SC - RE: sca-cooks V1 #405

[HARTMAN, NOREEN O]

david friedman wrote:
> 
> At 9:53 PM -0400 10/29/97, Philip & Susan Troy wrote:
> 
> >I'm sorry. I thought we had established (albeit recently, due to inexact
> >speech on my part) that my intepretation's ability to adhere to the
> >details of the illustration hinges on the fact that the filling is
> >covered with dough.
> 
> Before the illustration is drawn?

If I understand you correctly, yes. The illustration represents an array
of filled, covered, sandwiches, or one sandwich, as the case may be.
> 
> >In order to conform as well to the illustration
> >details as your method does, this needs to be done with a second sheet
> >of dough per portion.
> 
> Are you saying that you cut your sheet of dough into 3x6 pieces, leave all
> the pieces exactly positioned as they were before you cut them, then dot
> the whole thing with filling (one glob in the middle of each 3x6 piece),
> then put on the 3x6 pieces from a second sheet of dough, then seal the
> edges--and through all this process your pieces remain neatly arranged edge
> to edge, so that when you are done the drawing makes the whole array of 15
> 3x6 pieces look like one piece with lines on it?

Perhaps not the first time someone tries it. But, in the hands of a cook
having experience making a couple of hundred of them at a time, yes. If
the edges do stick together a bit, they can be easily pulled apart, most
likely without damaging the seals that we actually want.
> 
> That would answer my objection re the dots, but it doesn't sound very
> plausible. If I were putting two 3x6 pieces together with filling between,
> I would want to have some free space to work--not to have everything
> crowded together edge to edge, so that everytime I touched one of them it
> shoved all the others. Have you done it that way?

Yes. It does sound as if the method would be more suited to a machine,
but repetitive, precise motions are well within the scope of somebody
who cooks all day, particularly if they've tried it more than once. I
think that's an accurate description of the cooks who actually cooked
these, and that the process I describe would be appropriate to their
working conditions, as well. Also, FWIW, this is easier than it sounds,
because the top sheets of dough, in the process of wrapping around the
filling, lose more of their area to the blobs of filling. The result is
that the bottoms remain flat, the tops are rounded, and the edges of the
top rectangle don't quite reach to the edges of the bottom rectangle. In
the case of a freshly made pasta dough, the edges, when pressed down,
would not be distinct enough to mess up the cut lines for illustration
purposes.  
 
> Of course, the dimensions as stated make the idea
> >of simply folding them in half, and ignoring the illustration, almost
> >entirely, quite tempting. Of course, then you'd have roughly 50% empty
> >space in the illustration, rather than each portion touching the next.
> 
> Precisely. Whereas my interpretation allows you to fold them if you want.
> If the original pieces are 2x6 you can fold them to 2x3, say--still
> rectangular rather than square to fit the picture.

Which is why I have not suggested that your method is implausible. Only
unnecessarily complicated, given the additional step of scoring the
additional rectangles, which is not needed to comply with the diagram. 
 
> >So here's my question. Is the drawing or photograph of what I have made
> >so different from that of what you have made, that the diagram in
> >"Diversa Cibaria" decently represents what you have made, but _not_ what
> >I have made?
> 
> No. that is a possible interpretation of the picture.  My only objection
> (other than having done it the other way and liking the result)

I'm sure we both know that personal preference doesn't really enter into
the question of what the dish really was. It does have some bearing on
how we formulate our personal variations, but right now we're worrying
about what we think was done, not what we would do for preference.
  
> is that it
> doesn't seem to me the natural way to do your version. Once you have cut
> the pieces apart, it is easier, I think, to assemble them separately rather
> than keeping them all together.
> 
> Keeping them together would make more sense if you were doing to do a giant
> version of my interpretation, then cut them apart after sealing--which is
> essentially how I believe ravioli are in fact made. But that seems to be
> inconsistent with the plain language of the recipe.

Yup. That's exactly how most ravioli are made. I can only say that the
possibility exists that this method hadn't occurred to the cooks /
author, that it does work under the rather tight conditions several
cooks working together frequently experience, and that the distinct
possibility exists that the instructions are given out of sequence,
which certainly wouldn't be an isolated case.

Another thing that bothers me about this recipe is the fact that in
spite of the suggestions various people have made about the origins of
the name, there appears to be no other version of the recipe, anywhere,
that we know of, that is similarly enough named to indicate clear common
ancestry. It appears to have emerged, full-grown, from the forehead of
Zeus, and then vanished without a trace. This entire discussion would
have had a lot more ammunition, one way or the other, if there were a
second cuskynoles recipe out there, which might describe the process in
a slightly different way, perhaps contributing more to the total wealth
(hah!) of details.

> Brekke was queen with Asbjorn, who is my blood brother. The sequence was
> Angus/Asbjorn/Cariadoc/Asbjorn/Angus. A very interesting couple of years.

So I've heard! Brekke's pained descriptions of Aonghais's demands for
Beef Wellington and glazed carrots will ring through my head for
eternity. 
> 
> Give her my affectionate greetings.

I'll do that, with pleasure.

Adamantius
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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