SC - sc - food gifts- please share

[Jeffrey Miller]

LYN M PARKINSON wrote:

> I'm reading the very interesting story of the Hanseatic League.  Norway
> exported a large amount of fish, and had, at different time, monopolies
> on some of the salt fish.  If the pies were originally a method of using
> the salt cod and herring for fish days, they could have taken the name
> from the source of the ingredients, having nothing to do with Vikings.
> The use of dried and salted fish was so prevalent, directions for getting
> it ready to use in a recipe might well have been left out.

That's a possibility. One point that needs to be addressed is that
livers generally don't salt very well, ditto drying. They are so
perishable that they can go bad before the salt can penetrate or before
the meat can dry. This is probably one of the reasons that in the case
of four-legged game, some of the internal organs were, I understand,
eaten raw in the field. Same for freshly slaughtered domestic animals:
the liver is generally not one of the organs processed for long keeping.
I imagine there's a good chance the presence of cod liver in a recipe
would indicate that it is designed to be  with fresh fish; the liver at
least, if not the flesh as well.
> 
>  Alternatively, the receipt may have originated with the Norsemen in
> Normandy.  sounds like an easy food for traveling--just stick a few in
> your wallet and eat as desired.

Agreed.
> 
> >> Generally I'm a little leary of  taking up the bandwidth with
> recipes<<
> 
> But are you 'taking it up' if that's what a lot of people on the list
> want?  I do understand that you may not write down your recipes, to the
> 1/4 t. etc.  I do a lot of 'composing' as I'm cooking, too--it needs
> another dash of this and pinch of that--

That's a good part of it. I almost always cook directly from the primary
source: make up a few guideline notes and fill in quantities based on
what result I am going after or expect, based on experience and a good
knowledge of food science and chemistry. I almost never have a recipe
down to the 1/4 tsp. Sometimes I reconstruct one later, based on a good
memory and some deductive reasoning. But, once it has  been committed to
a recipe in modern form, I'd probably be inclined to sort of lose
interest in it. I almost never cook the same dishes twice, unless it is
specifically requested or unless I have just run out of new ideas, which
so far has been rare. Also, while I recognise the possible value of
having such recipes for others, I have a queasy feeling about people
becoming complacent about them. For example, someone recently made a
statement about His Grace Cariadoc's Icelandic Chicken, saying that it
has become quite popular where they live. Where I live, I made some
Loseyns once at an event. A bunch of cooks saw what I did to the
original recipe, and now, because they liked the result, to them there
is only one right way to make Loseyns: the Adamantius way. That sort of
thing bothers me for several reasons, not the least of them being that I
can't accept the idea that medieval cooks worked that way.

But actually, the main reason I didn't post a redaction on the Norse
Pies is that I haven't cooked them. I just reported that the recipe
existed. When I was asked for the recipe, I went and found the book and
posted it for the benefit of those without the book. I didn't mean to
mislead or to tantalize people, either. Perhaps I should begin keeping
better records, just in case I am trampled by a charging rhinohider or
something... 

Toodle-pip!

Adamantius