SC - snake recipes?

[Mark Harris]

SUZANNE_POWELL wrote:
> 
> Hello All!
> 
> As I've said before, I'm an absolute novice at medieval cooking, but I wanted
> to share the following roast recipe with you.  The accompaniment was homemade
> mashed potatoes (are they period?) and garlic seasoned green beans (same
> question).

Homemade mashed potatoes are certainly good, but white potatoes were
pretty  much unknown by most period Europeans, and were not in fact
eaten widely across Europe until the late eighteenth - early nineteenth
centuries. Sweet potatoes do occur in very late period (there are
references in Shakespeare, in fact). There are some late-period
stand-ins for white potatoes, though, particularly a recipe in Kenelm
Digby for buttered parsnips which even looks and tastes a bit like
mashed potatoes. 

As for the garlic-seasoned green beans, again, the standard haricot vert
comes from South America in very late period. Throughout about 95% of
the time represented by "period", string beans would have been an alien
concept to a European. Really small baby fava beans have at times been
eaten in the pod, but that seems to have been more of a snack food than
a side dish as we know it. More likely you would find "fried" (meaning
sauteed) baby favas (shelled) sauteed in oil or butter with salt and
garlic. While you probably won't find a period recipe exactly like this,
it would at least be recognizable to a period European. 
 
Lovely roast, BTW! Thanks!

Adamantius
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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