Frying (WAS: SC - Elizabethan buffet (long))

Thu Oct 22 09:51:20 PDT 1998

Just adding a few bits of information to His Grace's comments:

	What is your reason for thinking that Epulario's "fine paste"
corresponds
	to shortbread or sugar cookie dough?

	Have you tried frying these instead of baking them? The recipe is
for
	"fritters" and frying them is the first method proposed, although
the
	alternative of baking is also offered, so the dough ought to be one
that
	works as fritters. I have my doubts about frying shortbread dough,
but I
	haven't tired it.

Most "fine paste" I have seen is more like piecrust than shortbread.

Note that dough used for frying, whether on its own or wrapped around some
filling, needs to have a fairly small ratio of fat to the dough, if any.  If
the percentage of fat is too high, it will melt into the frying grease and
you get an icky mess.  A regular "flaky" pie dough should not be used for
frying, and I have seen some recipes where the surrounding dough has no fat,
is just flour and water (and maybe salt) kneaded together until smooth and
elastic.

Shortbread doughs, or cooky doughs, should contain too much fat to fry
satisfactorily.

	1. Why salt pork? It isn't much like suet, which is what the recipe
specifies.

Yep in two respects.  Suet is generally interpreted as beef fat (or,
according to the OED, as deer or sheep fat; see below).  Pork fat is
something different.  Rendered suet gives tallow (used in candle- and
soap-making); rendered port fat gives lard (used in piecrusts).

Salt pork is something entirely else, it is a salt-cured (as opposed to
smoked etc.) very fatty cut of port meat, sometimes called "fatback".  Salt
pork is generally used as a seasoning for greens and green vegetables in the
South and for baked beans and bean soups in the North (USA culinary
geography).  I generally avoid fried foods for a feast after a really bad
experience at the first or second feast I cooked, so I didn't pay much
attention to the receipt until I saw His Grace's commentary.

									---=
Morgan

(The really bad experience was that I was the junior cook on the team, and
the head cook insisted that we would do fried oranges, which are period.
However, we had minimal staff and even more minimal cooking facilities, and
she insisted on doing this item all by herself, so it was a disaster trying
to get the oranges fried and out to the feasters.  I think this was the same
one where the person in charge of either the third course or desserts, I no
longer recall without my notes, insisted on making trifle as the concluding
dessert, even though it is not period.  She beat the cream by hand, starting
after the main part of the course was served.  I don't think anybody was
left to eat the trifle except the cleanup crew.)

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	                   Morgan Cely Cain * Steppes, Ansteorra
	                             (and sometimes in Atlantia)

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suet

suet siu.et. Forms: 4-5 suette, 4-8 sewet (4 swhet(t, 5 sweth, swette,
swet(e, svette, 6 suete,
sewett(e, suyt, showitt, 6-7 shewet, 7 sueete, shuet, sewed, suit, 8 suett),
4- suet. App. a. AFr. *suet,
*sewet, f. su(e, seu = OFr. seu, sieu (mod.Fr. suif) = Pr. ceu, seu, sef,
Ital. sevo, sego, Sp., Pg.
sebo:-L. sebum tallow, suet, grease.

1. 

a. The solid fat round the loins and kidneys of certain animals, esp. that
of the ox and sheep, which,
chopped up, is used in cooking, and, when rendered down, forms tallow.
(Occas. applied to the
corresponding fat in the human body.)

     1377 Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees) 46 In iiij li. Swhet emp. in villa,
viij d. 

     1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvi. xliv. (Bodl. MS.), Yren schal not
ruste if it is ismered wip
     suette..of an herte. 

     A. 1400 in Rel. Ant. I. 53 Tak..fresch swyne grees or of a bare, and
fresch sewet of a herte,
     and fresch talgh of a schepe. 

     C. 1430 Two Cookery bks. 41 Take Percely, & Swynys grece, or Sewet of a
schepe; 

     C. 1440 Promp. Parv. 483/1 Swete, of flesche or fysche or oper lyke (P.
suet, due sillabe),
     liquamen, sumen. 

     1486 Bk. St. Albans, Hunting e viij, She beerith booth sewet and pure
greece Yit wolde I
     mayster..fayne witt more Where lyth the suet of the haare be hynde or
befoore. 

