SC - Fried Whiting

[Terry Nutter]

Hi, Katerine here.  Lillian Clare de Chateauroux writes:

     I found a set of thin English Heritage books on a recent trip to the 
     motherland.  This one is from 'Food and Cooking in 16th Century 
     Britain:  History and Recipes' by Peter Brears.  He cites the source 
     as 'The Boke of Cokery' by Richard Pynson with Temple Bar London 1500. 
     He furthermore states the only known copy of this work is in the 
     collection of the Marquis of Bath, Longleat House.
     
     I hope this helps the battered fish debate and am glad to be able to 
     lay my hands on them after recently moving to Dragonspine.  For .95p 
     each I couldnt go wrong with the purchase, but am curious to know if 
     there are any errors with his redaction.
     
Hmmmm.  I know when Pynson was -- he was a printer, not a cook -- and the
language of the recipe is suspiciously modern.  I suspect it's been updated.
That said: Pynson set _Noble Boke off Cookry_ in print; the only surviving
copy of the Pynson printing is, you guessed it, in the Longleat collection.
I suspect this may be it.  There is no recipe in the manuscript version (or I
should say, in the appalling Napier edition thereof) with "whitings" in
the title.  But the title may have  been modernized with the recipe.  Perhaps 
someone who knows fish better than I can suggest a medieval equivalent?  If 
so, I can look up quickly and find out whether this is indeed an NBoC recipe, 
and if so, provide the NBoC-via-Napier version, which may tell us something.

Cheers,

- -- Katerine/Terry