olive-oil-msg

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olive-oil-msg - 5/24/13

Olive oil in period. Uses. Processing.

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NOTICE -

This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.

This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org

I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.

The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors.

Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s).

Thank you,

Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous

Stefan at florilegium.org

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Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 21:09:09 -0400

From: Daniel Myers <edoard at medievalcookery.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Bread Recipe from my files

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

On Jul 11, 2007, at 2:38 PM, Vitaliano Vincenzi wrote:

> The only ingredient I question right now is the olive oil, which I know

> was used in period for medicinal purposes, but haven't seen much

> use of it in my readings as a food item.

I don't have anything in the way of medieval bread recipes, but I can

find plenty of examples of medieval culinary use of olive oil. Here

are some examples:

From "Das Kuchbuch der Sabina Welserin"

109 If you would prepare a good pike. Cook it sour and salt it well

and if it is large, then take the bones out and press it onto a grate

and lay it after that in a frying pan and pour olive oil over it and

vinegar, then it is ready.

From "Le Menagier de Paris"

Heads of cabbage, at the end of grape-harvest. And when the head of

this cabbage, which is in the middle, is removed, pull and replant

the cabbage stalk in new ground, and there will come out large

spreading leaves: and a cabbage holds great place, and these are

called Roman cabbages, and eaten in winter; and from the stalks, if

they are replanted, come little cabbages called sprouts which are

eaten with raw herbs and vinegar; and if you have plenty, they should

be well cleaned, washed in hot water, and put to cook whole with a

little water: and then when they are cooked, add salt and oil, and

stir it up thick without water, and put olive oil on in Lent. Then

there are other cabbages known as Easter cabbage because they are

eaten at Easter, but they are sown in August; and when after sowing

they are seen to be of half a foot in height, you pluck them and

replant elsewhere, and they should be frequently watered.

From "Ouverture de Cuisine"

To whiten olive oil for eating in cream. Make a little serenne, like

one churns butter, a little crane thereunder to take the water out:

then put cold water therein, & rake olive oil that is firm, & churn

like butter: having churned a long time, let it cover the water out,

& add new water two or three times, until you see that the oil is

white: then take it out, & serve on plates.

From "Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books"

Soupes dorrees. Nym oynons, mynce hem, frie hem in oille de olyue:

nym oynons, boille hem with wyn, tost whit bred, and do it in

dishes / and cast almand mylke theron, and ye wyn and ye oynons

aboue, and gif hit forth.

From "A Treatise of Portuguese Cuisine"

Partridge Slow Cooked in a Clay Pot. Cut a partially baked partridge

into chunks. In a separate pot, prepare the saute with olive oil or

butter, minced onion, cloves, black pepper and saffron. Dredge the

partridge pieces in the wheat flour, and then arrange in the pan

containing the saute. Take vinegar mixed with water, and add this

mixture to the pot containing the partridge enough to fill it

halfway. Add salt to taste. Cook over low heat.

There are lots of others.

- Doc

Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:08:34 -0700

From: "V A" <phoenissa at gmail.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Bread Recipe from my files

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

On 7/11/07, Vitaliano Vincenzi <vitaliano at shanelambert.com> wrote:

> The only ingredient I question right now is the olive oil, which I know

> was used in period for medicinal purposes, but haven't seen much

> use of it in my readings as a food item.

Olive oil was (and has been, for all of recorded history) used prolifically

for many purposes -- medicinal, cosmetic, and culinary -- all along the

Mediterranean. Of course, the farther north you go in Europe, the harder it

is to cultivate olives, so if olive oil was used in northern Europe, it

would have been (for most of the Middle Ages) a fairly expensive commodity,

since it had to be imported...so if you're looking at, say, 14th-century

English recipes, you wouldn't see a ton of olive oil, but it'd be all

over the Italian cookbooks of the same period.

Vittoria

Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 20:48:40 -0400

From: Patrick Levesque <petruvoda at videotron.ca>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Bread Recipe from my files

To: "Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>"

<sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Every time oil is called for in a recipe, I pretty much assume olive

oil.

