sca-cooks - subtleties

[Philip W. Troy]

Mark Schuldenfrei wrote:
> 
>   > So, as I alluded to in earlier posts, half the fun is figuring out what to
>   > do.  What do you think the original says?  I'll repeat it here.
> 
>   That and how long a Whalme is!!
> 
> Context, please?  This is ringing a bell.
> 
> I think what I liked best, was the translation in Caterina's German work, of
> timing something "A League and Back".  The end result was to find out how
> much distance a league was in that time and place, use US Government figures
> for average walking pace, and time the cooking that way...
> 
>         Tibor (For me, a paternoster takes no time at all!)

Would you folks be referring to a walm? That is an unspecified time; the
modern equivalent instruction to letting something boil for one walm (or
presumably a whalme) is to bring it to a boil once. Using a heat source
far less easily controlled than what we generally use today, cooking
times were often measured by letting food come to a boil, drawing the
pot away from the fire to cool a bit, then bringing it back to a boil.
This process is repeated for the specified number of times. This is very
common in later-period recipes such as you find in Elinor Fettiplace or
Gervase Markham.

Adamantius