seaweed-msg – 5/21/04
Period use of seaweed as food and for other uses.
NOTE: See also the files: herbs-msg, salads-msg, Ireland-msg, fd-Ireland-msg, pickled-foods-msg.fd-Scotland-msg.
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Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2004 00:44:40 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period Seaweed Recipes?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
> snipped---
> That's because they're two separate dishes. McCormick gives a recipe
> for Brotchan Foltchep (a.k.a. Brotchan Roy), saying this was
> apparently eaten by Colmcille, and he also mentions, sort of
> peripherally, that he ate a lot of dulse. I haven't been able to find
> any specific references to either food in documents even remotely
> contemporary to Colmcille (his bio by Adamnan is quite a bit later
> than Comcille himself). It may have been a tradition on Iona, I don't
> know.
>
> Adamantius (trying to remember the sauce he used for the lamb
> medallions wrapped in laver and steamed -- probably a caper butter
> emulsion...)
Dulse in Ireland, according to Alan Davidson, was eaten
from ancient times onward and is recorded in the 7th century
Irish laws Corpus Iuris Hibernici. It was again something that was
eaten during the famine years. (Actual Irish, Welsh, and Scots
recipes (also Cornwall) are all going to be much later, since we just don't have
the early published works from those regions. Traditional recipes
for those countries using seaweed aren't that hard to find.)
Carrageen is another variety that is cooked with and that one
I have worked with. I made a molded cream one time that was
set up with 'Irish moss'. It worked alright, but the taste wasn't all
that good. I think people expected a very sweet pudding and it wasn't.
Johnnae llyn Lewis
Date: Mon, 08 Mar 2004 12:51:31 -0500
From: Lsa Kuney <lkuney at ec.rr.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Period seaweed recipes
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Samphire (Crithmum maritumum) has been eaten in he Southwest of England
from at least medieval times. It is now called Sea Fennel and is eaten
pickled. In German it is called "meerfenchel", and in Italian "Herba di
San Pietra". It grows on rocky cliffsides and is mentioned in King
Lear. Both Gerard and Culpepper speak of it in their writings. It
makes a very unique and aromatic pickle. I saw it mentioned in modern
Cornish recipes when I lived there. I will try to locate some recipes,
but since it is pickled fresh, I am unlikely to locate an American source.
Halima
Raven's Cove
Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2004 10:09:46 -0500
From: "Sayyida Halima al-Shafi'i of Raven's Cove" <lkuney at ec.rr.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] samphire
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Here are some links to samphire...sorry I don't have time to summarize
for a post about it, but the kind referred to in medieval documents is
Rock samphire, which grows to this day in Cornwall (where I lived) and
other rocky, coastal place in Europe, and rarely in Australia.
(http://www.riverhouse.com.au/factsheets/rock_samphire.html,
http://www.oldcity.demon.co.uk/eastanglia/country/samphire.html)
and you can buy jars of it pickled.
There is a kind of samphire that grows in North America, apparently
known as salicornia (marsh samphire) on the coasts of oceans,
(http://eat.epicurious.com/dictionary/food/index.ssf?ARROW_UP=3420) but
I have no experience with it.
If I recall correctly (and I am dredging this wwaaaayyyy up from the
depths of my poor brain), there is a literary reference to samphire in
one of Louisa May Alcott's books, in which the child means to say
"vampire" and instead says "samphire" thereby inviting ridicule from
someone for comparing someone to a pickle. This is post period but
shows that samphire is still alive and kicking.
Halima
Raven's Cove
<the end>