cuskynoles-msg - 10/2/10

A medieval fruit-filled ravioli-like pasta dish which was the subject of several long, heated discussions on the SCA-Cooks mail list. One of the few period recipes which includes a diagram.

NOTE: See also the files: dumplings-msg, pasta-msg, flour-msg, fruits-msg, fd-Italy-msg, pasta-stufed-msg.

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                                          Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 12:17:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gretchen M Beck <grm+ at andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: SC - Cuskynoles

See Constance Hiett's article in Speculum from the mid-1980s --
Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections.  They include two recipes--one titled
Ravioli and the other Kuskenole-- (of which I failed to copy the
originals, but here are the translations):

Ravioli -- Here is another kind of dish, which is called ravoili.  Take
fine flour and sugar and make pasta dough; take good cheese and butter
and cream them together, then take parsley, sage, and shallots, chop
thenm finely and put them in the filling (i.e. the cheese and butter);
put the boiled ravioli on a bed of grated cheese and cover them with
more grated cheese, and then reheat them (?)

Kuskenole - Here is a dish which is called kuskenole.  Make pastry with
eggs; then take figs, raisins, pears, and apples, and then dates and
almonds; beat together and add good mixed ground spice and whole spices.
 In Lent, make your pastry with almonds.  Roll your pastry out on a
table and cut into several pieces, one and a half hands long and three
fingers in width; then grease the pastry on one side; then put the
filling in, dividing it equally among the cakes; then fold together as
this diagram illustrates (presumably folding over the pastry and
pressing or crimping the edges together, as with ravioli), then boil in
clean water; then brown on a griddle, etc.

toodles, margaret


Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 15:58:06 -0500
From: "Philippa Alderton" <phlip at bright.net>
Subject: Re: SC - cuskinolds

Cuskynoles have been a subject of much debate here on the List, leading to
almost acrimonius exchanges between two gentles of differing opinions. My
opinion is that they are essentially fruit ravioli- here is the recipe from
Diuersa Cibaria, # 45, in Hieatt and Butler's1985 edition of Curye on
Inglysch, so that you may make your own opinion. (th) as usual, indicates
the letter "thorn".

A mete (th)at is icleped cuskynoles. Make a past tempred wi(th) ayren, &
so(th)(th)en nim peoren & applen, figes & reysins, alemaundes & dates; bet
am togedere & do god poudre of gode speces wi(th)innen. & in leynten make
(th)i past wi(th) milke of alemaundes, & rolle (th)i past on a bord, &
so(th)(th)en hew hit on moni perties, & vche an pertie beo of (th)e
leyn(th)e of a paume & an half & of (th)reo vyngres of brede. & smeor (th)y
past al of one dole, & so(th)(th)en do (th)i fassure wi(th)innen. | Vchan
kake is portiooun. & so(th)(th)en veld togedere o(th)e 3eolue manere, ase
(th)eos fugurre is imad:

______________________________________
|  .   |   .   |   .  |   .  |   .   |
|______|_______|______|______|_______|
|  .   |   .   |   .  |   .  |   .   |
|______|_______|______|______|_______|
|  .   |   .   |   .  |   .  |   .   |
|______|_______|______|______|_______|

& so(th)(th) boille in veir water, & so(th)(th) en rost on an greudil: &
so(th)(th)en adresse.

Have fun ;-)

Phlip
Caer Frig
Barony of the Middle Marches
Middle Kingdom


Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 21:58:33 -0800
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - cuskinolds

At 1:04 PM -0800 12/22/98, Vicki Strassburg wrote:
> I, too, missed the great debate! (but
>I assume it's along the lines of potatoes and feastocrats).

Not at all. It was about whether, when working from the only recipe in the
whole corpus of 13th-15th Anglo-Norman cookery to include an illustration,
you should ignore the illustration.

For the other side, ask Adamantius.

Our version of Cuskynoles, from the Miscellany, follows.
- ---
Cuskynoles
Curye on Inglysch p. 52 (Diuersa Cibaria no. 45)

A mete that is icleped cuskynoles. Make a past tempred with ayren, &
soththen nim peoren & applen, figes & reysins, alemaundes & dates; bet am
togedere & do god poudre of gode speces withinnen. & in leynten make thi
past with milke of alemaundes. & rolle thi past on a bord, & soththen hew
hit on moni perties, & vche an pertie beo of the leynthe of a paume & an
half & of threo vyngres of brede. & smeor thy past al of one dole, &
soththen do thi fassure withinnen. Vchan kake is portiooun. & soththen veld
togedere othe zeolue manere, ase theos fugurre is imad:

& soththe boille in veir water, & soththen rost on an greudil; & soththen
adresse.

Modernized English: A meat that is named cuskynoles. Make a paste tempered
with eggs, & so then take pears & apples, figs & raisins, almonds & dates;
beat them together & do good powder of good spices within. & in Lent make
thy paste with milk of almonds. & roll thy paste on a board, & so then hew
it in many parts, & each part be of the length of a palm & a half & of
three fingers of breadth. & smear thy paste all on one half, & so then do
thy filling within. Each cake is a portion. & so then fold together of the
same manner, as this figure is made: [see above] & so then boil in fair
water, & so then roast on a griddle; & so then dress.

Filling: one ripe pear (7 oz)    4 oz whole, unblanched almonds  1 1/2 t nutmeg
        one cooking apple (7 oz)        4 oz pitted dates       1 t cloves
        4 oz figs       1 1/2 t cinnamon        1/2 t ginger
        4 oz raisins

Wash and core apple and pear but do not peel. Cut figs into 2 or 3 pieces
each. Use a food processor or mortar and pestle to reduce the ingredients
to a uniform mush.

Pastry: 1 1/2 c flour   1/4 c water     1 beaten egg

Stir cold water into flour, stir in egg, stir and knead until smooth. Roll
out as two 12"x15" sheets. Cut each sheet into 10 6"x3" pieces. Spread 1 T
of filling on one piece and put another piece over it, making a sandwich of
dough, filling, dough. Using the back of a thick knife, press the edges
together to seal them, then press along the lines shown in the figure,
giving a 6"x3" "cake" made up of fifteen miniature fruit filled ravioli,
joined at their edges. Boil about 4 minutes, then broil at a medium
distance from the burner about 4 minutes a side, watching to be sure they
do not burn.

David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University


Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1998 07:10:44 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - cuskinolds

david friedman wrote:
> It was about whether, when working from the only recipe in the
> whole corpus of 13th-15th Anglo-Norman cookery to include an illustration,
> you should ignore the illustration.

There's no question of ignoring the illustration, merely an attempt to
establish a likely scale (since no clear indication is given in the
recipe) and a method of accomplishing it (since no clear indication is
given in the recipe). It's enough to make one wish for a clear
illustration for several other recipes, such as Teste de Turt, for
example, but seeing what they accomplished with the cuskynoles recipe,
it's understandable they would be a little hesitant.

Basically my interpretation calls for one kind of Wishful Thinking(TM), and
His Grace's, another. Do you manufacture information that the recipe
fails to provide in such a way as to take the recipe in one direction,
or another?

Each of us feels the other is engaging in Wild Speculation(TM), while we
ourselves are serious redactors. Oil and water, cats and dogs, Bugs and
Elmer, that sort of thing. If there were genuine equilibrium in the
Universe, it would collapse again.

> For the other side, ask Adamantius.

Aaargghhh! Multi-celled cuskynoles are an affront to god and man! They
must be stopped! Foam. Snarl. Snap. Foam.

Seriously, though, I'm only trying to describe, as best I can, the
nature of our disagreement, without picking it up again. There's nothing
new being said here, and I believe the whole thing is archived
somewhere.

