BOOK OF MIHALYI
SZENT-BENEDEKI (1601). Unfortunately, the primary sources aren't
provided.
Forgive me for posting a recipe without the primary source; I don't
have it. I'm willing to trust Lang's experience and background. He's a
professional restaurateur, and was born in Hungary. If you're
interested in the history of Hungarian food, you must read this book,
which is full of historical information -- Lang spends 150 pages on the
culinary history of Hungary and on profiles of the gastronomic regions
of the country!
I'll be a while tracking down the medieval manuscripts and books listed
in the bibliography; I'm looking for enough recipes to hold a period
Hungarian feast, complete with documentation for each dish.
Here's the recipe:
ROSE DOUGHNUT
"Make a batter of egg, flour and as much whey as necessary for right
consistency. Take a fully developed white or red rose with some of the
stem; wash it, and put it into a clean bowl to drain. (Make sure that
there are no bugs inside flower.) Dip it into the light batter, and
stand it up in plenty of hot butter to fry. Shake it every now and then
to make sure its petals will stand apart as they did on the rosebush.
If you add some rosewater to the batter, so much the better. Flavor
with cane honey."
Lang asks whether this recipe was a "poetic variation of the
zucchini-flower fritter they must have learned from the Italians some
generations ago."
If you quote the recipe, note that accents aigus should be used over
the two E's in "Szechenyi" and over the A in "Mihalyi."
Best of luck with the feast!
, , ,
Dave Szent-Gyorgyi/Kolozsvari Arpad, to his SCA friends
--- , , ,
Dave Szent-Gyorgyi Kolozsvari Arpad
davesg at netaxs.com border of Bhakail & Hartshorn-dale, East Kingdom, SCA
"We HAVE to teach the net On a field Sable, a trident between
to handle diacriticals!" two hippocampi respectant Or.
From: greg at bronze.lcs.mit.edu (Greg Rose)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Pre-1600 flower dishes
Date: 12 Mar 1994 11:58:10 -0500
Organization: MIT LCS guest machine
Greetings, all, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn. Again, I'm posting from Hossein's
account (mine being uncommunicative), but speaking only for myself.
Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glavryn responded to Michael McKay:
>> A friend of mine is planning on hosting a feast in July called
>>the "Feast of Flowers" and she wants me to cater it with pre-1600
>>dishes that employ flowers. Can any of you give me some recipes or sources?
>>Thank you.
>
>Look for a recipie called "Sambocade". In its original form (many later
>corrupted versions appear) it was a fritter of elder flowers.
The scholarship I have seen agrees as to the origin, but no actual recipe
I have seen calls for elder flowers. I'm not sure that such a recipe is
known, at least in English. (Elder flowers are pretty much unique to
Anglo-Norman cuisine, at least partly because of where they grow.)
Before plunging into a list of recipes, a couple of words of caution.
I see essentially three difficulties with preparing period dishes of which
flowers are a major ingredient. First, some of these are simply not available,
at least in places I have lived. After roses, the most common flowers in
early English cuisine are hawthorne blossoms and elder blossoms. Right. Not
available at any price, at any time of year, in the quantities one would need
for even quite a small feast.
Second, many of these, while available, are most readily available in
radically different forms. "Rose" does _not_ mean "American Beauty": what we
have around now are mostly hybrid tea roses. It is possible to get eglantine,
for instance, but it is not easy. I have no idea what sort of violet was
native to England, but I'm fair to middling sure it wasn't African violets,
and I wouldn't want to bet it's the kind that show up wild in my yard in
Virginia. My point is not so much one of authenticity as that different
members of the a botanical family may differ wildly both in flavor and
in edibility. (Nightshade and tomatoes are related. The "berries" of the
latter are fine to eat....)
Third, unless you are growing the flowers yourself, you want to be _very_
careful about what comes with them. Flowers that are grown commercially
for sale as pretty blossoms have frequently been treated with lots of
chemicals that it is decidedly unwise to eat.
With those provisos:
Recipes calling for flowers are reasonably common in Anglo-Norman cuisine.
