SC - RE: Cherry soup? Or cherry pudding?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

"Peters, Rise J." wrote:
> 
> So... do you have a recipe you're willing to share?  Since you say "always
> made" it, I'm assuming it turned out well enough that you were willing to
> eat it more than once.<g>

Courtesy of East Kingdom 12th Night, A.S. XXXI...

Syrosye

“To make a syrosye.  Tak cheryes & do out *e stones & grynde hem wel &
draw hem *orw a streynoure & do it in a pot.  & do *erto whit gres or
swete botere & myed wastel bred, & cast *erto good wyn & sugre, & salte
it & stere it wel togedere, & dresse it in disches;  & set *eryn clowe
gilofre, & strew sugre aboue.”
			Curye On  Inglysch, Book III, Utilis Coquinario,  Ed. Constance B.
Hieatt & Sharon Butler, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1985 
	
	In other words... To make some cherries. Take cherries, pit them, pureé
them, and put them in a pot. Add lard or sweet butter and some white
bread crumbs, and add some good wine and sugar. Salt it and stir well,
serve it in dishes, and garnish with cloves and sugar.
	I’m assuming some actual cooking takes place here, if only to melt the
lard or butter.  Bread crumbs are a matter of taste. I opted for a
rather thin soup, but the actual dish was probably a bit thicker. Some
people use enormous quantities of bread crumbs to get a pudding-like
“standing pottage”, but the recipe doesn’t call for that, and it’s
nasty, to boot. I suspect the cloves are intended to be left whole,
rather than ground, since powder of cloves is a known, standard, 14th
century ingredient which could have easily been specified if intended.
We used powdered cloves, to avoid expensive dental accidents in dim
feast halls.  As for sugar, it was probably sprinkled lavishly on top
partly for the look, which probably  means there was a bit less in total
 than if it had been simply mixed in.
		
	For eight servings:
		
	2 quarts pitted morello cherries in juice (If jars are less than a
quart, add bottled or canned cherry 	
		juice to compensate)
	1/2 - 3/4  cup unseasoned white bread crumbs, preferably fresh
	1/4 - 1/2 cup sugar (granulated light brown is ideal, but white is O.K.)
	1/2 cup red wine
	3 Tbs butter
	1/2 - 1 tsp powdered cloves
	Salt
	
	Puree the cherries in a food mill or processor. Put everything but the
butter, the cloves and the salt into a pot and bring to a boil, whipping
to break up any breadcrumb lumps. Add cloves to taste. Cut cold butter
into small pieces and drop them into the simmering liquid, one at a a
time, whipping constantly until each is melted and incorporated, before
adding the next (otherwise you’ll have a layer of grease floating on
top). Salt to taste and serve. 

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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