Adamantius
Østgardr, East


Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 15:39:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gretchen M Beck <grm+ at andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: SC - period fruit pastries

Excerpts from internet.listserv.sca-cooks: 28-Apr-99 Re: SC - period
fruit pastries by david friedman at best.com
> Cuskynoles are a recipe in _Curye on Inglysche_ from a late 13th c. source.
> They are, so far as I know, the only recipe in the whole 13th-15th c.
> French/English corpus that come with an illustration, a drawing that is
> supposed to show how they are made.

The recipe for Cresse in MS. B.L Additional 32085 (from Anglo-Norman
Culinary Collections, by Constance Hieatt and Robin F Jones) includes a
small diagram for assembling the dish.

toodles, margaret


Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 14:14:17 -0700
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: RE: SC - Cuskynoles

At 2:58 PM -0400 8/20/99, Mary_HallSheahan at ademco.com wrote:
>I would indeed like to see the two interpretations, particularly because I
>know the recipe & love the ingredients but was completely bamboozled by the
>verbs.

Basically, the disagreement is on the construction of a cuskynole.
Adamantius thinks it is a ravioli. I think it is what you would get if you
took a very large ravioli, containing a thin layer of filling, then pressed
the two layers of dough together with the back of a knife or something
similar in a gridwork pattern, giving you one "ravioli" made out of about a
3x5 grid of little raviolis attached at the edges. I think his
interpretation is inconsistent with the diagram; he doesn't.

You can find my version in the Miscellany, available online.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/


Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1999 13:04:11 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Introduction

BanAvtai at aol.com wrote:
> I have always been far too terrified to ask what the C word meant....

It is written:

Lo, and there shall come a mighty cuskynole upon the earth, and it shall
be made from a thin sheet of dough, cut into many pieces, and a filling
shall be made from a mixture of fresh and dried fruits and nuts, crushed
in a mortar. And the filling shall be applied to the dough, and the
dough shall be wrapped around it and sealed thusly according to a
diagram that is hard to reproduce in ASCII text, after which the said
cuskies shall be boiled, thereafter roasted on a gridiron, and served
forth to the righteous.  And in those days giants walked the earth, and
there was dissention and strife among them concerning the meaning of the
diagram, and the One True Way to make cuskynoles.

And the giants fought not once, but many times, over a period of many
centuries, uprooting trees and laying waste the land, while men and
women cowered behind large rocks (but not Margali's rock) like the
little kids in baseball caps in Japanese monster movies...

After centuries of bloody war, the giants did reach an accord whereby we
Don't Go There, and while many do speak of cuskynoles in whispered
voices in the dark of night, no man dares invoke their name in the
bright light of day...

That's about it, huh, folks?

Adamantius


Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 18:50:16 EST
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Cuskeynoles

Aldyth at aol.com writes:
<< then thaw them in the morning, boil them >>

I would drop them frozen into the boiling water to avoid a gooey mess. 
Pre-frozen ravioli usually recommend boiling from the frozen state and the 
end product is much tastier. Cuskynoles are merely fruit filled ravioli, no 
more, no less. The method of construction may be 'controversial' but the end 
product is virtually the same either way.

Ras


Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 20:46:43 -0600
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Cuskeynoles

At 8:47 PM -0500 2/4/00, Aldyth at aol.com wrote:
>BTW, is there a problem with using apricots as a filling for cuskynoles?  I
>was wondering if there is a corelation between cuskynoles and the fried pies
>that my grandma made in Arkansas and Missouri.  She tried to tell me they
>were english food, from a bunch of people who moved to the south when they
>first colonized.  Any truth to this?

Cuskynoles are from a 14th-century English recipe; apricots are not 
mentioned in the cookbook they come from, nor in any of the other 
English 14th-century cookbooks collected in _Curye on Inglisch_. I 
don't remember any recipes using apricots in any of the other 14th or 
15th c. English cookbooks I've run across, either, although there are 
lots of references to other dried fruit. The earliest mention of 
apricots grown in England in Anne Wilson's _Food and Drink in 
Britain_ is 1548 (the writer described it as "an hasty peach", being 
like earlier-ripening peaches). The actual fruits and nuts specified 
in the cuskynoles recipe are pears, apples, figs, raisins, almonds, 
and dates.

For everyone who has been asking, here is the original recipe under dispute:

A mete that is icleped cuskynoles. Make a past tempred with ayren, & 
sothen nim peoren & applen, figes & reysins, alemaundes & dates; bet 
am togedere & do god poudre of gode speces withinnen. & in leynten 
make thi past with milke of alemaundes. & rolle thi past on a bord, & 
sothen hew hit on moni perties, & vche an pertie beo of the leynthe 
of a paume & an half & of threo vyngres of brede. & smeor thy past al 
of one dole, & sothen do thi fassure withinnen. Vchan kake is 
portiooun. & sothen veld togedere othe zeolue manere, ase theos 
fugurre is imad:
[the picture in question is a rectangular grid, five rectangles 
across and three vertically, with a dot in the center of each little 
rectangle]
& sothe boille in veir water, & sothen rost on an greudil; & sothen 
adresse. [thorns replaced by th's]

And for those who prefer their Middle English at least semi-translated:

A food that is named cuskynoles. Make a paste [dough] tempered with 
eggs, & so then take pears & apples, figs & raisins, almonds & dates; 
beat them together & do good powder of good spices within. & in Lent 
make thy paste with milk of almonds. & roll thy paste on a board, & 
so then hew it in many parts, & each part be of the length of a palm 
& a half & of three fingers of breadth. & smear thy paste all of one 
deal [half? portion?], & so then do thy filling withinn. Each cake is 
portion. & so then fold together of the self manner, as this figure 
is made:
[see note above]
& so then boil in fair water, & so then roast on a griddle; & so then 
dress [arrange for serving].

Elizabeth of Dendermonde/Betty Cook


Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 23:33:12 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: Authenticity, philosophy, and advocacy (was Re: SC - questions)

Bonne of Traquair wrote: 
> Chin up, Morgana, this group has a lot of people who want to make sure
> their meaning is absolutely clear, and that they tuly understand what the
> other person is saying.  That takes a lot of verbage and a lot of bandwidth.
> But it never comes to blows. Not even over cuskynoles.  (which I beleive is
> cooks code for'are we done with this dead horse?')

Actually, we're not. Upon looking at the cuskynole recipe in its French
form in the 13th century Anglo-Norman  BL MS ADD 32085, of which BL Add.
46919 (He), also known as Diuersa Cibaria, appears to be, in part, a
translated copy, I see that the text in French seems a great deal more
specific, and much clearer in Hieatt's English translation. Also that
the illustration in 46919, presumably copied accurately for Curye On
Inglysh, looks suspiciously like the illustration from a completely
different recipe in the earlier source... .

I'll leave you in fearful anticipation until I get a chance to provide
more details. I know you can't wait.  

Adamantius


Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2000 00:29:02 -0500
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: Authenticity, philosophy, and advocacy (was Re: SC - questions)

At 11:33 PM -0400 6/16/00, Philip & Susan Troy wrote:

[In his most audacious bluff since the cuskynole heresy began]

>Actually, we're not. Upon looking at the cuskynole recipe in its French
>form in the 13th century Anglo-Norman  BL MS ADD 32085, of which BL Add.
>46919 (He), also known as Diuersa Cibaria, appears to be, in part, a
>translated copy, I see that the text in French seems a great deal more
>specific, and much clearer in Hieatt's English translation. Also that
>the illustration in 46919, presumably copied accurately for Curye On
>Inglysh, looks suspiciously like the illustration from a completely
>different recipe in the earlier source... .
>
>I'll leave you in fearful anticipation until I get a chance to provide
>more details. I know you can't wait.

