SC - Period Recipes

[Philip & Susan Troy]

rebecca tants wrote:

> Just a thought - I can't imagine there not being something like this
> somewhere in all of period cooking.  Aluminum foil is out, but what
> else might have been used.  
<snip>
> There are always things like sausage heated/cooked on a stick, spit
> roasted chicken over a fire, one-pot stews or soups over bread and
> other such creations, but it just seems to me that this couldn't have
> been a brand new idea to wrap the food in something and stick in the
> coals.  Cast Iron pots were just too heavy for some kinds of trips.  So
> what else might things have been wrapped in to cook or reheat like that?
> 
> Ruadh

One thing to consider is the fact that foods frequently come in their
own wrappers, which the cook generally removes before cooking and
eating. Frequently they can be made to do double duty. So, we have
things like onions and other winter vegetables cooked in their skins in
the ashes. Ditto eggs.

For meats, we can either roast/grill them as specified above, or we can
wrap them in paper (cooking parchment is wonderful for this) along with
what seasonings and other ingredients we wish, and cook them in the hot
ashes. The parcels can't come in contact with actual flame or ember,
since the paper will burn and spill the contents. It's still perfectly
possible to cook successfully in this way, though.

For the ambitious, I'll point out that there's some speculation that the
various sausages and puddings in natural animal-based casings evolved
from a cooking method dating from before the invention of pottery or
metalworking: the bits of food, say, grains and water with bits of meat,
are put into some kind of organic bag like a stomach or bladder, and are
boiled in the bag which is held near the fire (but not so close it
bursts). Voila! Haggis!

Then there's the set of instructions in Gervase Markham on
carbonadoes...

Adamantius