p-kitchens-msg – 6/29/07
Period kitchens and kitchen staff. Fireplaces.
NOTE: See also the files: Kentwell-Hall-art, p-menus-msg, ovens-msg, p-tableware-msg. utensils-msg, brooms-msg, candlesticks-msg, furniture-msg, p-cooks-msg.
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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
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Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 08:39:53 EDT
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - kitchen staff?
Laguz at mediaone.net writes:
<< Where can I find info on what the average 1500's kitchen was staffed by and
stocked with?
andy >>
There is a wonderful chapter at the end of Scully's "Early French Cooking'
that describes a day in the life of Chiquart. It describes in vivid detail the
various staff and support personael , normal meals, banquets, provisioning,
disbursment, preparation, etc. of the typical royal household of the time and
the ups and downs of being a Kitchen Steward. Fascinating reading and a must
read for anyone who really has a desire to know what it was like to perform
this duty.
Ras
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 09:45:41 EDT
From: WOLFMOMSCA at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - kitchen staff?
_The Royal Palaces of Tudor England_ by Simon Thurley, ISBN 0-300-05420-3.
Chapter 9 is a splendid batch of info from many period sources about the
kitchen, its staff, and equipment. Anyone interested in the general daily
life of people in a royal castle should RUN AND BUY THIS BOOK! It's
excellent. Chapters include:
Royal Houses in the Middle Ages... Purpose and Function... Style and Form...
The Outward Chambers... Sports & Recreation... Hygiene & Sanitation, among
others. It even has a full color pic of Queen Elisabeth's potty chair (I
smell an Art/Sci project) ;-). 329 illustrations, most in color. It won't
be cheap. I got mine thru the Yale U Press annual closeout sale for a song.
Wonderful source material for anyone interested in late period castle life.
Wolfmother
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 14:03:57 -0600 (MDT)
From: Mary Morman <memorman at oldcolo.com>
Subject: Re: SC - kitchen staff?
The new book Breakfast at Bradgate has wonderful lists of supplies and
servants from an early 17th century inventory. Fascinating reading.
elaina
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 22:22:03 -0700
From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <acrouss at gte.net>
Subject: Re: SC - kitchen staff?
And of course the treatise by Chiquart (a 15th century cuisinier) details
exactly what personages, their wages, and what supplies are neccessary fo
rthe kitchen of the Duke of Savoy.
check out the translation by Scully.
- --Anne-Marie
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 16:57:37 -0400From: "Alma Johnson" <chickengoddess at mindspring.com>Subject: Re: SC - kitchen staff info sourceandy oppenheim wrote:> Where can I find info on what the average 1500's kitchen was staffed by and> stocked with?Check out "A History of Private Life Vol II - Revelations of the MedievalWorld" George Duby ed.The section entitled "The Aristocratic Households of Feudal France", theexact part concerning the meal starts on pg. 73. Fra Niccolo and myselfwere inspired by this to add a concierge to our staff for our upcoming jointeffort. But it's got nifty names for every type of job, along with thehierarchy for servants and lots more nifty info. Enjoy.Rhiannon C.
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 22:20:03 -0400
From: Phil & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - course plan
andy oppenheim wrote:
> I have enough recipes for teaching the course. I will teach 1 peasant and
> royal meal and feast. So what I am looking for is how a kitchen was
> organizes and what they were stocked with
Taillevent, in Le Viandier, lists the spices any good cook should have.
Chiquart speaks a bit about kitchen organizing and staffing in Du Fait de
Cuisine, and Le Menagier de Paris speaks of what wines, wafers, spices and
other provisions are needed for what seems to be a somewhat bourgoise wedding
feast. These would, of course, represent a fairly tight focus, being
basically French from within 120 years of each other.