The French text reads:

"e pus plier ensemble come cel signe est fet:" [followed by a 3x3 grid].

The English translation reads"

  "then fold together as this diagram illustrates."

The Diuersa Cibaria versions reads:

& soththen veld togedere othe zeolue manere, ase theos fuguree is 
imad": [followed by a 3x5 grid]--"th" for thorn and "z" for the 
squiggly letter whose name I have forgotten.)

The only relevant difference is that one author thinks the grid is 
3x3 and one 3x5.

You are still left defending the position that, when redacting one of 
the two recipes in the corpus (I admit I had missed the other) that 
has a picture of how to make it, we should ignore the picture and 
make ravioli instead. I eagerly await your redaction of 
cressee--lasagna perhaps?

David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/


Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 22:39:01 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: SC - Kuskenole - was, Authenticity, philosophy, and advocacy

david friedman revs up the CD of Steve Martin and Martin Short singing
"Playing With The Big Boys Now", and writes in his scariest tones:
 
> At 11:33 PM -0400 6/16/00, Philip & Susan Troy wrote:
> [In his most audacious bluff since the cuskynole heresy began]

Oh, come now, the night is young!

Quoting me: 
> >Actually, we're not. Upon looking at the cuskynole recipe in its French
> >form in the 13th century Anglo-Norman  BL MS ADD 32085, of which BL Add.
> >46919 (He), also known as Diuersa Cibaria, appears to be, in part, a
> >translated copy, I see that the text in French seems a great deal more
> >specific, and much clearer in Hieatt's English translation. Also that
> >the illustration in 46919, presumably copied accurately for Curye On
> >Inglysh, looks suspiciously like the illustration from a completely
> >different recipe in the earlier source... .
> >
> The French text reads:
> 
> "e pus plier ensemble come cel signe est fet:" [followed by a 3x3 grid].
> 
> The English translation reads"
> 
>   "then fold together as this diagram illustrates."

Indeed it does. The entire English translation says, discounting
bracketted material from Hieatt:

"25. Kuskenole [pastries with fruit filling]. Here is a dish which is
called kuskenole. Make pastry with eggs; then take figs, raisins, pears,
and apples, and then dates and almonds; beat together and add good mixed
ground spice and whole spices. In Lent, make your make your pastry with
almonds [i.e. almond butter or cream]. Roll your pastry out on a table
and cut into several pieces, one and a half hands long and three fingers
in width; then grease the pastry on one side; then put the filling in,
dividing it equally among the cakes; then fold together as this diagram
illustrates [presumably folding over the p[astry and pressing or
crimping the edges together, as with ravioli]; then boil in clean water,
then brown on a griddle, etc." 
 
> The Diuersa Cibaria versions reads:
> 
> & soththen veld togedere othe zeolue manere, ase theos fuguree is
> imad": [followed by a 3x5 grid]--"th" for thorn and "z" for the
> squiggly letter whose name I have forgotten.)
> 
> The only relevant difference is that one author thinks the grid is
> 3x3 and one 3x5.

Bzzzt! I'm sorry, I'm afraid that's incorrect, but we have some lovely
parting gifts for Your Grace, including the Cuskynole Board Game from
Parker Brothers!  The differences are more than that. As you say, one is
3x3, one is 3x5. One (the 3x3) lacks the mysterious dots found in the
other, 3x5 version, which I believe you have interpreted as indicating
the presence of filling. Could be. We don't seem to know. One (the 3x3) is
clearly not in the proportions stated in the recipe, _unless_ it
represents a single unit with the sheet of pastry folded in half over
the filling. The other (the 3x5) does seem to be in proportion to the
hand (or palm) and a half by three fingers, but it also bears more
resemblance to the illustration in the cressee recipe (in 32085) than it does to
the kuskenole recipe (in 32085). 

I would not be at all surprised if some transposition and omission, as described by Rudolf Grewe in connection with copied manuscripts of the Harpestrang cookbook, has taken place, and that what we are seeing is the cressee illustration, or some variant thereof. Even assuming the illustration is of one
kuskenole, rather than several, which I had theorized as a possibility,
there is no indication of where the filling is, and whether it is in all
nine squares of the 3x3 grid, or simply in the center square. If that's
one kuskenole, it's quite possible that the illustration represents a
filled square made from a roughly two-inch-by-four rectangle, with egg
wash or water brushed on one half of it, the filling added, and the
pastry folded over (reducing the measured rectangle to a square,
roughly) and crimped around the four sides (leaving four pressure
marks/lines from a stick, the edge of a hand, or even the back of a
heavy kitchen knife).    
 
> You are still left defending the position that, when redacting one of
> the two recipes in the corpus (I admit I had missed the other)

Quite a magnaninous admission, considering that you're deliberately
misrepresenting what I've repeatedly said. (For the folks in our studio
audience, please understand that I am a skilled pain in the arse, and
that His Grace is a professional argumentative kvetch, who, I gather,
produces other professional argumentative kvetches for his livelihood,
and that none of the above represents animosity. It is my belief that
His Grace would adhere to more strict formal debate methods, which would
preclude cheating, i.e. deliberately ignoring what I say and putting
words in my mouth to present my POV in the worst possible light, were
this a professional situation. Picture us in a bar, arguing over
[perhaps too much] beer.) Note also that there are now at least three
illustrations in the total corpus, and yes, one appears to be a
duplicate of one of the others. The trouble is that there's a fairly
good chance that it is a duplicate of the wrong one.

Anyway, what I have, in fact, said with tiresome frequency is not that
the illustration should be ignored, but that it does not, could not,
depict the recipe (originally we were talking about the early
14th-century English version) as written, without a moderately complex
set of added instructions helpfully manufactured by His Grace out of
thin air. (See? Now I'm doing it.) We are instructed, in His Grace's
adapted recipe, to spread the filling onto the dough, either folding it
over or adding a second layer, sealing the edges, and then pressing a
grid of
additional sutures onto the upper surface with the back of a heavy knife
(presumably and sensibly so as not to cut the pastry) to subdivide our
pop-tart-like structure into something resembling a Cadbury fruit bar, a
large rectangle divided into several smaller cells. The fact that this
is somewhat chancy in a bulk cookery setting (in boiling, the internal
seals would have a powerful tendency to burst open, turning the cake
back into a single cell), added to the fact that no such instructions
are given in either recipe, make me suspect that there is perhaps a
better interpretation. Note that I'm not saying that the above is not
how the dish was made, I'm saying that it _may_ have been made that way,
and that it _may_ have been made another way. His Grace, ever resembling
Saint Jerome in these matters, politely suggests I am full of poop.

Originally, having seen only the later English recipe with the 3x5 grid,
I had envisioned the possibility that the illustration depicted several
cuskynoles grouped as in the sheet they are cut from. The problem with
this is that that would indicate that the instructions aren't followed
in sequence (instructions are to roll out dough, cut into pieces, fill
and fold/seal). However, since there are other examples in the
recipe corpus that show instructions clearly given out of sequence
(thicken the sauce with eggs, sprinkle with good spices, serve, don't
let the sauce come to a boil, and in Lent you can use almond milk --
that sort of thing), I'm prepared to accept a calculated risk, which is
exactly what His Grace has done in postulating the whole "back of a
heavy knife" thing.       

> that has a picture of how to make it, we should ignore the picture and
> make ravioli instead.