Recipes for rosee, spinee, and suade, which are sort of porridges of almond
milk with roses, hawthorn blossoms, or elder flowers respectively, occur in
the 13th C Anglo-Norman collection edited by Constance Hieatt in _Speculum_
(1986) and in all four of the complete MSs from the 14th C included in
_Curye on Inglysch_ (including Forme of Curye), sometimes twice in a single
collection (_Diuersa Cibaria_ has two of each). The recipe that Lady Tangwystl
included is a 15th C version of one of these dishes, which apparently were
both popular and persistent in the cuisine. They occur early in collections,
indicating that they tended to be served in the first course, and were viewed
as hearty staples rather than delicacies (!).
In addition, Utilis Coquinaria has recipes for primerole, pyany, heppee and
vyolet, which call for primroses, peony blossoms and seeds, roses and rose
hips, and violets respectively. Diuersa Servicia has a fritters recipe that
calls for apple blossoms.
All of these are available in _Curye on Ignlysch_, Constance B. Hieatt and
Sharon Butler, editors, Oxford University Press (1985) ISBN 0-19-722409-1.
If one is willing to go very slightly out of period (1609, if I recall the
date correctly), there are several recipes for preserving and candying flower
blossoms in Hugh Platt's _Delights for Ladies_. I got my copy of Hugh Platt
from Cariadoc, in the first volume of his collection of medieval cookbooks.
Good luck.
-- Angharad/Terry
From: hrjones at uclink.berkeley.edu (Heather Rose Jones)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Pre-1600 flower dishes
Date: 13 Mar 1994 17:34:08 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
>Greetings, all, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn. Again, I'm posting from Hossein's
>account (mine being uncommunicative), but speaking only for myself.
>>
>at least in places I have lived. After roses, the most common flowers in
>early English cuisine are hawthorne blossoms and elder blossoms. Right. Not
>available at any price, at any time of year, in the quantities one would need
>for even quite a small feast.
>
>-- Angharad/Terry
I beg to differ. In central California, the red elder is practically a weed,
growing profusely along roadsides (BAD collection site, due to car exhaust
contamination) and in other uncultivated areas. In fact, they should be
blooming about this time of year ... This is the same species as grows in
Europe (according to my herbal) but should be differentiated from the
dwarf elder (common in the eastern US).
If you found someone helpful in the Golden Rivers (Sacramento) area, you
might be able to get an express shipment of elder flowers that you fit your
needs.
Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: marian at world.std.com (marian walke)
Subject: Re: Pre-1600 flower dishes - sources for flowers
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 12:41:57 GMT
Have you tried your local health food/organic food stores?
Some of them sell dried flower parts (rose petals, rose hips, elder
flowers, dried violets, etc) for making herbal teas. Also available in
bulk from herb companies that do mail order - Frontier, Penn Herb, etc.
While rather expensive (compared with roadside gathering the stuff), you
have a good chance the items were meant for human consumption.
--Marian of Edwinstowe, Carolingia, EK
marian at world.std.com
From: L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt <liontamr at postoffice.ptd.net>
Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 09:39:55 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: SC - Edible Flowers
Hello all.
Today's thunderstorms are making me stay inside rather than be outside
planting my herb beds. Ras, I found and identified several red thrips
yesterday! I also found a bright green beetle, and they were all in the same
bed as an orange salamander, so I guess they weren't long for this world!
Anyway, as I was planting, I realized that I have very little knowledge of
edible flowers. I've been wondering if someone could post a short list.
These are the ones I know of, and I realize that they must be completely
organicaly (?) grown to be truely edible:
Rose
Pink
Marigold
Nasturtium
Dandelion
Violet
strawberry
The flowers of edible herbs
What else can I add to the list?
Aoife, dying for an excuse to buy more plants
From: PETERSR at spiegel.becltd.com (Peters, Rise J.)
Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 12:12:28 -0500
Subject: RE: SC - Edible Flowers
>>Carnations, but not if they're dyed. But they don't have much taste (kind
of like lettuce).
From: "Sue Wensel" <swensel at brandegee.lm.com>
Date: 19 May 1997 11:23:00 -0500
Subject: Re: SC - Edible Flowers
> These are the ones I know of, and I realize that they must be completely
> organicaly (?) grown to be truely edible:
>
> Rose
> Pink
> Marigold
> Nasturtium
> Dandelion
> Violet
Only the blue/purple violet flowers are safe to eat. Don't eat white or pink
violets.
