SC - cuskynoles---Long but Good

[L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt]

A Dialog between His Grace, Duke Sir Cariadoc of the Bow, and Lady Aoife
Finn of Ynos Mon .

>You have left out "and sothen boil in veir water" immediately after the figure!
>
Yes, I did! Sorry. I suppose I ignored it alltogether. It didn't fit my
formula, so I unconsciously omitted it. This is really extraordinarily
interesting. I never though of fruit raviolli. I'm wondering why, though, we
would prick the pockets (the drawing clearly shows dots, which I interpret
as holes, in the middle of the squares).So if I understand you correctly, we
are re-assembling into a rectangle after boiling, to bake/grill the
cuskynoles, much like modern pierogi is browned in butter after boiling? I
dunno. It seems pointless to me. And they wouldn't bake/grill very well
without some sort of grease (unless this is an assumed step?). In this sort
of recipe--your interpretation--I would naturally want to saute them in
butter and sprinkle with sugar or drizzle with something. Putting them wet
onto an ungreased griddle is going to make a big, pasty fruity mess. 

>"peoren" means "pears." You are misreading "p" as "th" to convert "pears"
>to "thereon." Check "per" in the glossary of _Curye_.

Fair enough. It sounds good. I did think it was a typo in the ms (or scribal
error).

>Smear the paste--i.e. your pasta dough--with the mushed up up apples etc.
>
I see. But we have no description to cover with more "past", though the bit
about cutting up before cooking makes more sense in your context.

>"fassure" is the filling--see the glossary of _Curye on Inglysche_.

Alright.
>
>
>As I read it, you are rolling out a paste--a flour/water dough enriched
>with egg or almond milk--then smearing it with a mush of apples etc. . You
>then inclose the filling, either by putting a second piece of the paste on
>top or by folding your piece. You now have  a "sandwich" of
>dough/filling/dough.
>
>In my view, what the picture is showing is something similar in structure
>to a bunch of ravioli joined at the edges. You have your
>dough/filling/dough sandwhich, about 9"x3" (a palm and a half long and
>three fingers side) and you then press it down along the lines of the
>figures ("veld" is literally fold, but that doesn't seem much of an
>extension), using the back of a knife or something similar.
>
I see. I bow to your superior knowledge. But I believe each individual piece
is supposed to be a palm and a half wide and three fingers in breadth. A
9"X3" sheet of ravioli (or anything else) is not going to feed more than 2
people. One and a half of my palms (and I'm about as big as your average
Large sized medieval male would have been)is exactly 6 inches when measured
from wrist fold to  middle finger join. As i see it, 9 inches is a bit "out
there" in my mind. So a piece of ravioli (or whatever), oblong, 6 by 2 1/2
to 3 inches, is an adequate serving for one. In the Curye drawing we have
15 such items making up the square. That's much more reasonable for a
household or a dish for high table constituting a "royal tid-bit".

>It is an interesting example of how widely readings of a recipe can vary.
>But the omitted step of boiling makes it pretty clear that this reading is
>wrong. And in order to make it work you had to add butter, which is nowhere
>in the original recipe.
>
>The first key mistake was combining the paste with the filling into a
>dough. You got that by not noticing that "peoren" starts with "p" not with
>thorn. Since you had already combined everything, there was nothing to
>smear with, so you added butter--and couldn't make much sense of the
>structure, which takes it for granted that you have rolled out the dough
>and are then doing things with it and the filling (fassure).
>
>For our reading of it (Betty's and mine) in more detail, see the _Miscellany_.
>

I most certainly will do so. This is why I love this list. With no one to
actually instruct me, I bumble along. Sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm
wrong. I make some good stuff, and I'm one of the best in the area (she says
modestly) but I'm not a professional, and no where near an expert. Having
the input of others makes this a much more exciting game. I don't mind
messing up in public, so long as I learn something. Thanks for the lesson.

And, thank-you for the input. I was rather attached to my interpretation,
but I can see I shall have to discard it (or perhaps call it a "made" dish
;^D), and try over again in the ravioli interpretation. I dislike the
instructions for the procedure, if this is a correct interpretation. The
Ravioli would fall apart in the water, and you'd get noodle and fruit soup.
Perhaps I'm wearing my 20th century glasses when I should be going at it
blind! It is far more sensible to dot the filling onto the paste, wet the
paste in between, and then fold over the dough and press between with your
knife blade. That's roughly how to make modern ravioli from scratch.

I must go to the store for more fruit now. Luckily, I have a vegetarian in
the house who adores dried fruit, and so will love my mistakes.

Aoife 

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