     1562 Turner Herbal ii. 125 Bulles tallowe or gote buckes swet. 

     1563 in W. M. Williams Ann. Founders' Co. (1867) 63 Payde for viij
pounds of Showitt &
     longe Marybones iij s. iiij d; 

     1615 R. Cocks Diary (Hakl. Soc.) I. 93 Cows shewet for shipps use for
chirurgion. 

     1634 Peacham Compl. Gent. (ed. 2) xxi. 253 For your Maggots or Ientles
they are fed with
     Sheepes shuet. 

     1675 Hobbes Odyssey (1677) 218 There are o' th' fire good puddings full
of suit. 

     1712 Addison Spect. No. 317 P8 Too many Plumbs, and no Sewet. 

     1844 H. Stephens Bk. Farm II. 97 The kidney is extracted from the suet.

     1855 H. Stephens Bk. Farm (ed. 2) II. 703/2 Mutton suet is used in the
manufacture of
     common candles. 

     1889 J. M. Duncan Clin. Lect. Dis. Wom. xxx. (ed. 4) 244 Remote
parametritis may affect the
     region of the psoas muscle or may affect the suet.

b. Hunting. The fat of deer. Obs.

     A. 1400 Parlt. 3 Ages 83, I soughte owte my sewet and semblete it to
gedre. 

     1576 Turberv. Venerie lxxvii, I haue termed their [sc. bears'] fatte
greace, and so is it to be
     called of all beastes which praye: and of all Deare and other fallow
beasts, it is to be called
     Sewet. 

     1610 Guillim Heraldry iii. xiv. (1660) 166. 

     A. 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Sewet, Deer's Grease.

2. attrib., as 

suet-chopper

suet-chopper, 

dumpling

dumpling; 

suet affection

suet affection, a diseased condition of the fat surrounding the kidneys; 

suet-brained

suet-brained a., stupid; 

suet crust

suet crust, a form of heavy pastry made with suet, esp. used for meat or
fruit puddings; 

suet face

suet face, a face of a pale complexionless appearance; hence 

suet-faced

suet-faced; 

suet-headed

suet-headed a., stupid; 

suet pudding

suet pudding, a pudding made of flour and suet and usually boiled in a
cloth.

     1889 J. M. Duncan Clin. Lect. Dis. Wom. xxx. (ed. 4) 244 Whether the
*suet affection
     explains the frequent occurrence of albuminuria in parametritic cases,
it is to be remembered as
     an important concomitant of the disease. 

     1921 Public Opinion 26 Aug. 199/2 Even among the most *suet-brained
readers of the
     Morning Post there are some [etc.]. 

     1858 Simmonds Dict. Trade, *Suet-chopper, a mincing knife for cutting
up suet. 

     1845 E. Acton Mod. Cookery xvi. 406 (heading) Common *suet-crust for
pies. 

     1906 Mrs. Beeton's Bk. Househ. Managem. xxxi. 889 Suet
     crust..flour..suet..baking-powder..salt..water. 

     1951 Good Housek. Home Encycl. 671/1 Make 6-8 oz. suet-crust pastry. 

     1977 E. Crispin Glimpses of Moon xii. 231 Mrs Clotworthy is making a
steak-and-kidney
     pudding with a thick suet crust. 

     A. 1756 Eliza Haywood New Present (1771) 205 *Suet Dumplings. 

     1874 Ruskin Fors Clav. xlviii. IV. 273 We will..have suet dumpling
instead of pudding. 

     1897 Rhoscomyl White Rose Arno 52 The chair of Gwgan Maddox was
shadowed by the
     *suet face of the servant. 

     1922 Joyce Ulysses 166 A pallid *suetfaced young man polished his
tumbler knife fork and
     spoon with his napkin. 

     1937 E. Pound Let. 10 Mar. (1971) 291 Make it clear..that 200 words per
subject is all that
     wildcat editing can get over on the *suet-headed Brits. 

     A. 1756 Eliza Haywood New Present (1771) 196 A *Suet Pudding, Take half
a pound of fine
     beef suet, [etc.]. 

     1906 Beatrice Harraden Scholar's Dau. xi. 213 Big suet pudding with
treacle. 

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