For medicinal purposes, olea communis (or something like this) refers to

olive oil as well. Do not use the greenish, extra-virgin kind. Use the very

yellow, common oil (as the name indicates). Something about the golden hue

having better medecinal qualities. This I learned at my utter dismay when my

Aureum unguent ended up with a sickly yellow-green color, instead of the

vivid golden yellow it ought to have been :-=)

Petru

Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2007 10:26:05 -0400

From: Daniel Myers <edoard at medievalcookery.com>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] Olive oil (was Re: Bread Recipe from my files)

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

On Jul 12, 2007, at 2:08 PM, V A wrote:

> Olive oil was (and has been, for all of recorded history) used prolifically

> for many purposes -- medicinal, cosmetic, and culinary -- all along the

> Mediterranean. Of course, the farther north you go in Europe, the harder it

> is to cultivate olives, so if olive oil was used in northern Europe, it

> would have been (for most of the Middle Ages) a fairly expensive commodity,

> since it had to be imported...so if you're looking at, say, 14th-century

> English recipes, you wouldn't see a ton of olive oil, but it'd be

> all over the Italian cookbooks of the same period.

While olives (or at least olive oil) would have been imported into

northern Europe, I don't believe that they were so rare as to be

hugely expensive.

We already see a substantial use of almonds in 14th century English

cooking, and they also were imported. They're a substantial

component a large number of meatless-day recipes. Like almonds,

olive oil keeps and travels well. As it is a vegetable oil, it is

also suited to meatless-day recipes. It is quite easy to imagine an

English merchant purchasing many barrels of it each year through an

agent in Italy (where it would be quite cheap).

Professor John H. Munro's article, "Spices and Their Costs in

Medieval Europe" (see link) has demonstrated that the cost of

imported spices was much lower than commonly believed (by my

calculations, about 10 times what we'd pay in the grocery store today

- no where near "worth its weight in gold").

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~munro5/SPICES1.htm

I'll try to find more concrete evidence, but given the above in

connection with the number of recipes I've seen which call for olive

oil (including some that use it for frying), I'm inclined to believe

that while it was more expensive than lard, it was not considered

overly expensive and was commonly used in large quantities by the

middle and upper classes.

- Doc

Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:31:15 -0400

From: Sharon Palmer <ranvaig at columbus.rr.com>

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Sweating meat

<<< What does the recipe mean when it says "a few drops of sweet olive oil"?

Is this "regular" olive oil? If so, why would anyone use an olive

oil that wasn't "sweet"? >>>

<< The book refers to a number of different varieties of olive oil. I

have not figured out what they correspond to, so just use ordinary

olive oil for all of them. >>

A modern definition is "olive oil that is late harvest and has a

sweeter, more ripe flavor is sometimes referred to as "sweet olive

oil" on restaurant menus, as opposed to an astringent, bitter Tuscan

style oil. " This may or may not be what was meant.

Ranvaig

Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:55:36 +0000 (GMT)

From: galefridus at optimum.net

To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

Subject: [Sca-cooks] Olive oil varieties

About a week or so ago, there was a brief mention of types of olive oil -- a believe Cariadoc mentioned it in response to a question, and stated that Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchen lists several varieties of olive oil.

I though I'd add a bit to the conversation -- I recently stumbled across the multi-volume treatise _Studies in Ancient Technology_, by R.J. Forbes. Volume 3 of this series contains several pages discussing olive oil production in antiquity (pp. 101-104). These pages state that the best oil was derived from the liquid extracted from the first pressing. However, the pulp was saved and subjected to several subsequent pressings, each producing oil of lower quality than the one before. While fairly brief, the discussion was quite interesting -- makes me wish I lived someplace where olives were more easily and cheaply obtained, so I could experiment with pressing my own olive oil.

-- Galefridus

Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:48:11 +1200

From: Glenn Adrian <gadrian at clear.net.nz>

To: 'Cooks within the SCA' <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Olive oil varieties

This is exactly the same in modern olive oil production. Except that after the first pressing I believe chemicals are likely to be used to increase the amount of oil extracted. This may do very little for the quality however.

Glenn.

<<< These pages state that the best oil was derived from the liquid extracted from the first pressing. However, the pulp was saved and subjected to several subsequent pressings, each producing oil of lower quality than the one before.

-- Galefridus >>>