SC - Strawberries

[Jamey R. Lathrop]

On Wed, 18 Jun 1997, JANINE BRANNON wrote:

> 'tis the season, and I find myself with an overabundance of strawberries
> due to taking overzealous children on a picking expedition.  So....
> 
> "are strawberries period" and "any recipes?> 
> 
> Magdalene

Yes, strawberries are period, and I've quickly dug up two recipes (I saw
at least two others, but I'm short on time today). I have no redactions to
offer, since I haven't actually tried them.  They both look good-- I guess
I'm going to have to go to the Farmer's Market tomorrow.  :-) 

Before the recipes, however-- one simply MUST have the appropriate "story
for table-talke" from _Dyets Dry Dinner_ (Henry Buttes, 1599) before
setting down to eat his or her strawberry dish:

	"They were utterly unknown to Antique leeches, and are indeed yet
more beholding to Poets then Phisitians.  They named them Fraga:  neither
have they any other name, as farre as I know.  The English name importeth
their manner of setting in beds, not cast on heapes, but (as it were) 
strawed here and there with manifest distance. 
	"Conradus Gesner reporteth, he knew a woman that was cured of the
pimples on her face, onely by washing it with Strawberrie-water:  and yet
it was very homely and rudely distilled, betwixt two platters, and not in
a limbeck."

Just goes to show you that the alpha-hydroxy acid fad is nothing new.
Yeah, I know-- REALLY appropriate for "table-talke"!  ;-)


>From _Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books_:

1.  HARLIEAN MS 279., Recipe .Cxxij. Strawberye.

	Take Strawberys, & waysshe hem in tyme of yere in gode red wyne;
[th]an strayne [th]orwe a clo[th]e, & do hem in a potte with gode Almaunde
mylke, a-lay it with Amyndoun o[th]er with [th]y flowre of Rys, & make it
chargeaunt and lat it boyle, and do [th]er in Roysonys of coraunce,
Safroun, Pepir, Sugre grete plente, pouder Gyngere, Canel, Galyngale;
poynte it with Vynegre, & a lytil whyte grece put [th]er-to; coloure it
with Alkenade, & droppe it a-bowte, plante it with [th]e graynys of
Pome-garnad, & [th]an serue it forth.

A rough (very rough!) translation:  take strawberries in season, wash them
in good red wine and put them trough a sieve or strainer.  Mix it in a pot
with almond milk, wheat starch or rice flour (to make it thick), and bring
it to a boil.  Add currants, saffron, pepper, a good quantity of sugar,
powdered ginger, canel (cassia bark or cinnamon), galingale.  Make it acid
with vinegar and add a little lard.  Color it red with alkanet.  I'm
making the assumption (perhaps absolutely incorrectly), that the "droppe
it a-bowte..." part means that you've made this mixture stiff enough that
you can drop spoonfuls (or the entire mess) of the stuff on a serving dish
and implant them with pomegranate seeds to make it look like large
strawberries.  Not having tried this recipe, I don't know how well/easy
that would work, but it would certainly look neat!  Alternatively, I
suppose you could put it in a dish and garnish with the pomegranate seeds.


>From _A Book of Cookrye_, "gathered by A.W.", printed by E. Allde, 1591.

Tarte of Strawberies.  Season your Strawberyes with sugar, a very little
Sinamon, a little ginger, and so cover them with a cover, and you must lay
upon the cover a morsell of sweet Butter, Rosewater and Sugar, you may Ice
the cover if you will, you must make your Ice with the white of an egge
beaten, and Rosewater and Sugar.

This one looks pretty straightforward.  Strawberries mixed with sugar and
a little cinammon and ginger, placed in a dish and covered with a pastry
crust.  Then you have two choices of how to finish the crust-- butter,
rosewater and sugar, or an icing of beaten egg white, rosewater and sugar.

Anyway, I hope these give you a place to start!

Lady Allegra Beati
Barony of al-Barran
Outlands