Adamantius
Østgardr, East
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 13:43:32 -0800
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - course plan
At 9:28 PM -0400 10/21/98, andy oppenheim wrote:
>I have enough recipes for teaching the course. I will teach 1 peasant and
>royal meal and feast. So what I am looking for is how a kitchen was
>organizes and what they were stocked with
>Andy
See the first part of Du Fait de Cuisine--there is a commercially published
Terrance Scully translation, and my translation is in Cariadoc's cookbook
collection vol. 2 and (I think) up on Cariadoc's website. Also:
"In a kitchen there should be a small table on which cabbage may be minced,
and also lentils, peas, shelled beans, beans in the pod, millet, onions,
and other vegetables of the kind that can be cut up. There should be also
pots, tripods, a mortar, a hatchet, a pestle, a stirring stick, a hook, a
cauldron, a bronze vessel, a small pan, a baking pan, a meathook, a
griddle, small pitchers, a trencher, a bowl, a platter, a pickling vat, and
knives for cleaning fish. In a vivarium let fish be kept, in which they
can be caught by net, fork, spear, or light hook, or with a basket. The
chief cook should have a cupboard in the kitchen where he may store away
aromatic spices, and bread flour sifted through a sieve-and used also for
feeding small fish-may be hidden away there. Let there be also a cleaning
place where the entrails and feathers of ducks and other domestic fowl can
be removed and the birds cleaned. Likewise there should be a large spoon
for removing foam and skimming. Also there should be hot water for
scalding fowl.
"Have a pepper mill and a hand mill. Small fish for cooking should be put
into a pickling mixture, that is, water mixed with salt... To be sure,
pickling is not for all fish, for these are of different kinds: mullets,
soles, sea eels, lampreys, mackerel, turbot, sperlings, gudgeons, sea
bream, young tunnies, cod, plaice, stargazers[?], anglers, herring,
lobsters fried in half an egg, bougues, sea mullets, and oysters. There
should also be a garde-robe pit through which the filth of the kitchen may
be evacuated. In the pantry let there be shaggy towels, tablecloth, and an
ordinary hand towel which shall hang from a pole to avoid mice. Knives
should be kept in the pantry, an engraved saucedish, a saltceller, a cheese
container, a candelabra, a lantern, a candlestick, and baskets. In the
cellar or storeroom should be casks, tuns, wineskins, cups, cup cases,
spoons, ewers, basins, baskets, pure wine, cider, beer, unfermented wine,
mixed wine, claret, nectar, mead... piment, pear wine, red wine, wine from
Auvergne, clove-spiced wine for gluttons whose thirst is unquenchable..."
From De nominibus utenslium by Alexander Neckam (1157-1217), quoted (and
translated from the Latin) in Daily Living in the Twelfth Century by Urban
Tigner Holmes, Jr., University of Wisconsin Press, 1952, pp.93-94
Elizabeth/Betty Cook.
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 20:06:48 +1100
From: "Phillippa Venn-Brown" <p.vbrown at tsc.nsw.edu.au>
Subject: Re: SC - Which books?
Bonne said
"A late period Renaissance feast will be offered, for in the mind of the
> autocrat, it is always 1531." I've had offers of the loan of books. With that
> quotation in mind, which books do I want to borrow? If one of
> you experienced cooks were faced with this, what is the first book you would
> reach for? And per chance, what recipe might you be hunting up?
Good my lady.
While traveling in England a few years ago I did Visit Hampton Court Palace
and especially their reconstructed Tudor kitchens. It was a marvelous
experience. They have it set out with dishes in preparation for Henry
VIII's midsummer feast of 1540.
The English History or Royal Trust people have published two books which
might be helpful in your quest. One is a guide to the recreation of the
kitchens with lots of photos and lots of info about kitchens and the other
is a cookery book containing some of the recipes used (both in the original
and redacted) with lots of photos too. I am not sure of the titles but will
check them when I am home and will post them on Friday when I get back to
work. While not exhaustive they are certainly worth a look.
Filippa Ginevra
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1998 21:41:11 -0500
From: mermayde at juno.com (Christine A Seelye-King)
Subject: SC - Feast Service
I just sorted out my rather general files marked "Food" and "Recipies",
which had gotten so huge the computer was stalling out when I tried to
add to them, into LOTS of food category files. While doing that, I
found a few things on Feast Service that was topical to the 'Tablecloths
and Christmas' thread. (BTW, I was referring to the Introduction letter
just recently posted from a lady in ?An Tir? who said her most recent
foray into period feasting included reseached folds in the tablecloths, I
am still curious to hear more about that.) In the mean time, here are a
few tidbits about feast service.