See above. With respect, bulldinky. It is true that my finished version
does resemble square ravioli in shape, but what you're missing (or
rather seeing and pretending not to) is that I have not set out to prove
that cuskynoles are ravioli (although you appear to have dedicated a
chunk of your life to proving they're not) but rather that there is some
inherent confusion, some loose ends, in the total picture of
recipe-plus-illustration, and in trying to tie up the loose ends, we are
logically led to more than one interpretation. One of which is the
possibility that the dish looks like a squarish ravioli. Rather than
ignoring the illustration, something I have never done, I simply ask how
the instructions as written could produce something that looks like the
illustration. You've supplied an extra set of instructions to make it
work, I posited the theory that the instructions may be out of order and
that the later illustration may not be a single, finished cuskynole.
(I'm not alone in this; see Hieatt in both published sources...) As it
happens, the earlier illustration, despite spurious claims from those
who should know better, could not possibly represent the dimensions as
stated in the recipe, unless folded (or cut) in half, which is how you
would get a near-square from the rectangle described. So, in either
case, the "back of the heavy knife" thing is an unnecessary
complication. That doesn't mean it's not how it was done. But then
Darwinism is not period.

Bottom line is that I have failed to convince you (Are you shocked? I
am shocked!) that the recipe plus illustration _could_ represent _either_ a
Cadbury Fruit Bar or something shaped like a ravioli. My leaning towards
the ravioli interpretation is based on years of experience filling large
quantities of pasta sheets and boiling them (question: how many times
have you actually cooked this dish?), combined with a fair amount of
experience with the ways in which medieval recipes can be incomplete
or confusing, and why, along with the most telling argument, that the
simplest explanation that can be made to fit a given set of
circumstances is, more often than not, the correct one. You have not logically proven this idea wrong, in spite of the fact that I'm perfectly prepared to
admit your interpretation is possibly correct, and have never seriously
criticized it (well, perhaps not until now) except to say it is not the
only viable explanation. Hey, I'm doing some of your work here! 

Now, an additional piece to ponder is the fact that the illustration has
changed between the 13th and 14th-century sources. The newer one is more
or less in keeping with the proportions given in the recipe, but it has
changed from the earlier version. The earlier one is not in keeping with
the stated proportions, but does look like what would happen if you took
the measured piece of dough, brushed some sticky stuff on it, added
filling, folded it over and sealed it. The later one is conceivably
based on an unknown version earlier than either manuscript, and could
conceivably be the "correct", canonical version, but we have no real
evidence of that, and when combined with the fact that it looks rather
like the drawing for the earlier cressee recipe, it seems quite possible
it is an error. 

> I eagerly await your redaction of cressee--lasagna perhaps?

Now that, of course, would be far beneath Your Grace's dignity if you
weren't joking, but if you'd like to discuss cressee I'm happy to. For
example, the recipe says, IIRC, to roll and cut the paste to a finger's
thickness, or some such. Is that just a reference to width and not
thickness, or does the combination of softer wheats and longer cooking
times make this gnocchi-ish pasta a little more of a real possibility?
Pehaps this is why some later pasta recipes speak of boiling it for an
hour... .

Adamantius, who admits to simply not knowing for sure, but who also is
not pathologically terrified that the dish might in some way resemble a
modern food 
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy


Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 00:25:00 -0500
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Kuskenole - was, Authenticity, philosophy, and advocacy

At 10:39 PM -0400 6/21/00, Philip & Susan Troy wrote:
>The differences are more than that. As you say, one is
>3x3, one is 3x5. One (the 3x3) lacks the mysterious dots found in the
>other, 3x5 version, which I believe you have interpreted as indicating
>the presence of filling. Could be. We don't seem to know.

Assuming that you, like me, are relying on the version published in 
Speculum, I don't think we can make confident statements about the 
details of the figure--as shown it's pretty small. Are images of the 
original manuscript accessible somewhere? We may both be basing 
parts of our argument on how 20th century people decided to represent 
the 13th or 14th c.  figures.

Also, suppose we assume that Anglo-Norman doesn't have dots and 
Diursa does. One possibility is that the figure in Diuersa was drawn 
by someone who knew more than we do about what the recipe 
meant--perhaps he had frequently eaten cuskynoles--and was improving 
the figure to make it clearer.

What strikes me about the comparison between the figures in the two 
sources is that the drawing in Diursa is substantially larger and 
clearer than either of the drawings in Anglo-Norman. But I don't know 
if that is actually a difference in the manuscripts, or only in the 
modern editions. Does anyone else here know?

>One (the 3x3) is
>clearly not in the proportions stated in the recipe, _unless_ it
>represents a single unit with the sheet of pastry folded in half over
>the filling.

I don't know what the evidence is on the meaning of "hand," but an 
obvious guess seems to be that it is the width of a palm, since that 
way "finger" is a natural subdivision--four fingers to the palm. On 
that reading the piece starts 6 fingers by 3 fingers. You fold it in 
half lengthwise, giving a square 3 fingers by 3 fingers. Then, on my 
interpretation, you press down on that square with the back edge of a 
knife or something similar twice in each direction, giving a 3x3 grid 
of squares, each 1 finger square. You now have a single square piece, 
as shown, with the pattern impressed on it, as shown.

The 3x3 picture doesn't seem to make any sense if we instead assume 
that the picture represented the dough as cut. If that is what is 
going on,  we should be seeing a 3x6 piece of dough, marked with 
squares (or rectangles if each is going to be folded in half to give 
a square raviole). Nor does it work if we instead assume that the 
figure shows the constructed ravioles sitting in the position in 
which they had been cut. If that is what is going on, either they 
should be 3x6 rectangles (if each raviole is assembled from two 
pieces of dough) or they should be 3x3 squares, separated by 3x3 
blanks, since each 3x6 piece of dough has now been folded in half.

I think you offered both of those conjectures as possibilities in the 
earlier round of the discussion.

>The other (the 3x5) does seem to be in proportion to the
>hand (or palm) and a half by three fingers,

Which fits your conjectures better than mine, no? On my theory, the 
pattern is embossed after the dough is folded, and the picture is 
showing the pattern. So the dough has already been folded in half and 
should be square.

The only way I can think of to fit the 3x5 to the text and my 
interpretation is to assume that you are taking two 3x6 pieces, 
putting bits of filling in a 3x5 pattern on one, putting the other on 
top, and sealing along the lines. I wouldn't describe that as "fold 
together," but then I'm not a native speaker of Middle 
English--perhaps "veld" included sticking things together. I looked 
up "weld" in the OED, but couldn't find any evidence that "veld" 
could be a variant of it.

>  but it also bears more
>resemblance to the illustration in the cressee recipe (in 32085) than it
>does to the kuskenole recipe (in 32085).

So you are suggesting that the kuskenole recipe in Anglo-Norman, 
whose picture fits my theory, has the correct picture, while the 
picture in Diursa is miscopied from cressee? That's fine with me.

But I'm not sure I find it convincing, much as I would like to. It's 
true that the figure in Anglo-Norman for cressee is shown orthogonal 
rather than diagonal, like the figure for cuskynoles in Diursa. But 
it is also true that the figures for cuskynoles in the two 
manuscripts are 3x3 and 3x5, while cressee is 4x8. Miscopying a 3x3 
grid as 3x5 strikes me as at least as likely a mistake as 
simultaneously assigning the figure to the wrong picture and 
miscopying 4x8 as 3x5--probably more likely.

And note that the figure with cressee doesn't have dots in the 
squares--at least as shown in Speculum.

>Even assuming the illustration is of one
>kuskenole, rather than several, which I had theorized as a possibility,
>there is no indication of where the filling is, and whether it is in all
>nine squares of the 3x3 grid, or simply in the center square. If that's
>one kuskenole, it's quite possible that the illustration represents a
>filled square made from a roughly two-inch-by-four rectangle, with egg
>wash or water brushed on one half of it, the filling added, and the
>pastry folded over (reducing the measured rectangle to a square,
>roughly) and crimped around the four sides (leaving four pressure
>marks/lines from a stick, the edge of a hand, or even the back of a
>heavy kitchen knife).

