SC - Rastons (was: dumb Bread trencher Question)

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

On the topic of "bowls as containers", here's a 16th century 
Spanish recipe for stuffed bread.

The recipe is from a 1971 reprint of the 1599 edition of _Libro Del 
Arte De Cozina_ by Diego Granado.  The translation is mine; feel 
free to play with it.

To Stuff a Large Bread

Take a round bread of two pounds, cooked the day before [1], and 
make a round opening in the middle of the bottom crust, and take 
out all the crumb in such a manner that nothing remains but the 
crust, which you must scrape on the outside before taking out the 
crumb.  Have a composition made of a cooked capon breast 
pounded in a mortar with the yolks of hard-cooked eggs, and 
marzipan paste, and mostachones [2], mixing everything with 
raisins and chopped herbs, and raw eggs, cinnamon, and saffron, a 
good deal.  Stuff the bread and fasten the opening with the crust 
that you took out, and put said bread in a proportionately-sized 
copper stewpot, in such a manner that it is neither very big or very 
small, with fatty broth, and have it cook gently for the space of an 
hour and a half, and when the bread has swollen, it is cooked.  
Drain the broth from the vessel and put the bread on the plate with 
dexterity, for otherwise it cannot be removed intact.

You can cook it in another manner, and it is this: having stuffed the 
bread, put it in a napkin or cloth [3], and being fastened put it in a 
little caldron with boiling broth and let it cook held with a little cord 
fastening the napkin, so that with the boiling it does not go hither 
and thither: the bread being cooked in one of the aforesaid 
manners, serve it hot with sugar and cinnamon, and a little of the 
fatty broth on top.  In this bread can be cooked little birds with their 
insides cleaned, and entrails, and testicles of a young goat.

[1] "de un dia" -- I interpret that as one day old.

[2] "mostachones" --  my modern dictionary compares them to 
gingerbread, and my guide to Spanish cuisine says that they are 
for dipping in coffee or hot chocolate.

[3] "estame~na" This is a cloth of wool or serge, used in many 
other recipes as a strainer.


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