SC - introduction

[david friedman]

At 3:55 PM +0000 2/3/98, Yeldham, Caroline S wrote:

>So, hoping you won't throw me off

Not a chance.

>BTW, my area of interest is England and sometimes France - so
>although I use northern European sources I try to avoid southern Europe and
>points south.  My period is late 15th century and 16th century.

>There appears to be a big change in pastry in the 16th century.  All I can
>find evidence for before is hot water pastry, by the end of the 16th century
>we've even got puff pastry.  Does anyone else see this, does anyone know
>why?  Has anyone got evidence of anything other than hot water pastry before
>the 16th century.

In my experience of the 14th/15th c. English/French, what the pastry is
usually is not specified. Off hand, I cannot think of any that specify hot
water. One 16th c. recipe that uses butter and does not specify hot water
is:

To Make Short Paest for Tarte
 A Proper Newe Book p. 37/C10

Take fyne floure and a curscy of fayre water and a dysche of swete butter
and a lyttel saffron, and the yolkes of two egges and make it thynne and as
tender as ye maye.


One of my interests is Islamic cooking. In the 13th c. sources you get
flour/oil/water pastry (for khushkananaj, for example) and you get
something rather like puff paste (I think; I don't do modern French
cooking) with lots of very thin layers. The recipe is:

Preparation of Musammana [Buttered] Which Is Muwarraqa [Leafy]
Andalusian p. A-60 - A-61

Take pure semolina or wheat flour and knead a stiff dough without yeast.
Moisten it little by little and don't stop kneading it until it relaxes and
is ready and is softened so that you can stretch a piece without severing
it. Then put it in a new frying pan on a moderate fire. When the pan has
heated, take a piece of the dough and roll it out thin on marble or a
board. Smear it with melted clarified butter or fresh butter liquified over
water. Then roll it up like a cloth until it becomes like a reed. Then
twist it and beat it with your palm until it becomes like a round thin
bread, and if you want, fold it over also. Then roll it out and beat it
with your palm a second time until it becomes round and thin. Then put it
in a heated frying pan after you have greased the frying pan with clarified
butter, and whenever the clarified butter dries out, moisten [with butter]
little by little, and turn it around until it binds, and then take it away
and make more until you finish the amount you need. Then pound them between
your palms and toss on butter and boiling honey. When it has cooled, dust
it with ground sugar and serve it.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/


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

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".

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