SC - Re: Yorkshire pudding?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Kimib2 at aol.com wrote:
> 
> can anyone help me out on this? I made a bet that Yorkshire pudding was not
> period food AND that it was just a mix of flour and water, poured over meat
> while cooking. Now I have to back up my big mouth and thought I'd ask the
> people who know everything!!! Also, to help settle this bet, does anyone have
> a recipe for this? (there is a lobster dinner due the winner of this bet) any
> help will be appreciated. thanks
> kimib2

Yorkshire pudding is clearly descended from dishes like the recipe for
roast beef with cryspes, as posted by the good Sir Gunthar. Essentially
it is a crepe batter, cooked in really hot fat, in a hot pan, in  a hot
oven. 

Usually period recipes for such cryspes call for them to be fried in
deep fat, rather than cooked with meat; I don't recall offhand what the
primary source was. I'm pretty sure it was Cosman's "Fabulous Feasts",
so you see the difficulty this puts us in.

I'd be surprised to learn that Yorkshire pudding, made as it is now
(with milk, eggs, and fat with the aforementioned flour) and cooked the
way it is now, and called Yorkshire Pudding, dates back any earlier
than, say, the late eighteenth, early nineteenth centuries.

I'd say the main problem with the flour and water idea is that it
wouldn't produce the kind of dramatic puffiness that is always
associated with the dish (essentially a giant popover). I could try to
find some more definitive info for you, though, although it may take a
while.

As for the bet, might I suggest you go Dutch, as the saying goes?

Adamantius (Roast lobster with Yorksh...hmmmm...)
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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