SC - Acolytes

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Dottie Elliott wrote:

> There are a number of fine mushroom pasties recipes available to choose
> from as well as pies.  There are various and good meat pies and pasties
> as well as various desserts that would work.  However, I haven't seen any
> rolled sandwich recipes in any of the period cookbooks I have looked at.
> In fact, now that I think of it, I haven't seen any recipes or mention of
> sandwiches. Is that in fact a fairly new invention? It seems impossible
> but not having chocolate in period seemed impossible to me once.
> 
> Clarissa di Firenze

The jury is still out on that question. The OED lists the earliest
printed, or written, reference to the use of the word "sandwich" as mid
18th century, IIRC. Named for the inveterate gambler, Gerald (I think),
the X [inset appropriate number here] Earl of Sandwich. The food,
presumably called something like bread and meat, may have existed
earlier, but it probably would be one of those things that was put
together by the person eating it.

>From a standpoint of periodicity, I do gather that in many parts of
Europe in perod, it was a comparative rarity to put anything at all on
bread, unless it was used as a trencher or sop toast. This may have been
a way to make leftovers more usable by keeping them relatively clean.
The concept of lifting food to the mouth on bread may have stemmed from
the act of eating the sop or trencher with the fingers ( a horribly rude
and messy act, BTW).

I also recall reading an English account (16th century?) of the funny
eating habits of those Wacky Heugenots. Gol durn foreigners can't eat
their bread properly like the English and give their children bread with
butter spread on it can you imagine why don't they go back to Flanders
where they came from etc.

As far as the Scandinavian rolled sandwich goes, this almost certainly
stems from the Scandinavian practice of eating flatbreads like lefse,
lompe and other pancakey foods. These are often made with potatoes
today, but as recently as a hundred years ago were often made with a
mixture of grains, like rye, barley, and some wheat meal. These are
almost certainly period, if you go by the extant cooking utensils. Lefse
were apparently made in large batches and dried for long-term storage.
They could then be eaten as is (hence Wye KrispBread), or wrapped in a
damp towel and brought back to life. If you're going to eat such a
pancake by hand, rolling it up with lingonberry jam, at the very least,
seems like a sensible thing to do. Gotta force that lutefisk down the
throat somehow...

I'm kind of playing this by ear a bit. Perhaps Lord Ulf could ttake it
from here?

Adamantius, who LIKES lutefisk... 
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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