SC - Trois Creme

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Hi all from Anne-Marie.
Wow! Some great suggestions! First off, I should remind you guys that I 
am a real stickler for documentation and sticking to the original source, 
so the wonderful ideas about lighty toasting the barley in oil before 
cooking is right out (not in the original text I'm using). Now, for my 
modern cooking, that's another story! (actually, my biriyani recipe has 
you do that with the rice. Yum!)

The original source that we're using is the Frumenty from Curye on English.
"Nym clene wete and bray it in a morter wel, that the holys gon al of, & 
set yt til ty breset; & nym yt up & lat it kele. And nyum fayre fresch 
broth & smete muylk of almandys or swete mulk of kyne and temper yt al. & 
nym the yolkys of eryrn & saffron & do thereto. Boyle it a lityl & set yt 
adoun, & messe yt forthe wyth fat venysoun & fresch motoun".

I am choosing to use barley, as there is a similar recipe for barley 
gruel in the contemporary _le Menagier a Paris_, and I prefer barley to 
wheat (and also we are playing the conceit of an English Baron and 
Baroness with a French cook).

Our reconstruction:
2 cups hulled barley
5 1/5 cups vegetable broth
1/2 cup cows milk
pinch of saffron
4 egg yolks

Bring the broth and milk to a boil. Stir in the barley. Cover with a 
tight lid and allow to simmer over low heat for about 40 minutes, until 
barley is tender. Stir in the beaten egg yolks and saffron, and cook 
gently a few more minutes until the egg is set.

The resulting dish is a very rich barley. Slightly gloppy, but still 
discernable grains. Outstanding as a foil to something else, like sliced 
meat or stewed mushrooms.

Our site is outdoors (thanks for the windbreak idea, Tibor), and with big 
aluminum pots with no lids to speak of. Not ideal for doing this dish. 
That's why I was hoping someone had some bright foolproof way of doing 
this for 100 people. Maeve suggested a quick boil then sit aside to let 
it absorbe the rest of the liquid...that might work. I'll try it in a 
small test batch with my crummiest pot to duplicate the conditions as 
best I can :).

Otherwise, it's cook, seal and boil in the bag on site. Not much for the 
ambience, but I really don't want to serve my barony gloppy burned stuff.

Keep those ideas coming!
Oh, and Adamintus? While the Frugal Gourmets Mushroom pilaf isn't the 
most period of prepartaions, our version of frumenty with funges on top 
is. Yum! Seems a great idea never goes out of style...

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Anne-Marie Rousseau
rousseau at scn.org
Seattle, Washington