SC - Re:Crustade Lombarde, An Inspiration turned Sour

[Philip & Susan Troy]

L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt wrote:
> 
> Crustade Lombard.....an enigma inside an ephemera, wrapped in a dream......

I recall a recipe from Icelandic Medical Miscellany that seemed to fit
that description. You take a chicken, see, and parboil it. Bone it, and
wrap finely shredded ephemera around the bones. Then take four dreams
cut in thin slices... .

> In regards to an on-going off-list discussion about the most frustrating
> receipt in the universe,

Ain't got nuthin' on mosserouns florys OR cuskynoles, IMO. These
directions are at least vaguely coherent, even if they don't really work
as written. But, anyway...

 and what in the world the interpreted directions
> actually mean (posted because I thought some folks might like to see what it
> is like to attempt to "redact" a recipe considered kind of hard---but we
> learn by our mistakes)I have this to say:
> 
> OK. I admit defeat. It won't work. All I got was parsley-flavored cream. I
> used a cup of parsley to the pint of cream (I'm using store-bought cream.
> When making cheese, the only difference is the amount of curd, the quality,
> and the time frame. You should get curd just the same as with unprocessed
> cream/milk, just not as much, not as nice, and not as soon). I had a
> ridiculously small amount of clotting.... with a cream:parsley ratio of 2:1,
> it would take far more parsley than the cream could hold to get it to
> clot.The only concievable way this would work is with very old cream, which
> is ready to turn anyway, and even then I doubt it.

Columella's cheesemaking directions include a reference to using sage in
this way. You still need to use a comparatively large amount if it, and
it needs to be pretty well pureed and squeezed for juice. I wouldn't
have thought parsley would work for this, only since it has little in
the way of volatile essential oils and has a pretty well neutral pH. The
main thing going for it is chlorophyll, which I've never understood to
be much of a catalyst for this type of thing. I suspect the parsley is
mainly there for the color.
 
> I took the parsley cream (now strained) and tried to float an egg in it, and
> the egg dropped like a stone. There is no way 'bere himself'  means float an
> egg in the cream.

I believe the idea is that the mixture will hold itself up, not an egg.
In other words, peaks of some degree of firmness.
 
> I had a brief moment of euphoria when I used my braun hand-blender to whip
> this parsley-flavored cream (now an hour old)with 4 well beaten eggs. I got
> a huge amount of froth. Unfortunately it deflated the moment I stuck the
> whisk into it, to give the hand-blender a rest. So much for "so thik that it
> woll bere him self".
> 
> I'm baking this mess anyway. We'll see what happens. I think I now have to
> agree with your (Sincgiefu's)hypothesis about the whipped cream version. It
> seems the most sensible (espescially since it actually worked!). If you like
> I will go and get some fresh (un-processed)cream tomorrow AM and try the
> clotting (clowting) thing, but I doubt fresh vs processed cream will make
> too much difference, and it would then negate the instructions to "take the
> lycour & putte ther-on, and fylle it vppe. This means that the directions
> are out of order with the ingredients, something that is fairly commonplace
> in medieval cookbook ms.

Yes. It's just that usually it's more obvious, and the correct order of
instructions is pretty evident. Just by coincidence, this is less so.
 
> As a side note, having re-read the receipts again, I think the beaten egg
> thing might historically hold up, too, particularly if it was the yolks
> (which won't quite create the volume of beaten whites, nor spill all over
> your oven) that were beaten till thick and then the parsley, cream and egg
> white added.  The receipts says " Eryoun, the yolkys & the whyte, & **breke
> hem there-to**" which might mean to seperate them, then continues "&strayne
> throwe a straynoure, tyl it be so styf that it wol bere himself."

My money is on beating the eggs, whole. The recipe specifies that the
eggs are both whites and yolks. Unless they are cold, they can be beaten
or strained until they will hold peaks. So will cream, but I believe
there are fewer references in the medieval English corpus to cream being
beaten to a foam than eggs being treated this way. Add to that the fact
that in the usual custard proportions of six whole eggs or twelve yolks
to a quart of cream, the instructions to strain everything together
until it holds peaks just won't work. Once we have eliminated the
impossible, Watson, the remainder, however unlikely... .
 
> I have now over-analysed this to a ridiculous point. Talk about your recipe
> challenge! I surrender, I surrender.

We have not yet BEGUN to overanalyze!!! I actually had a thort this
morning (evil chuckle): I wonder if it would make a difference to use
some other eggs than hen's? Duck eggs make very lovely custards indeed,
a fact that I discovered from reading Mrs. Beeton and then
experimenting. Perhaps this might work with duck or goose eggs...

Other impressions for what they're worth: I suspect this is a pretty
shallow custard, with the actual custard mixture playing a relatively
secondary role. The Lenten instructions are to use cream, parsley, and
the fruit. Reminds me of some account I read of early quiches (meaning
the dishes from northwestern France, not just any savory custard pie)
which appear to have been made as a sort of pizza with a topping of very
thick (i.e. Devonshire or whatever the French equivalent would be)
cream. I can't see that getting deeper than 1/2 inch, maximum. I see no
reason why the visual effect of height would differ too strongly between
Lenten and meatday versions of the dish, which would only serve to make
the dish even more unrecognizable in its Lenten form.

All this would seem to indicate that if we simply ignore the
instructions about the straining the liquor till thick, we would get a
perfectly fine (if not necessarily authentic in this case) custard. Of
course, it's quite galling to think that the instructions are there, in
recognizable English, and just out of reach anyway for no apparent
reason. This isn't my normal way of solving problems like this. I offer
it only as a consolation prize... .

Adamantius
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================