You are now almost to my interpretation. In both our versions, if we 
label vertical lines 0-3, lines 0 and 3 are the edge of the 
cuskynole, while 1 and 2 are linear impressions made by something 
like the back edge of a knife (what I actually use for making 
cuskynoles). But in your version, all of the filling is between lines 
1 and 2, while in mine it is between 0 and 1, 1 and 2, 2 and 3 (and, 
of course, between the corresponding horizontal lines as well). Yours 
is possible, but there are two problems with it:

1. The figure, so far as we can tell (Diursa is clearer, because 
bigger, although I don't know if that represents a difference in the 
manuscript or only the modern publication), shows equally spaced 
lines. That makes sense for my version. But on yours, you would 
expect a close double line along the edge (edge and crimping--between 
lines 0 and 1 and lines 2 and 3), and a significant space between 
lines 1 and 2 where the filling is. Don't you think it odd to use a 
symmetrical drawing for such an unsymmetrical situation?

2. Your explanation doesn't explain why the figure exists in the 
first place, since the figure isn't telling you anything beyond "fold 
it into a square and seal down the edges." But on my interpretation, 
the figure is actually necessary to explain the pattern of what is 
being done.

Finally, coming back to the figure in Diursa, the pattern of dots 
suggest that whoever drew that figure thought all the little squares 
represented the same thing.

>Anyway, what I have, in fact, said with tiresome frequency is not that
>the illustration should be ignored, but that it does not, could not,
>depict the recipe (originally we were talking about the early
>14th-century English version) as written, without a moderately complex
>set of added instructions helpfully manufactured by His Grace out of
>thin air. (See? Now I'm doing it.) We are instructed, in His Grace's
>adapted recipe, to spread the filling onto the dough, either folding it
>over or adding a second layer, sealing the edges, and then pressing a
>grid of
>additional sutures onto the upper surface with the back of a heavy knife
>(presumably and sensibly so as not to cut the pastry) to subdivide our
>pop-tart-like structure into something resembling a Cadbury fruit bar, a
>large rectangle divided into several smaller cells.

You have accurately rendered my interpretation. But since both 
versions have some form of "fold it together the way the picture 
shows," I don't see anything unreasonable in taking a simple (not 
complex) guess at what the picture is showing.

>The fact that this
>is somewhat chancy in a bulk cookery setting (in boiling, the internal
>seals would have a powerful tendency to burst open, turning the cake
>back into a single cell),

Surely that depends on details such as ratio of filling to dough and 
how well the lines are sealed together.

>added to the fact that no such instructions
>are given in either recipe, make me suspect that there is perhaps a
>better interpretation. Note that I'm not saying that the above is not
>how the dish was made, I'm saying that it _may_ have been made that way,
>and that it _may_ have been made another way. His Grace, ever resembling
>Saint Jerome in these matters, politely suggests I am full of poop.

I have no objection to the statement "it may have been made another 
way." I only object to "other ways" that either don't fit the figure 
or provide no explanation of why the figure is there in the first 
place.

>Originally, having seen only the later English recipe with the 3x5 grid,
>I had envisioned the possibility that the illustration depicted several
>cuskynoles grouped as in the sheet they are cut from. The problem with
>this is that that would indicate that the instructions aren't followed
>in sequence (instructions are to roll out dough, cut into pieces, fill
>and fold/seal). However, since there are other examples in the
>recipe corpus that show instructions clearly given out of sequence
>(thicken the sauce with eggs, sprinkle with good spices, serve, don't
>let the sauce come to a boil, and in Lent you can use almond milk --
>that sort of thing), I'm prepared to accept a calculated risk, which is
>exactly what His Grace has done in postulating the whole "back of a
>heavy knife" thing.

Except that your version provides no reason why the figure would be 
there--and be specifically referred to in the text of the recipe.

>As it
>happens, the earlier illustration, despite spurious claims from those
>who should know better, could not possibly represent the dimensions as
>stated in the recipe, unless folded (or cut) in half, which is how you
>would get a near-square from the rectangle described. So, in either
>case, the "back of the heavy knife" thing is an unnecessary
>complication. That doesn't mean it's not how it was done. But then
>Darwinism is not period.

But the recipe says to fold it. The recipe says to make it 3x6 units 
(assuming a palm is four fingers). Having told you that the piece of 
dough is 3x6 and then told you to fold it like the figure, and given 
a square figure, it seems pretty obvious that you are folding it into 
a 3x3 square.

Then the remaining problem is why does the square have lines on it. I 
have offered a possible explanation. In this post you offer an 
alternative, although one that (for reasons discussed above) I find 
less plausible. But note that that alternative also requires work 
with the back of a knife or something similar, so is no simpler than 
mine.

>Bottom line is that I have failed to convince you (Are you shocked? I
>am shocked!) that the recipe plus illustration _could_ represent
>_either_ a Cadbury Fruit Bar or something shaped like a ravioli.

And here you were just getting indignant about my accusing you of 
wanting to interpret it as ravioli.

I apologize if I have misinterpreted you--but after looking through 
the old postings, I don't think I have, although I have certainly 
engaged in rhetorical excess where I thought it would be 
entertaining. I don't really think you plan to interpret cressee as 
Lasagna, for instance. Although I suppose, if one painted a 
basketwork pattern on it with saffron, ...  .

>  My leaning towards
>the ravioli interpretation is based on years of experience filling large
>quantities of pasta sheets and boiling them (question: how many times
>have you actually cooked this dish?), combined with a fair amount of
>experience with the ways in which medieval recipes can be incomplete
>or confusing, and why, along with the most telling argument, that the
>simplest explanation that can be made to fit a given set of
>circumstances is, more often than not, the correct one. You have not
>logically proven
>this idea wrong, in spite of the fact that I'm perfectly prepared to
>admit your interpretation is possibly correct, and have never seriously
>criticized it (well, perhaps not until now) except to say it is not the
>only viable explanation. Hey,
>I'm doing some of your work here!

I agree that I have not proved that your original interpretation 
(ravioli structure, with the picture showing a bunch of ravioli lying 
together in the position in which the dough was cut) is impossible. 
And I agree that you have far more experience than I do in cooking 
for large numbers of people. But my fundamental objection to the 
ravioli version remains--it doesn't explain why the figure is 
provided.

>Adamantius, who admits to simply not knowing for sure, but who also is
>not pathologically terrified that the dish might in some way resemble a
>modern food

A Cadbury fruit bar, perhaps? They couldn't use chocolate, so  did 
the best they could with pasta.

My lady wife adds:

P.S. Many new people on the list have been asking about Cuskynoles. 
Now you know. It went on for weeks last time.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/


Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 06:12:11 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
	<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] *Experiment*
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

On Jun 16, 2005, at 1:05 AM, Stefan li Rous wrote:
> Vladimir asked:
>> How did that [cuskynoles] debate ever turn out anyway?
>
> Inconclusive. For a "Reader's Digest" version of the discussion,
> see this file in the FOOD section of the Florilegium:
> cuskynoles-msg    (44K)  8/21/00    A medieval fruit-filled pasta
> dish.

FWIW, I believe the last word on the subject was, essentially, "Well,
maybe we can't be sure after all..." which is pretty much what I had
been pushing for (and opting for a simpler but functional  approach
because of that). Specifically, this was in light of some questions
that had been raised about the faithfulness/integrity/accuracy of the
decision of the English scribe for the recipe we'd been looking at to
associate that particular illustration with that recipe... <takes
deep breath for further run-on sentence-spouting>... BECAUSE...  we'd
found an earlier recipe in a French-language source that A) provided
a somewhat different illustration, and B) provided another and more
or less unrelated recipe (cressee) which also came with an
illustration which looked a lot like the one that Hieatt and Butler
included with their edition of the English version of the cuskynole
recipe.

