SC - Sugar, Flour and Bread (Longwinded;)

[david friedman]

Aoife discussed flours and bread recipes.

What we have found so far for bread recipes includes:

1. Rastons, from Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books (English):  yeast
bread made with eggs and sugar in the dough; after baking, cut off top
crust, crumble inside to crumbs, mix butter in with crumbs, put top crust
back on and bake again briefly.

2. Platina's description of how to make bread (15th c. Italian):  wheat
flour with salt, flour, and "leaven", which I believe to be sourdough,
baked the day after the dough is made.

3. Chapatis, from a 16th-century Indian book, with no directions but with
quantities by weight of flour, milk, ghee (clarified butter), and salt.

So far, that is it for recipes.  Anne Wilson (_Food and Drink in Britain_;
a very good secondary source) discusses breads and flours, going from
household accounts and bakers' regulations; according to her, higher wheat
content and whiter flours increase both up the social scale at any given
time and through time during our period.

Elizabeth of Dendermonde/Betty Cook

David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
ddfr at best.com
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/