SC - Fayettevilles (was hi I'm new)

[Laura C Minnick]

Hi all from Anne-Marie with a bit of an antecdote about krapfen, and the
perils of taking modern ethnic cooking as anything resembling period...
Bear tells us re: krapfen

>Modern krapfen are Berliner's, deep fat fried jelly-filled doughnuts.  
>
>Period krapfen are more eclectic having meat, fish and fruit fillings.  The
>doughs are both leavened and unleavened.  One set of instructions I've found
>bakes them in oil.  I suspect (but can not prove) they are closer to a pasty
>than a doughnut.  From the lack of instructions, you might even produce a
>covered tart (which I believe Alia Atlas did).

At a non-SCA event in southern California, I was invited to help cook. As a
side dish, I attempted to make the apple and hazelnut krapfen, filling
frozen dough lumps with the fruit and nut mixture and deep frying.

In our camp, we had a gaggle of Germans, who were visiting the US as part
of their band touring (the joys of 15th century music played on real
medieval bagpipes, not an Amazing Grace to be seen! :)). We fed them, and
they asked what they were eating. I told them it was krapfen, and they
looked rather incredulous. I tried to get them to explain exactly what
krapfen were to them (they obviously knew the term), but their broken
english was not sufficient. 

The quote of the week...
"Krapfen? Dees ees noot krapfen! Dees ees gut, boot dees ees noot krapfen!"
That and lots of "ja, ja!"s ...:)

Apparently, as far as I can tell, modern krapfen are only occasionally
filled, and NOT with apples and nuts. Of course, this was inbroken
german-english, with lots of handwaving on both sides, so I could have
misunderstood easily.

so, the moral, boys and girls, is to beware of putting a modern slant on
things...all that is krapfen is not a doughnut :)....cant wait to see the
results of Bears research on this !

- --AM
"ich been ein krapfen!"

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