[Loch-Ruadh] Fw: Very Long news article - 16th century kitchens...

[Steve K. Rourke]

Found this on the Rialto, and with all the cooks within the group I just had
to share this.

Domhnall


> How to sieve a chicken
>  Two Englishmen restore royal kitchens and test 16th century recipes.
> Who would have thought the best place for their research would be
> California?
>
>
> By Charles Perry, Times Staff Writer
>
>
> If you've seen a sword-fight scene lately, you may have seen the
> Palace Kitchen Boys. As a way of understanding palace kitchens and
> their times, they've studied swordsmanship, so these days they're also
> on call for movies and TV.
>
> If being cooks-sword fighters sounds like a stretch, it won't be the
> only thing about Marc Meltonville and Richard Fitch that does. What
> these two Englishmen do as coordinators of the Historic Kitchens
> Project goes way beyond dressing up for a Renaissance Faire. For the
> last decade or so, they've been restoring historic English royal
> kitchens in all their former functionality. Which means not only
> learning to fence but also reviving 16th century recipes.
>
> We caught up with them at the end of January when they were in
> Pasadena researching 16th century English cookbooks at the Huntington
> Library.
>
> Why did they come to California for that? "It turned out the
> Huntington Library had all but two of the books we were looking for,"
> said Meltonville. "It was actually easier than chasing all around
> Europe to find them." In fact, they found a few books here they didn't
> even know existed.
>
> Their home base is Hampton Court Palace, Henry VIII's huge "party
> palace" on the Thames, built in 1525. "Its kitchen now looks exactly
> as it did in Henry's time," boasted Meltonville, "as if the cooks had
> walked out a few moments ago."
>
> This year is the 400th anniversary of the Hampton Court Conference,
> the gathering of religious scholars presided over by James I that led
> to the King James translation of the Bible. In 1604, James had just
> ascended to the English throne after the death of his aunt, Elizabeth
> I. He had already been king of Scotland for 35 years.
>
> "So the question is," said Meltonville, "did James bring any changes
> to English cookery? Did he introduce Scottish dishes? Did he bring
> French influences, because of the old alliance of France and Scotland?
> Did he make no changes?"
>
> In England, James I is remembered as a dour, pompous bore. "But it
> turns out that when he came to England, he became a party boy,"
> Meltonville said. "He had many banquets."
>
> The Palace Kitchen Boys test period dishes at Hampton Court - using
> heirloom fruit and vegetable varieties, archaic cheeses and so forth,
> of course. Unfortunately for the public, they don't serve the food at
> the kitchen (which is open to visitors only a few weeks a year, this
> year from April 9 to 19, followed by weekends through the end of May),
> though they'll probably end up publishing a cookbook. Trying out
> recipes is just part of their job of finding exactly how the kitchens
> worked.
>
> In their quest for authenticity, they use utensils modeled after
> period examples, made out of the exact materials available at the time
> and by the exact techniques. All their glasses are made in Prague,
> Czech Republic, for instance, because Renaissance Italian techniques
> are still used there.
>
> They decided to start wearing period clothes when cooking, making them
> from traditional woolen broadcloth colored with period dyes. "One
> thing we've found," says Fitch, "is that old dyes weren't colorfast.
> Beer turns the purple into violet; heat makes some colors fade. Some
> clothes get permanent stains that can't be removed." They were excited
> to discover an old book on taking out stains at the Huntington.
>
> This nerdy purism has led to real discoveries.
>
> "We've found that bronze utensils cook beautifully," said Meltonville.
> "Certainly, they're immensely heavy, but if you were the king, that
> was no concern of yours.
>
> "And when you need to fry onions really dark brown, you have to do it
> in iron. Stainless steel pans never get them as dark. And mincing meat
