SC - "No Naked Food" Suprise

[Decker, Terry D.]

> > 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?
> 
I've never churned my way completely through Piers Ploughman in translation,
much less the original, so I can't say.  The word steak appears to originate
as steik in Old Norse which would place it pre-15th Century.  I was at the
state library just yester day and forgot to look it up in the OED.

> 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.
> 
Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books in one recipe use the word "stekys"
which are "gredyl it up broun".  A case can be made for pan cooking or
grilling.  I'm willing to argue that "gredyl" meant both at the time and
that a cook would choose the proper technique depending on the cut of meat.


Anyway that feed in the Bayeux Tapestry shore does look lak a barbie-cue tuh
me. 

> 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.
> 
The spiced wine&vinegar&verjuice sauce in the steky recipe looks interesting
and I think black sauce might go very well with steak. 

> 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
> 
Carbonadoes.  Does that mean meat turned to charcoal?  Sounds like a Texas
thing.  I'll have to check it out.

Bear
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