SC - recipe request (dessert, Irish/English or whatever)

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Russell Gilman-Hunt wrote:

> I am an Irishman, looking to make an appropriate dessert for
> a potluck later next month.  I have 2 dogs, 4 cats and an
> 8 month child, and a wife. . . I need something I can do in
> maybe an hour.  I am from the 12th century (~1130).
> 
> So I am looking for a recipe for a dessert, perferably in some
> variant of English from that time period.  (heck, ANY Irish
> 12th century ideas would be welcome!)  I'm a pretty good cook,
> but a lousy confectioner (made lollipops once; I wound up with
> sticks floating in a nice green sugar sauce that tasted of food
> coloring).
> 
> English would be OK, or something brought back from the first
> Crusade or something (persona history is still a little vague.)
> 
> Any ideas?

I'm not aware of any Irish dessert recipes from the period you mention,
nor English ones either. There are some 12th-13th century accounts of
meals  and feast menus in English, I believe, but you won't really find
any English recipes from any earlier than the fourteenth century, and
probably no Irish recipes from before the 17th or 18th centuries, with a
couple of inappropriate exceptions.

Would you settle for a nice, slightly simplified 14th century English
daryol?

1 commercial frozen pie shell
5 eggs
3 cups cream or half-and-half
~1/2 cup sugar (light brown granulated, or a mixture with white, is
nice) or to taste
1/4 tsp salt
1 big pinch saffron

Bake the pie shell blind (filled with pie beans or topped with another
pie pan so it doesn't puff up) in a preheated 375 degree F. oven for ten
minutes or so. Allow to cool a bit. (Leave the oven turned on.) While
the shell is cooling, beat together the other ingredients until fully
mixed. Pour into the shell and return to the oven for 25 - 40 minutes,
just until a toothpick, when poked into the center, comes out clean.
Serve at room temperature.

>From The Forme of Cury, #191:
"Daryols. Take creme of cow milk, o6er of almaundes; do 6erto ayren with
sugur, safroun and salt. Medle it yfere. Do it in a coffin of ii ynche
depe; bake it wel and serue it forth."

As usual, I am substituting the numeral "6" for the M.E. character
"thorne", as ASCII often does ugly things when trying to reproduce the
actual character. It's more or less equivalent to a "th".

Good luck!

Adamantius
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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