Christianna
"in a period feast there was a well-developed
hierarchical division of labor among the servers of a feast- i.e. the
"butler" was responsible for the selection and serving of drinks/wines/ales
from the lord's cellars, the "carver" was responsible for the carving and
portioning of the meats served, the "sutler" was responsible for the
preparation of the trenchers and the slicing and serving of the breads,
etc... etc...
> You think precedence in the SCA is complex and/or confusing? Well,
> people in late period frequently couldn't figure it out. People at one
> court couldn't figure out if bakers outranked the meat-carvers at some
> court (the book doesn't say which court). Aren't you glad you're not
> that court's precedence herald??!! :-) :-)
>
> Isabelle
Actually that was more a matter of "serjeantry" than "precedence".
At least at the English Royal court there were certain prerogatives
attendant to the degree of the service done by the individual.
Offices such as the butler, pantler and others in direct service to
the person or chamber of the Monarch were much more lucrative
in their stipends. For example the Butler (depending upon the
nature of the feast) might be entitled to the cup from which the
King drank. The pantler might be allowed to keep the loaf ends
and crusts (not a shabby reward considering the quality of the
bread which was served at the royal table). The Steward could
also lay claim to all the candle-ends and wax pools from the
hall.
Cathal
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1998 00:26:28 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - OT - inalienable freedom of speech (and black pepper)
LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
> Of course, the notion that the cook actually did their own spice grinding is
> questionable in itself. In all likelihood, the average person if they could
> afford spices, would have bought them pre-ground at the apothecary. Cooks for
> large manors and castles would not have ground them themselves.
In general, this is likely the case, as even a scullion had skills that
made him valuable to the Master cook, and the endless pounding would
make him unavailable for other work. If I remember correctly Chiquart
(or is it the fictional Chiquart in the Scully book?) speaks of a
special braying man whose job was to pound stuff in an enormous mortar,
for the gallons of almond milk, f'rinstance, the household would need on
a feast day... .
I also recall Le Menagier's hippocras recipe calls for both whole and
powdered cinnamon to be combined with other spices, and the whole
mixture to be ground to a powder. While hippocras powder and Duke's
powder (the pre-sweetened vesion) could be bought from apothecaries,
it's possible and even likely that the recipe is included in Le
Menagier's text because someone is expected to make it. Maybe not the
butler, but possibly one or another of the stewards he mentions (Le
Menagier may not have had a butler, and on an interesting side note,
Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management describes a wide spectrum of
brewing and vintning tasks, such as racking, kegging, decanting, and
honest-to-gosh mashing of malt, etc., as part of a nineteenth-century
butler's duties.)
Adamantius
Østgardr, East
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 15:53:21 -0800
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: SC - Grinding Spices
At 12:26 AM -0500 11/27/98, Philip & Susan Troy wrote:
>LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
>> Of course, the notion that the cook actually did their own spice grinding is
>> questionable in itself. In all likelihood, the average person if they could
>> afford spices, would have bought them pre-ground at the apothecary.
>>Cooks for large manors and castles would not have ground them themselves.
>
>In general, this is likely the case, as even a scullion had skills that
>made him valuable to the Master cook, and the endless pounding would
>make him unavailable for other work. If I remember correctly Chiquart
>(or is it the fictional Chiquart in the Scully book?) speaks of a
>special braying man whose job was to pound stuff in an enormous mortar,
>for the gallons of almond milk, f'rinstance, the household would need on
>a feast day... .
Chiquart (chief cook for the Duke of Savoy) buys his spices whole, but then
recommends grinding them and storing them in leather bags so they are
available for use when needed; so someone in his kitchen is doing the job.
Le Menagier (Paris upper middle class) recommends that in making sauces,
you grind your spices first and then grind the bread that will thicken the
sauce in the same mortar, so as not to waste any of the spice. He further
advises buying your saffron, at least, whole, because if you buy it ground
you have no idea what it may have been adulturated with.
Elizabeth/Betty Cook
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 23:22:27 -0800
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: SC - Nobles and cooking?
At 1:43 PM -0800 2/13/99, Laura C Minnick wrote:
>('Sides that- I can think of no reason why I, an heiress and poet and
>companion of Christine de Pisan, would even be near the kitchens, so I'm
>breaking form anyway.)
