SC - cous cous

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

Hello from Anne-Marie
Ras asks me about my reconstruction of cous cous...
> I was wondering what line of thinking caused you to use vegetable broth
in the
> final redaction? Unless I am reading wrong the original clearly states
that it
> is the strained combination meat/vegetable broth which is the liquid used
for
> cooking the cous-cous. Since the use of vegie broth alone would make a
drastic
> flavor change from the original, I would like to hear your thoughts on
this
> substitution if possible.
> 
I agree that the original mutton/vegebtable broth would have a vastly
different taste, as well as being far more accurate. However, we were
expected to provide SOMETHING for vegetarians to eat (dang their forest
eater hides! :)), and so we chose to sub in a very flavorful vegetable
broth instead. I thought I had said that in my note, but I must have
forgotton to add that little bit of info.

> The second question is 'why is the finished dish sprinkled 'heavily' with
> cinnamon? I have redacted this recipe before using a dusting of cinnamon
and
> it seemed to work well. Are there indications in the original language
before
> translation that might have led to the heavier use of cinnamon? If so ,
would
> it be possible to post the closer translation?
>  
For me, its a "normal" dusting of cinnamon, but the banquet I did this for,
folks kept trying to send out the dishes with a mere wafting of the stuff.
I use the term "heavily" to make sure there was enough that you could
actually taste it. Perhaps I erred for assuming that everyone would be as
stingy with the spices as some I've worked with :).

Hope this helps...I realize that this reconstruction is not perfect by any
means, but it is a recipe for cous cous in a primary source and a
medieval-oide rendition of it. Also, the original text of the entire recipe
(not just the bit cited in your question) specifies that cous cous can be
made "moistened as usual", or else it can be the method described with the
mutton broth. This implies that the mutton broth method was not "the
usual", albeit tasty as heck, I'm sure. I'd love to see you version to
compare notes...

- --Anne-Marie, who doesnt get to play with middle eastern/andalusian stuff
nearly enough now that shes doing the hyper anal period 15th century thang.

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