> really fine with a knife gives meatballs a much finer texture than
> grinding.
>
> "The oddest thing we've found was an instruction in a Victorian
> cookbook to rub a chicken through a sieve - a raw chicken. It turns
> out that when you do it, you get a perfectly smooth purée for making
> quenelles, and all the skin and fat and tendons end up in a neat ball
> inside the sieve."
>
> That discovery shows one reason why Meltonville - a historian of
> ceramics - and Fitch - a leather worker - were chosen to research
> recipes: They aren't trained cooks. So they aren't tempted to assume
> an ancient recipe couldn't possibly mean what it says. They follow
> recipes literally, no matter how crazy they may look.
>
> And they pay attention to the kind of detail a practical cook would
> ignore as a matter of course. For instance, 18th century cookbooks
> include very detailed diagrams of how dishes should be arranged on the
> table. "There would be footmen standing behind you to make sure
> everything was made symmetrical again after anybody served himself,"
> Meltonville said.
>
> "But when the table was 6 or 7 feet across to hold all this food - how
> did the diners possibly reach it? We still haven't figured this out."
>
> So what are the best dishes their research has turned up so far?
>
> "One of our greatest discoveries is the luxury of real roasted meat,"
> said Meltonville. "Meat roasted on a spit over a wood fire comes out
> wonderfully moist, with a nice brown crust. And it works with cuts you
> wouldn't expect, such as flank steak.
>
> "Of course, it was a way of showing off how rich you were. It needed
> fresh meat and a big, wasteful wood fire with plenty of people to tend
> it."
>
> Another one of the Palace Kitchen Boys' favorites is split peas boiled
> for three or four hours, then enriched with a whole lot of butter.
> "It's better than mashed potatoes," Meltonville said.
>
> In fact, it tastes a bit like mashed potatoes, particularly with all
> that butter. Ground celery seed (if indeed that is what is meant by
> "fine powder of March" - "march" is an old name for wild celery) adds
> a wild, herbal flavor that cuts the stodginess of split peas.
>
> Perhaps this is, at last, the proverbial pease porridge hot.
>
> *
>
> Split pea toast points
>
> Total time: 3 hours, 15 minutes
>
> Servings: 10 to 12
>
> Note: This is adapted from a recipe "For white peas pottage" from
> Thomas Dawson's "Good Huswifes Juwell" (1596), which asks the reader
> to "Take a quart of white Pease or more, and seethe them in fair
> Water, close, until they do cast all their husks, the which cast away
> as long as any will come up to the top. And when they be gone; then
> put into the Pease two dishes of Butter, and a little Vergious, with
> Pepper and Salt, & a little fine powder of March. And so let it stand
> till you will occupy it, and serve it upon sops. You may see the
> Porpoise and Seal in your pease, serving it forth two pieces in a
> dish."
>
> If you don't have any porpoise or seal meat, don't worry; it's
> optional. Verjuice, unripe grape juice, is available at gourmet shops
> and Middle Eastern markets, or substitute lemon juice.
>
> 5 cups water
>
> 1 (1-pound) bag yellow split peas (2 1/3 cups)
>
> 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, cut into pieces
>
> 3 tablespoons verjuice
>
> 1 teaspoon salt
>
> 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
>
> 3/4 teaspoon ground celery seed or to taste
>
> 6 slices white sandwich bread
>
> 1. Bring the water to boil in a large saucepan. Add the split peas and
> return to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, covered, until the peas
> have become a purée, about 2 to 3 hours. Remove the lid from time to
> time and stir. Add more water if necessary to prevent scorching.
>
> 2. When the peas are done, stir in the butter 1 tablespoon at a time.
> Stir in the verjuice (or lemon juice), salt, pepper and ground celery
> seed.
>
> 3. Toast the bread and cut off the crusts. Cut into triangles. Spoon
> the peas over the toast points and serve hot.
>
> Each serving: 370 calories;
>
> 14 grams protein; 38 grams carbohydrates; 0 fiber; 19 grams fat; 12
> grams saturated fat; 50 mg. cholesterol; 313 mg. sodium.