SC - chicken types-Period

[Decker, Terry D.]

Hiya Allison and everyon else....
re: gooseberries...
> I was looking through some of my books for your sauce, as I did not
> remember seeing one when I did my sauce research.  Still did not find any
> gooseberry sauce,  (Yes!  See below)  but have come across 'gelee of
> gooseberries' in _The French Cook_, Francis deLaVarenne, 1653.  

la varenne is one of my favorite sources!! too bad it doesnt work for my
15th century re-enactment group :(, but I still cook out of it for SCA
events and my family. 

I think its important to point out that evidence points to the "gelees" as
likely being like fruit jigglers, or aplets and cotlets, ie stiff enough to
pick up and store in a box (as many of the contemporaries call for), and
not the jelly we think of with bread and butter. 

> As an antecedent to the mackeral/gooseberry combo, some fish sauces are
> definately tart: they contain sorrell, lemon and other piquant tastes, so
> your combo in in line with prevailing tastes, just not currently
> documentable.  Fruit jellies are so popular with meats in Europe, that
> tart jellies may sometimes have taken the place of tart sauces.
> 
gooseberries indeed, at least to my palate taste much like sorrell, with
that same ascerbic bite underlying the tartness. They would make a grand
verjuice, in my opnion.
> 
> Jeff says that European gooseberries are prickly.  Do the prickles wash
> off? Do they cook down to be non-prickly? Our landlord grew them, but I
> never handled them.  Would the prickles make them more or less likely to
> appear in sauces, jellies, etc.?
the gooseberries I saw had a prickle on each end. We cooked them down
prickles and all, and then sieved them to remove the skin (which was rather
tough) and the prickles and stems. 

> 62.  Fresh mackerells rosted.  Rost them with fennell, after they are
> rosted, open them, and take off the bone; then make a good sauce with
> butter, parsley, and gooseberries, all well seasoned; stove a very little
> your mackerells with your sauce, then serve.
> 
> 
> Have just glanced at a number of her fish sauces; none seem to have cream
> or milk added, yet.  Is 'short broth' a reduced cooking liquid, do you
> think?
> 

Nope, no cream sauces in la varenne. They show up in May, though, which is
actually earlier, if memory serves (or at least sauces and foods cooked in
milk or cream). La Varenne tends to use butter butter and more butter as
his base for sauces and the like.

Thanks for finding that recipe! I wonder if when my French cooking teacher
said that gooseberry sauce was medieval on mackerel, he consideres 1651 as
medieval? Wouldnt be suprised.
- --AM
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