SC - Best portions

[LYN M PARKINSON]

Decker, Terry D. wrote:
> 
> Obviously, you're a Prince of Serendip.  I came across the quote while
> researching steak during a debate on the "periodness" of a steak feast on
> the Ansteorran list.  For me, the side dishes were more of a temporal
> challenge than the steak.  The quote places steak and onions in 1390.
> 
> Bear

I vaguely recall a reference to collops in Piers Ploughman. Could that be what
this is? Is there any chance you have some kind of translation into modern
English, or is the word "steak" specifically used in the primary source?

There are one or two recipes specifically referring to steaks being stewed
(Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books? Anyone? I'm really not up for small
print tonight...), and you could check out a rather similar recipe for aloes
de mouton, probably in the same source. Now, these aloes or alowes are not, as
I recall, are not rolled up, as with Taillevent's aloyeaulx, some English
alowes recipes, and the later recipes for stuffed olives of meat, in or out of
a pie. One possibility is that the "aloes" term is a reference to shad, just
as in the recipe Lord Ras was playing with a year or so ago, featuring
"sturgeon" made of veal. But anyway, they're stewed, which, while yummers,
doesn't yell "Steak!" to this New Yorker, so I'm willing to bet it does so
even less to a Texan, an Oklahoman, etc.

Now, on the other hand, if you can stand the late-period stigma, you might
look into Gervase Markham's descriptions/instructions for broiling various
meats, steaks included, under the name of carbonadoes. I think there's a
reference to them also in the slightly earlier but still post-period Hugh
Plat's Delightes for Ladies (1609?) There's even a rudimentary sauce based on
butter and vinegar, an ancestor of Bearnaise, in a way.

If you can't get at a copy of Markham's The English Houswife, I think there's
an article about carbonadoes in Lord Stefan's Florilegium, written by some
Eastern dude with too much time on his hands...

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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