> strawberry
> The flowers of edible herbs
Be wary of the last. Not all parts of any plant are safe for consumption; for
example, the root of the potato plant is edible but the remainder of it is
not. I believe the fruit of the tomato is safe, but the remainder of the
plant is not (I could be misremembering).
> What else can I add to the list?
Prim rose was eaten in period.
> Aoife, dying for an excuse to buy more plants
Derdriu
(who has this silly idea that all gardeners and period cooks would benefit
from having several herbals just lying around)
From: Uduido at aol.com
Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 20:53:26 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Edible Flowers
In a message dated 97-05-19 10:53:07 EDT, you write:
<< What else can I add to the list? >>
Lilacs
Gladioli
Mums (not period)
Chive bloosoms
Onion Blossoms
Pea Blossoms(One of my favorites)
Squash bloosoms (not period except those of the Luffa gourd)
Sweet woodruff blossoms
Iris, German
Calendula (pot marigold)
Lord Ras
From: Philip E Cutone <flip+ at andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 13:20:52 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SC - Re: Sugar v Honey
a related topic currently happening here can be found at:
http://www.watervalley.net/users/jtn/Articles/flowers.html
which is cooking with flowers... :)
In Service to the People of the Society,
Filip of the Marche
From: Baaastard at aol.com
Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 11:34:20 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Edible Flowers
Pansys can be added to the list of edible flowers, but I don't know if they
were used in period.
Later,
Michael Farrell
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 09:52:39 -0400
Subject: Re: SC - Hello--this is the requested intro by a newcomer.
Welcome, Joan!
GARNER at admin.hnc.edu wrote:
> I have a (hopefully) simple question: are sugared flowers suitable for
> ornamenting late medieval French food? I'm not a raging purist by any
> means, but if they are strictly a Victorian conceit, then even I would
> have to draw the line!
>
> Joan Garner
Nyah! Ah! Ah! (Or other designated evil chuckle...) We always hope our
questions are simple!
Actually, the simple answer is: I dunno.
The complex answer is that recipes for various candied flowers are found
in some late-period English sources. The one that comes to mind first is
Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book, which, as we all know, Emerged Fully
Grown From The Forehead of Zeus in 1604 ; ), and most of the recipes
therein are from some unspecified prior date. I wouldn't be at all
surprised to find that candied flowers are a descendant of the various
confited (in this case sugared) spices, although the method for
producing them is slightly different. I do know that spice confits show
up frequently in medieval recipes as a garnish for various foods, but
I'm aware of no direct evidence that this was ever done with candied
flowers.
On the other hand, if they weren't used in that way, what DID they do
with them?
So, the extreme likelihood, based on what we really know, is that
candied flowers did exist in what the SCA regards as late period
England, and might well have been found in France too. They might have
been used as a garnish for food, and they might not.
I hope this helps.
G. Tacitus Adamantius
From: Alys of Foxdale <foxdale at wolfstar.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 21:36:47 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Rosehip recipe
> I was out dead-heading my White Rose of York climber and there were
> already some rosehips forming. I remembered that my brother used to make
> a rosehip jelly, but I can't find any recipes (period or modern) for it.
> Any one know if this is period? Have a recipe?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Julleran
Ok, I've been swamped for a couple of days, and I don't know if anyone
has posted anything yet, so I apologize in advance if this is a repeat
of anything.
All of these are from "Rose Recipes from Olden Times" by Eleanour
Sinclair Rohde, Dover edition ["Unabridged, unaltered republication
of original (1939) edition.]. Some of her recipes have attributions
attached, others not. I have made sure I have reproduced the recipes
as exactly as I can, given the limitations of straight ASCII text
(i.e., those are not typos down there in the Russian recipe).
Alys of Foxdale Shire of Stierbach, Kingdom of Atlantia
mka Sallie Montuori Chantilly, Virginia, USA
foxdale at wolfstar.com
ROSE HIP MARMALADE
Ingredients: Wild rose hips, Sugar.
Method. To every pound of Rose hips allow half a pint of water. Boil
till the fruit is tender. Pass the pulp through a sieve fine enough