SC - 12 c. cuisine (was: Is camping without a cooler...)

[david friedman]

I had written:

>> The particular culture for which there are the most recipes and cookbooks
>> is English/French 14th-15th century; ... What
>> evidence I have (not a whole lot) suggests this cuisine goes back as far
>> as 12th c.

And Charles Ragnar asks:

>I am familiar with the Hieatt & JOnes article from Specuilum, which
>discusses two Anglo-norman MSS and says that the recipes in them all
>reappear through to the 15 C(The MSS are 13?C)
>
>Is there other evidence to put the date back any further?
>
_Daily Living in the 12th Century_, by Urban Tigner Holmes, Jr., U.
Wisconsin Press, 1952, quotes at length from Alexander Neckam (1157-1217),
a scholar who among other things wrote a Latin primer which has lists of
things: what tools someone needs, what you find in a kitchen, etc.  To
quote:

"A roast of pork is prepared diligently on a grid, frequently basted, and
laid on the grid just as the hot coals cease to smoke.  Let condiments be
avoided other than pure salt or a simple garlic sauce.  It does not hurt to
sprinkle a cut-up capon with pepper.  A domestic fowl may be quite tender,
having been turned on a long spit, but it needs a strong garlic sauce,
diluted with wine or verjuice.  Flavor a hen which has been cleaned and cut
up into pieces, with cumin, if it is well boiled; but if it has been
roasted, let it be treated with frequent drippings of fat, nor does it
refuse garlic sauce; it will be most tasty with simple sauce.  Let fish
that have been cleaned be cooked in a mixture of wine and water; afterwards
they should be taken with green "savory" which is made from sage, parsley,
dittany, thyme, costus, garlic, and pepper; do not omit salt."

It is not really detailed, but it is enough to say, "Yes, this is at least
consistant with what you see in the cookbooks a century or two later".

Elizabeth/Betty Cook


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