SC - Re: gooseberries + jelly

[LYN M PARKINSON]

Anne Marie,    (actually 2 posts, cause I found something else before
'sending')


>>Gooseberries.   Find me a period recipe (primary source only please)
that uses them.<<


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.  This is
out of our period, but as we recently had a thread on jellies, I thought
it interesting.  In period, the clear jellies are meat and fish based and
just 50 years later, the clear fruit jellies that we know are being
published.  Raspberry jelly is made the same way.  OOP, but not to be a
'spoon tease', here it is:


How to make gelee of gooseberries.  Take some gooseberries, press them,
and strain them through a napkin; measure your juice, and put near upon
three quarters of sugar to one quart of juice; seeth it before you mixe
it, and seeth again together; after they are mixed, try them on a plate,
and you shall know that it is enough, when it riseth off.  That of
Rasberries is made the same way.


As for other gooseberries, aside from a late period paste, and a
gooseberry verjuice, everybody seems to have preserved them and nobody
ate them!  When the Brit museum continues excavating London, they will
surely find many, many pots of preserved gooseberries!  Could it be that
someone tried to make paste in a rainy summer, and it wouldn't dry out? 
"Here, eat this anyhow"  "I can't pick it up!"  "Well, put it on some
bread, then"  "Oh, boy!"


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.


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.?



Whoa!!! Hold!!! Just found something else in LaVarenne!  


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?



Regards,

Allison

allilyn at juno.com

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