SC - Guilty Conscience

[david friedman]

> Date: Sat, 06 Jun 1998 17:32:38 -0600
> From: Stefan li Rous <stefan at texas.net>
> Subject: Jams not period??? (was SC - Mulberry question)

> Prserves and jellies have been discussed here before. The following is one
> of several messages about fruit preserves in my fruits-msg file in my Florilegium.
> 
> Since both the message above and the one I happened to quote below are
> from Adamantius, I'm not sure why the opinions seem to differ. Adamantius,
> were you just saying there are no recipes above, not that the food
> didn't exist?
> 
> Stefan li Rous
> stefan at texas.net
> 
> - ----------------
> From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
> Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 10:16:45 -0400

No, I'm saying the evidence suggests the food in question didn't exist
until the tail end of period, and wasn't common until later still. I'd
say the operative term is "in late period", which is a term open to a
certain amount of interpretation. The period, and the sources, after
1600, no matter how much we may like to say they are post period, don't
seem as if they will go away any time soon, so I won't ignore them. What
I said was that there appear to be few or no recipes for Smucker's Jam
or Welch's Grape Jelly throughout most or all of period, while there are
several other types of fruit preserves found throughout period. I'm not
prepared to swear that there aren't recipes for the typical modern fruit
preserve in some later period (which for practical purposes should be
read as post-period, including people like Markham and Fettiplace)
sources. What I am pretty sure of, though, is that jams and jellies such
as we know today are not really typical of most medieval and renaissance
fruit preservation techniques. Possibly we are using different
interpretations of the question, "How period are etc.?" This is why I
don't especially like the term "period": it tends to allow for frequent 
misunderstandings.

My statement, quoted below, that most of the recipes for preserved
fruits are similar to ones used today, was specifically in reference to
sugar content, but doesn't necessarily refer to the final product. 

> Subject: Re: SC - An Introduction and a question.
> 
> DdreMacNam at aol.com wrote:
> > What I need to know is how
> > period are preserves and jelly? Also what types of fruit would have been
> > used? One last thing does anyone have recepies or redactions?
> 
> Fruits preserved in various sugar and/or honey preparations are
> exceedingly period. They range from  fruit in spiced syrup, through
> myriad varieties of stamped, sliceable, fruit "marmalades" (kind of like
> a stack of fruit leather), to, in late period, the jams and jellies we
> know today.
> 
> Ellinor Fettiplace's receipt book (AGAIN!) has quite a few recipes for
> all of these, and they are late enough in period style to be used as
> working recipes by relatively novice cooks. 
> 
> Tops on the list of fruits would be those known to medieval/renaissance
> Europeans (obviously), especially those that are high in pectin. Quinces
> are quite common for this reason. Apples and pears only slightly less
> so. Raspberries, strawberries, barberries, and gooseberries all appear
> in several sources. Oranges and lemons appear, but generally as candied
> peel or some kind of suckets.
> 
> Apart from the use of honey substituted for part or all of the sugar in
> some recipes, particularly the early ones, the technology for making
> pectin set by combining it with sugar and acid hasn't changed over the
> years, so most of the period recipes are quite straightforward and
> easily interpreted by modern cooks with some experience with making jams
> and jellies. Generally you won't find, for instance, that much less
> sugar being used to make a sweet fruit jelly than is used today, just
> because sugar was expensive. If you don't use enough, you run the risk
> of the fruit not setting until it is cooked to death and devoid of color
> and flavor. So, most of the recipes are pretty similar to modern ones,
> although you'll find a somewhat greater variety of styles than is
> generally practiced today.
> 
> Adamantius

Me again...

- -- 
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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