SC - compost recipe

[Mark Harris]

Someone was requesting a smaller portioned receipe for compost and
thought such a recipe had been posted by Adamatius. The following
message was posted to this list back in April and is now in the
pickled-foods-msg file in the FOOD section of Stefan's Florilegium
as well as several follow-on messages to this one.

Please forgive me if someone has already reposted this.

Stefan li Rous
markh at risc.sps.mot.com
- ---------------------------
From: "James L. Matterer" <jmattere at weir.net>
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 11:49:41 -0700
Subject: Re: SC - SC Pickels

Cossette wrote:
>Why haven't I seen more pickled things (veggies and meats) served at >feasts? Is it because it takes too much planning or is there something >else?
> 
>Linneah

Well, I've been making pickled dishes an integral part of every feast
I've done for the past several years. The most popular seems to be
English-style pickled eggs (which I usually make as part of a
Ploughman's Lunch, with pickled onions, bread, & cheese), but one of my
favorites is a dish called "Compost" which contains raisins, pears,
cabbage, walnuts, mustard seeds, anise seeds, white radishes... all
pickled together in white wine and honey. Here's the original recipe
with
my redaction:

Compost
redaction by Master Ian Damebrigge of Wychwood

   "Take rote of persel, of pasternak, of rafens, scape hem and waische
hem clene. Take rapes & caboches, ypared and icorue. Take an erthen
panne with clene water & set it on the fire; cast alle thise therinne.
Whan they buth boiled cast therto peeres, & parboile hem wel. Take alle
thise thynges vp & lat it kele on a faire cloth. Do therto salt; whan it
is colde, do hit in a vessel; take vyneger & powdour & safroun & do
therto, & lat alle thise thynges lye therin al nyyt, other al day. Take
wyne greke & hony, clarified togider; take lumbarde mustard & raisons
coraunce, al hoole, & grynde powdour of canel, powdour douce & aneys
hole, & fenell seed. Take alle thise thynges & cast togyder in a pot of
erthe, & take therof whan thou wilt & serue forth."
- - -Curye on Inglish, p. 120-121

   The following is a modified (but just as tasty) version of the
medieval recipe, containing only the "pasternak" (carrots- from the
botanical "pastinaca"), "caboches" (cabbage), "peeres" (pears) and
"raisons of courace" (currants). The other medieval ingredients are
"rote of persel" (parsley root), "rafens" (radishes), and "rapes" (white
turnip).

2 lbs. carrots, sliced                                                  
1/2 head cabbage, in small pieces
3-4 pears, sliced thin                                                  
1 tsp. salt                                                             
6 tblsp. vinegar                                                        
2 tsp. ginger                                                           
few threads saffron                                                     
1 bottle (750 ml.) white wine                                           
1/2 c. honey                                                            
1 tblsp. mustard seed                                                   
3/4 c. currants                                                         
1 tsp. cinnamon                                                
1/2 tblsp. each anise seed & fennel seed

   Boil the carrots and cabbage for several minutes, then add the pears.
Cook until tender; drain well. Lay vegetables and pears in a large,
flat, non-metallic dish. Sprinkle on the salt. Let cool, then sprinkle
on the vinegar, ginger, and saffron. Cover with a cloth and let stand
for several hours or overnight. When ready, mix the vegetables with the
currants and the seeds. Place in a sealable container and set aside. In
a separate pot, bring the honey, cinnamon, and wine to a boil, skimming
off the scum until clear. Remove from heat and pour over the vegetable
mixture. Let cool and seal. May be stored for a week or more. Serves 12
- - - 15.

Bibliography: Hieatt, Constance B. and Butler, Sharon.  Curye on
Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century
(Including the Forme of Cury). London: For the Early English Text
Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.


============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================