SC - Recipes for "Teisen Lap"

[snowfire at mail.snet.net]

>> Here are three recipes for the Welsh cake "Teisen Lap"  (not sure of English).
>> This is a traditional Welsh cake.
 
>> The three recipes are for the same cake, and although all are "rubbing in"
>> method dishes with similar ingredient lists, each version seems to vary somewhat
>> in the cooking method.
 
>> I wonder - are there other dishes that can be cooked by different methods and
>> yet be called the same thing like this?

>Sure. Look at the variations in all the different dishes known as
>haggis, or steak and kidney pie, or any of a bazillion others.

OK...

>> Teisen Lap (1)
>> 
>> 1 oz flour
>> 4 oz lard
>> 4 oz margarine
>
>By any chance is this supposed to read "1 pound flour"? This one seems
>to have twice as much fat as the first one,

Ummmm.... yes that's 1 lb flour!  Sorry!!!!! 

>> Teisen Lap (2)
 
>Okay, so we have a basic soda-and-acid (sour milk or buttermilk)
>reaction, such as is used for real Irish soda bread. Cooking on a
>griddle is probably closer to the proto-Ur-original dish, as is the use
>of soda instead of baking powder with its own built-in acid (originally 
>it probably had no leavening of any kind, other than the shortening
>power of the fat in the dough, and what Scots to this day mysteriously
>call "light fingers" to keep it from cracking your teeth). Muffins as
>Americans know them probably evolved from the British dish so named,
>which also were originally a dish cooked on a  griddle of some kind.

So this would seem to be the oldest method of the three Teisen Lap recipes? 
Hmmm...  Recipe evolution makes the variation in these recipes suddenly make sense! 
Duh!

BTW A lot of the Welsh cake recipes are the "fat, flour, eggs and dried fruit" 
combo, and many of the old favourites are cooked on a griddle.  e.g. Welsh Cakes, 
Crempog (pancakes), Pancws Llaeth Sur, (sour milk pancakes), Slapan, Teisen Gri, 
Cacen Gri, Teisen Planc (plank pastry), Bara Ceirch (Oatcakes), and Teisen Lap. 

Most are simple little dishes, basically similar, and many  use the sour or 
buttermilk/soda combo also - which must also speak to their older origins then.

Re Geography.
I seem to remember from a French cooking program on TV where the chef claimed the 
flour/eggs/fat combo in cookery came across Europe with the Celts... Can't really 
remember the whole thing now.  Any ideas on that?

Plus in South Wales with the periodic influx of the Irish, I wonder how many of the 
recipes from there are of mixed Irish/Welsh origin... 
 
>It's a bit like wondering how you'd find Eohippus, Mesohippus, and Equus all 
>together in the same field: the answer is that you wouldn't. All were "the 
>official horse" at one time, but not at the same time.
 
Great analogy. :-)

Elysant
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