What we were left with was a need to look at the original
manuscripts, since in both cases there appeared to be both some kind
of scribal transposition shift of the illustration, and some question
of the accuracy of Hieatt's rendering of the illustrations for both
the English and French versions of the recipes -- the French edition
in Speculum is hand-drawn and the English one in Curye On Inglysch is
rendered more or less in some kind of ASCII, and this is all
complicated by the fact that the recipe for cressee, the only _other_
known English early medieval recipe that comes with a diagram which,
BTW, somewhat resembles the cuskynole illustration, and which appears
to be mysteriously absent from the English rendering of the earlier
French source.

In a nutshell, the conclusion as I understand it is (heavy
paraphrasing):

C.: This is the only, or one of the only, medieval recipes that comes
with a diagram, so why not be faithful to the diagram?

A.: I'm not that far off the diagram, and even if I am, how much
stock can we place in the illustration when it seems quite possible
the illustration was switched at birth for its Evil Twin by a no-
account English scribe in the early-to-mid 14th century? And a clumsy
attempt to conceal this crime was made?

C.: <shrug> Who the h**l knows? Let's get a drink and go back to the
original manuscripts.

Which is where we left it, as I recall. Perhaps His Grace recalls it
differently, but yes, I agree, it was "inconclusive". But don't
worry, I was still His Grace's rhetorical and forensic bi-atch.

Adamantius


Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:13:48 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Food identity search

On 7/30/2010 2:58 AM, Stefan li Rous wrote:
<<< one of the two recipes in the medieval corpus which contains pictures. >>>

Make that three, if you count the entirely different cuskynole illustration in MS BL Additional 32085...

Adamantius


Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:52:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: wheezul at canby.com
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Food identity search

I've got no horses in the cuskynole race, but the translation of Le Taquim
al-Sihha (Tawini Sanitatis) d'ibn Butlan came yesterday evening and I have
been engrossed in it.  I wish I could read Arabic, but since I can read
the French translation I thought I'd pass along the entry that correlates
to "cuskabenchi" in the Schachtafelen der Gesundheyt illustration I
posted.  Happily the mysterious dish name meanings are also revealed -
thanks Emilio!

While the illustration shows a round cake like food, it is clear that the
German illustrator (Hans Weiditz I believe) just drew what he thought it
might look like. For example, the drawing for a paradise apple correlates
to the entry for banana - apparently an unknown thing, or it is
incorrectly translated into the Latin source.

On table XXV under Desserts

Khashkinanj and Dry Delicacies

Le khashkinanj, quand il est dig?r? est le plus nourrissant des desserts
gr?ce au pain qui entre dans sa composition.  Il descend lentement parce
que l'huile r?siste m?me ? la cuisson du pain.  Frits, ils sont plus
indigestes que cuits au four parce quie l'huile y est abondante et qu'ils
sont tr?s gras.  Tous deux conviennent aux sportifs.  Parmi les friandises
s?ches, l'ilk des difficile ? dig?rer ? cause de la mall?ablit? qu'il a
acquise en ?tant m?lang? ? des oeufs sur le feu.  Celles qui fondent ont
les caract?ristiques contraires.

The khashkinanj, when it is digested is the most nourishing of the
desserts thanks to the bread that enters into its composition.  It
descends slowly because the oil resists even the cooking of the bread. 
Fried, they are more indigestible than oven baked because the oil is
abundant in them and they are very fatty.  Both of them suit the
sportsmen.  Regarding the dry delicacies , the "ilk" are difficult to
digest because of the malleability that it obtains while being mixed of
eggs on the fire.  Those that dissolve have the opposite characteristics
[the German specifies melt under the tongue].

The translator notes that khashkinanj is "Cr?pe faite de farine de froment
pure, de beurre, de sucre, d'amandes ou de pistaches, et de friandises
s?cheses. (al-Mu'jam is reference).   [Crepe made with pure [white?] wheat
flour , butter, sugar, almonds or pistachios and of dried delicacies.]

"Ilk" is noted as the word for "toute gomme-r?sine masticable" (al-Munjid
reference). [All chewable gum-resins].

This is an 11th century treatise.  Maybe cuskynoles are based on this
Arabic food and came to Europe with the crusades?


Katherine

p.s. for Stefan -
[No diacritical marks:]
Le khashkinanj, quand il est digere est le plus nourrissant des desserts
grace au pain qui entre dans sa composition.  Il descend lentement parce
que l'huile resiste meme a la cuisson du pain.  Frits, ils sont plus
indigestes que cuits au four parce quie l'huile y est abondante et qu'ils
sont tres gras.  Tous deux conviennent aux sportifs.  Parmi les friandises
seches, l'ilk des difficile a digerer a cause de la malleablite qu'il a
acquise en etant melange a des oeufs sur le feu.  Celles qui fondent ont
les caracteristiques contraires.


Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:40:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: emilio szabo <emilio_szabo at yahoo.it>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] cuskynoles

<<< I've got no horses in the cuskynole race, but the translation of Le Taquim
al-Sihha (Tawini Sanitatis) d'ibn Butlan came yesterday evening and I have
been engrossed in it. >>>

Katherine,

I think you are right or at least on the right path. Having pondered this 
question a while ago, I might add, that there is a recipe in the "Baghdad 
Cookery Book", that might be worth considering. No fruits mentioned; however, 
the overall architecture is not so far from the dish in question:

"KHUSHKNANAJ. -- Take fine white flour, and with every ratl mix three uqiya of 
sesame-oil, kneading into a firm paste. Leave to rise: then make into long 
loaves. Put into the middle of each loaf a suitable quantity of ground almonds 
and scented sugar mixed with rose-water, using half as much almonds as sugar. 
Then press together as usual, and bake in the oven: remove." (Islamic Culture, 
1939, p. 212). I know there is the more modern translation by Perry, but I 
cannot find the book for the moment.

As for the wandering of arabic recipes and dishes into medieval Europe, Maxime 
Rodinson has described some impressive examples.

On the tabular form of the Tacuini:

Tabular Form In Four Arabic Medical Texts From the 11th Century .FaridS.HADDAD

http://www.ishim.net/ishimj/2/11.pdf
(Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine)

If I find my notes on the point, I might add one or more further reference(s). 
Perhaps the specialists on arabic cookery books might want to chime in.

E.


Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:53:45 +0000 (GMT)
From: emilio szabo <emilio_szabo at yahoo.it>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] cuskynoles / Khushknanaj

In David Waines' book 'In a caliph's kitchen' on page 68-69 there is a picture 
of "Khushknanaj".

He writes: "The word itself is derived from the Persian: "khushk" meaning 'dry' 
and "nan" meaning bread."

More recipes anyone? Linguistic evidence (pro or contra) anyone?

E.


Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:14:30 +0000 (GMT)
From: emilio szabo <emilio_szabo at yahoo.it>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] cuskynoles / Khushknanaj

Kushknan is mentioned and commented on in Peter Heine: Kulinarische Studien. 
Unteruschungen zur Kochkunst im arabisch-islamischen Mittelalter (1988), pages 
101-102.

Among other things he refers to Al-Bhagdadi, gives the same etymological 
explanation as Waines does (plus a reference to the dictionary of Dozy) and in a 
footnote mentions an "eastern" version of Khushknan quoting an article of 
Huici-Miranda in: Revista del Instituto de Estudios Islamicos 6, 1958, p. 208. 

E.


Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:44:13 -0700 (PDT)
From: wheezul at canby.com
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] cuskynoles

<<< "KHUSHKNANAJ. -- Take fine white flour, and with every ratl mix three
uqiya of sesame-oil, kneading into a firm paste. Leave to rise: then make into long >>>

I also now wonder at the word Cuskabenchi.  Could this be the Italian name
variant from the Latin source?  Is something like this found in the
Neapolitan cookbooks or Sicilian sources?

Katherine


Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:29:45 -0700 (PDT)
From: emilio szabo <emilio_szabo at yahoo.it>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] cuskynoles

Another helpful book:

Anna Martellotti: Il 'Liber de ferculis' di Gaimbonino d Cremona. La gastronomia 
arabe in Occidente nella trattatistica dietetica. 2001.

She relates the "cuskabenchi" of the Tacuin tradition (= B 25) clearly to the 
cuscynoles recipes.

Page 91: "Il primo titolo ? il _khushkunanaj_, un panzeretto ripieno di pasta di 
mandorle cotto al forno, o in padella che compare al contrario in Giambonino 
nella doppia versione lessaga e fritta (G 68 _cusculenez_ e G 69 _cusculenez que 
frigitur_; B 25 cuskabenchi); lo riconosciamo nella denominazione 
_quinquinelli_, _schinchinelli_ dei libri di cucina italiani, _kuskenole_, 
_cuskynoles_ dei ricettari anglonormanni e ingliesi, nome alternativo dei 
ravioli ...".

See also the pages 99, 101, 226-229 (15th century German recipes and Italian 
translation), 339ss.

The line of transmission and translation is roughly this: Ibn Jazla (arabic, 
11th c.), Jamboninus of Cremona (beginning of 14th c., Latin), _Puech von den 
chosten_ (15th. c., Southern German).

See also Rodinson, Recherches sur les documents arabes etc., p. 149-150 (with 
some further references in the note).

E.


Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:27:23 -0400
From: "=?utf-8?b?RGF2aWQgRnJpZWRtYW4=?=" <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] cuskynoles

Quoting emilio szabo <emilio_szabo at yahoo.it>:
<<< David wrote:
<< This has been one of my standards for many, many years--one of the
things I offer my guests at the bardic circle. You can find my
redaction in the Miscellany. There is a more detailed recipe for a
variant in al-Warraq's 10th century cookbook; for the most part it
confirms the guesses I had to make. >>

David, do you mean, you knew it all before ...? Oh my goood ... Why 
didn't you tell us??

Please allow for a few questions. 

1. What do you mean by "This"? >>>

Khushkananaj in al-Baghdadi. I've been making it for twenty or thirty 
years. It didn't occur to me that it had any connection with cuskynoles. 

<<< Which recipe? Which interpretation? Which kind of background information?

2. When exactly did you get aware of a translation of al-Warraq? >>>

I knew of the existence of al-Warraq for many years, and made some 
unsuccessful attempts to get someone to translate it. I suppose I heard 
about the published translation when it came out, perhaps two years ago. 

<<< 3. Could you please provide the recipe from al-Warraq? >>>

Take 4 ratls fresh almonds, taste them for bitterness, shell them then 
dry them in a big copper pot  set on the fire. Grind them finely. Pound 
8 ratls refined tabarzad sugar (white cane sugar), and mix it with the 
almonds.

Take 2 ratl pith (brick-oven thick bread), dry it in the tannur, and as 
soon as you take it out, sprinkle it with 1/2 ratl rose water. Crumble 
the pith on a plate and dry it. Finely crush it with some camphor and 
musk then mix them well. Add the breadcrumbs to the almond-sugar 
mixture and sift them in a sieve so that they all mix well.
 
Take 15 ratl excellent-quality fine semolina flour. Knead it with ?  
ratl fresh yeast dissolved in water, and 2 1/2 ratls fresh sesame oil. 
Mix them all together then knead and press and rub the dough 
vigorously. Keep on doing this while gradually feeding it with water, 5 
dirhams at a time until it is thoroughly kneaded. The [final] dough 
should be on the stiff side.

Divide the dough into portions, whether small or big is up to you. Take 
a portion of the dough, roll it out on a (wooden low table) with a 
rolling pin. Let it look like a tongue, wide in the middle and tapered 
towards both ends. Spoon some of the filling and spread it on part of 
the dough, leaving the borders free of the filling. Fold the dough on 
the filling lengthwise]. Press out air so that the dough and the 
filling become like one solid mass. If any air remains inside, the 
cookie will tear and crack while baking in the tannur. Bend the two 
ends of the piece to make it look like a crescent. Arrange the finished 
ones on a tray  and cover them with a piece of cloth.

Light fire in the tannur and wait until the coals look white. Wipe the 
inside walls of the tannur with a wet piece of cloth after you brush it 
with a broom. Gather all the embers in the middle, and shape them like 
a dome. Now, transfer the tray closer to the tannur and put a bowl of 
water next to the top opening of the oven.

When ready to bake, take the filled pastries from the tray one by one, 
wipe their backs with water, enough to make them sticky, and stick them 
all to the inner wall of the tannur, taking care not to let them fall 
down. When you see that all the pieces are sealed well at the seams, 
cover the [top opening of the] tannur, and close the (bottom vent hole) 
for a short while to create moisture in the oven.

When the cookies start to take on color, open the bottom vent hole, 
remove the oven's top lid, and start scraping off the browned ones as 
they are done with a spatula held in one hand and a huge iron scoop 
[held in the other hand to receive the scraped cookies].

You should have prepared a bowl of gum Arabic dissolved in water. Wipe 
the khushkananaj tops with the gum solution [to give them a nice 
gloss], and stow the cookies away in a wicker basket, God willing. 

And here is my current redaction:

(1/10th recipe)

0.4 lb almonds: about 1 1/4 c
0.8 lb sugar = 1.6 cups
3 ounces bread crumbs: 7/8 c
1 1/2 T rose water
edible camphor : about 1/3 gram
1 1/2 lb semolina: 3 c scant
1 T sourdough
1/2 c sesame oil
water: About 3/4 c
Gum arabic: t dissolved in 1/2 c water

Combine semolina, sesame oil. Stir in sourdough dissolved in water. 
Leave about 5 hours to rise. Grind almonds. Grind camphor in mortar, 
combined with bread crumbs and rose water, spread out to dry fifteen 
minutes or so. Add sugar and bread crumbs to almonds, mix. Take a ball 
of dough about 1 1/4 inches in diameter, press and roll out to an oval 
about 5"x4", put T + of filling in the middle, fold along the long axis 
as a crescent, press out air.

Put a baking stone in the oven, heat oven to 350 degrees. Brush each crescent 
with water, put wet side down on baking stone, bake about 25-30 minutes 
until they start to brown. Remove, brushed with gum arabic solution, 
let dry. 
---

I generally discuss Khuskhananaj in the class Elizabeth and I do at 
Pennsic on Islamic cooking, because of several problems that arose in 
interpreting it. The first was the nature of sesame oil--I, 
unfortunately, knew what sesame oil was, having used it in Chinese 
cooking, and it proved difficult to follow the recipe and produce 
anything edible. Eventually I noticed sesame oil--pale yellow instead 
of dark--in a middle eastern grocery store. It's made from untoasted 
sesame seeds, and is a cooking oil rather than a strongly flavored 
condiment. 

The recipe tells you to mix flour and oil and leave it to rise--if 
that's all you use you will have a long wait. I conjectured that the 
author took it for granted that a dough had water. After checking with 
Charles Perry that "rise" really meant rise and not sit, I further 
conjectured that sour dough was assumed, and normally do it that way. 
As you can see, the more detailed recipe in al-Warraq confirms my 
guesses. Also rose water in scented sugar--I hadn't guessed the other 
ingredients. 