Which raises an interesting question--was cooking seen as something that
noblewomen wouldn't dirty their hand with in period? Or was it assumed that
since part of their job was running a household, they ought to know how it
was done from the ground up?
So far as al-Islam is concerned, I think it is clear that high ranking men
did take an interest in cooking, whether or not they did it themselves. At
least, there are surviving recipes attributed to Ibrahim ibn al Mahdi, who
was a close relative of several caliphs and himself an unsuccessful
claimant to the caliphate at one point. And I believe one of the cookbooks
in the 10th c. collection is attributed to one of the Barmakids, the family
that served as viziers for al-Rashid until he turned on them.
David/Cariadoc
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 20:16:10 -0700
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Keeping out the idle curious
At 8:27 AM -0400 4/10/99, LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
>When I am Kitchen Steward, I
>routinely place my personal work station as close to the main door of the
>kitchen as possible specifically so I can stop anyone who comes in the door
>more than 1 step. The typical conversation is " Knives and recipes are over
>there. Can I help you?' or 'If you didn't come in here to work , you are
>using the wrong door.', etc., etc. I also usually designate a middle person
>to head off 'well wishers' and other sorts so only those with feast related
>problems of major importance have access to me during actual feast
>preperation.
Le Menagier de Paris, in his list of the personnel you need to hire for a
big dinner, includes along with water carriers and bread slicers:
"Item, big strong sergeants to guard the door."
Elizabeth/Betty Cook
From: powers at cis.ohio-state.edu (william thomas powers)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Food Research
Date: 10 Jun 1999 13:43:43 GMT
Organization: The Ohio State University, Department of Computer and Information Science
I forgot to mention another "labour saving kitchen device" The main kitchen
for a convent in Rothenberg ODT had a *raised* fireplace---actually a square
stone structure several feet high---the "chimney" was the entire ceiling of
this area so you could walk all around the hearth and didn't have to stoop
to cook! (IIRC the raised area was over 6' on a side; I'd have to refer to
my notes and pictures. The main reason we visited that museum was that it
still had the *ORIGINAL* kitchen in it.
wilelm the smith
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 17:10:19 -0600 (MDT)
From: Ann Sasahara <ariann at nmia.com>
Subject: SC - stoves/fireboxes
On Tue, 5 Oct 1999 LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
> macdairi at hotmail.com writes:
> << Was it Ras who said he had picture of one of these stoves? >>
>
> IIRC, one of the pictures at Cindy Renfrow's site that are archived on the
> lindah site shows a center room brickwork with what appear to be a series of
> small fireboxes built into it around the walls of the base, overlaying this
> is a flat surface with a pot or 2 sitting on it. If this is not a stove, I
> would be greatly surprised. Certainly there is no need to conjecture a pot
> with fire directly coming into contact with the pot itself if this is a stove
> type construction. And once the surface was heated it would be a simple
> matter to use the fireboxes to keep the surface variously hot depending on
> the type of woods, etc., were maintained in the firebox and the frequency of
> replacing fuel or damping the flames.
>
> Ras
I have not seen the photos, but I toured the Hampton Court kitchens. The
roasting hearths and baking ovens were located along the exterior walls.
There was a partition that divided the kitchen in half. Along the base of
this partition was a white-washed, brick counter with 8 holes in the top.
This was the heating stove.
Interesting things:
1 - there was no flue/chimney for any of these stoves, but the roof was
2.5 stories above the floor in that area (plenty of smoke room)
2 - each oven had a separate fuel hole below the pothole. This was done,
so each pot could be "set" at a different temperature. Very neat idea
for individual temp. control
3 - the heating ovens were adjacent to the work tables where the coffins
were set for filling and the serving platters were loaded for carrying
to the Great Hall. The pots were 5-8 quarts, so I assume they were
used for sauces and other "small" volume items. 120 +/- coffins
may have been set out near the stoves, because that's where there was
work space, so I assume the filling for 120+ pies was cooked elsewhere
in the room.
Ariann
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 19:43:45 EDT
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Hauviette's Confits
renfrow at skylands.net writes:
<< There are several kitchen illustrations there
(http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/food-art/ ). I think the one you're talking
about is main kitchen.gif from Scappi. >>
Actually you are correct. I must have seen the picture I am talking about
another place. The offset stove in the back right corner of the kitchen in
th