SC - Haggis

[maddie teller-kook]

Unto the List, greetings from G. Tacitus Adamantius!

Sorry about this: I don't remember the specific title of this thread,
but someone had asked for a recipe for Norse pies, which I had said were
to found in the Viandier de Taillevent. Generally I'm a little leary of
taking up the bandwidth with recipes, especially since I tend to work
straight from the primary source and do the dish just a bit differently
each time. So, just for the benefit of those who may not have a copy of
the books involved, I'll post two recipes for Norse Pies.

The first from Taillevent, Scully translation:
	"Norse Pies. Take finely chopped, well-cooked meat, pine-nut paste,
currants, finely crumbled rich cheese, a little sugar and very little
salt."

	The recipe immediately following this in Taillevent instructs one on
how to use this same filling to make Lettuces -- small round fried
pasties that appear to be a form of chewets. A likely etymology for the
term "chewets" is that they are shaped like a cabbage, "chou" in French.

The second, more involved recipe is from Le Menagier de Paris, Powers
translation:
	"Norwegian Pasties be made of cod's liver and sometimes with fish
minced therewith. And you must first parboil them for a little and then
mince them and set them in little pasties the size of a threepenny
piece, with fine powder thereon. And when the pastrycook brings them not
cooked in the oven, they be fried whole in oil and it is on a fish day;
and on a meat day they be made of beef marrow recooked, that is to wit
the marrow is put in a pierced spoon, and the pierced spoon with the
marrow therein is put in the broth of the pot of meat, and left there
for as long as you would leave an unplucked chicken in hot water to warm
it up; then set it in cold water, then cut up the marrow and round it
into big balls or little bullets, then carry them, to the pastrycook,
who puts them by fours or threes in a pasty with fine powder thereon.
And without putting them in the oven they be cooked in fat."

Now, the name of these dishes in late-fourteenth-century French is
something like Pastez Nourrois, and I'm willing to entertain the
possibility that the translation of the name into the expression "Norse
Pies" could be wrong. Also, Norwegian or not, they postdate the time of
Viking activity by at least 150 years or more, if I have my timeline
correct. So, technically, they are not especially Viking, unless they
are really from Norway and survived a couple of centuries virtually
unchanged, to be found alive and well in France. COULD be true, but...

Hot Cha Cha,

Adamantius