David/Cariadoc


Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2010 08:58:44 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] cuskynoles

On Jul 30, 2010, at 8:44 PM, emilio szabo wrote:
<<< 3. Could you please provide the recipe from al-Warraq? >>>

recipe 136r
A recipe for krushkananaj called Abu Ishaqi mu'arraj
(shaped like crescents}:
(And there are all sorts of funny characters which I cannot reproduce  
and that this list will just publish as question marks anyway)

It's on page 419 of Nawal Nasrallah's translation of Annals of the  
caliphs' kitchens: Ibn Sayy?r al-Warr?q's tenth-century Baghdadi  
Cookbook by al-Mu?affar ibn Na?r Ibn Sayy?r al-Warr?q.

It's the big red Brill volume that originally came out in 2007 and is  
due out shortly in a $70.00 paperback. We have been mentioning it of  
late on the list. 876 pages.

IF you don't own the volume (and I hope more people do take the  
opportunity now that the paperback has been released) it's up on  
Google Books for viewing and this recipe can be viewed there!
People interested in cookies and pastries can find a number of  
interesting  recipes there, including some that might tempt people  
away from brownies.
-------

Nawal Nasrallah mentions these are similar to an Iraqi cookie known as  
klecha. There seems to be a recipe and photo of those on
http://www.iamiraqi.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3478&PN=3&title=middle-eastern-cuisine

Johnnae


Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2010 09:26:18 -0500
From: Michael Gunter <dookgunthar at hotmail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] cuskynoles

David/Cariadoc said:
<<< Divide the dough into portions, whether small or big is up to you. Take 
a portion of the dough, roll it out on a (wooden low table) with a 
rolling pin. Let it look like a tongue, wide in the middle and tapered 
towards both ends. Spoon some of the filling and spread it on part of 
the dough, leaving the borders free of the filling. Fold the dough on 
the filling lengthwise]. Press out air so that the dough and the 
filling become like one solid mass. If any air remains inside, the 
cookie will tear and crack while baking in the tannur. Bend the two 
ends of the piece to make it look like a crescent. Arrange the finished 
ones on a tray and cover them with a piece of cloth. >>>

But this statement here destroys the entire cuskynole argument. The illustration
showed a large rectangle with lines and a little dimple on the top and this 
is clearly a crescent shaped turnover. I'm sure the same ingredients can be
shaped into the large ravioli sheet (which is my interpretation of the illustration) but this looks to be a hand-sized stuffed pie.

In fact, even the filling appears to be different than the debated cuskynole since I made them for a feast. 

Gunthar


Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2010 19:19:53 +0000 (GMT)
From: emilio szabo <emilio_szabo at yahoo.it>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] cuskynoles

Many thanks for the input on and off list. Please let me make a few further 
comments.

1. I was told and I am well aware, that there is an ancient controversy between 
David and Adamantius about the question, how to exactly understand the recipe(s) 
we have and how to proceed in making cusynoles.

So, the basic question in _this_ controversy is or was:
"Basically, the disagreement is on the construction of a cuskynole."
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/cuskynoles-msg.html

"And the giants fought not once, but many times ..."

At least in the florilegium, I cannot see any discussion of the giants as for 
the connection of cuskynoles and the arabic tradition. David, in his latest 
post, said:

<< Khushkananaj in al-Baghdadi. I've been making it for twenty or thirty 
years. It didn't occur to me that it had any connection with cuskynoles. >>

So, this (the connection of cuskynoles/kuskenole with the arabic tradition) 
seems to be a topic, that was not part of the Cariadoc/Adamantius controversy so 
far. I might be mistaken.

2. Michael Gunter's argument

<< 
But this statement here destroys the entire cuskynole argument. The illustration
showed a large rectangle with lines and a little dimple on the top and this 
is clearly a crescent shaped turnover. I'm sure the same ingredients can be
shaped into the large ravioli sheet (which is my interpretation of the 
illustration) but this looks to be a hand-sized stuffed pie.
In fact, even the filling appears to be different than the debated cuskynole 
since I made them for a feast. 

Gunthar >>

No, it does not destroy the argument.

First: please allow for variation and historical development in dishes and 
recipes. We have this kind of variation in other dishes and recipes as well. As 
long as we do not know what were the essential and what were the more 
accidental/variable criteria of the dishes in question, I would not dismiss the 
suggested possibility.

Second: The filling might be on the variable side. Consider ravioli which can be 
made with all sorts of fillings.

Third: Here is sort of argument from authority (which I know is not very strong, 
but might make you think). On a belgian website, there are two files that are 
relevant for us. One of them contains a comment by Liliane Plouvier, one of the 
authors who contributed significantly to the study of food of Al-Andalus. Here 
are the links:

http://www.histoiredepates.net/html/khuchknanaj.html
http://www.histoiredepates.net/html/kuskenole.html
http://www.histoiredepates.net/html/qui_sommes-nous_.html
(Liliane Plouvier)

Fourth: All we are doing here is to try and understand a hitherto "strange" name 
of a dish. I find it o.k. to check those arabic roots, that Maxime Rodinson has 
dealt with in many other cases and that Melitta Weiss Adamson has traced for Ibn 
Jazla/Ibn Gazla ("Ibn Jazla auf dem Weg nach Bayern", 'Ibn Jazla on the/his way 
to Bavaria").

E.


Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2010 14:43:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: emilio szabo <emilio_szabo at yahoo.it>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] cuskynoles / kuskenole (DEAF article)

<< Still trying to figure out whether this new cuskynoles is really an import 
from the Arab world or whether just the name was, or whether it is just coincidental name similarity. >>

There is an article "KUSKENOLE" in the "Dictionnaire Etymologique de L'Ancien 
Francais" (DEAF); it is in fascicle J4-5/K, published in 2008. This dictionary 
also deals with anglo-norman texts and words.

The autor, Frankwalt Moehren, traces the history of the word _kuskenole_ to 
Giambonino da Cremona (his word form is "cusculenez") and his middle latin 
translation of the recipes from Ibn Jazlas work. As for the arabic form, he 
quotes al-Baghdadi and mentions persian "husk-nan" (without the accents) 
'sec-pain' ('dry bread, biscuit, a kind of sweetmeat').

About the middle latin form "cuskabenchi", we found in the Schachtafelen and in 
Ibn Butlan, he says (I translate quick and dirty from the French): "The _b_ 
seems to be an error for _n_, given that the two letters have the same sign in 
arabic, the only difference being punctuation: the arabic sign with a point 
above means _b_, with a point below means _n_."

He quotes the passage from the anglo-norman cookerybook in ms. BL Add. 32085, 
edited by Hieatt and Jones. Apart from that, he discusses another quote from 
another anglo-norman text by Walter of Bibbesworth ("... Quant averas mang? de 
kakenole"; from: Le tretiz). However, this quote is problematic for reasons, I 
need not discuss here.

Moehren also quotes an article by Anna Martellotti: 

"Quinquenelli zo? rafioli". In: Annali della Facolt? die Lingue e Letterature 
Straniere dell' Universit? di Bari, s. III, 15 (2001) 351-372. 

(I did not see that and I have only little hope that I get it without ILL.)

E.


Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2010 12:57:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: emilio szabo <emilio_szabo at yahoo.it>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] cuskynoles / diagrams / forms of visualization

Stefan said:
<< Perhaps the reason that there is a diagram in the original discussed recipe was not because it was an entirely new recipe, but that this version was specifically different enough from the way the recipe was usually done that it needed a diagram to illustrate the difference. >>

That is a very important point.

Given the fact, that there are virtually no diagrams and no forms of 
visualization in old cook books at all, this point deserves careful 
consideration.

What do we know about forms of visualization in medieval manuscripts, within the 
field of cookery or elsewhere?

E.

<the end>
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