SC - Re: dartbender

[Ian Gourdon]

> The recipe comes from "Koge Bog: Indeholdendis et hundrede fornødene
> stycker
> Som ere om Brygning, Bagning, Kogen, Brendewijn oc Miød at berede, aare
> nyttelig udi husholding, etc., Som tilforn icke paa vort Danske Sprog udi
> Tryck er udgangen", Copenhagen, 1616. As the title says, this is the
> oldest
> printed Danish cookbook, and it has one hundred recipes.
> 
> A fairly rough translation of the bread recipe is as follows:
> 
> A good household truly needs good bread and ale, and this is often
> lacking
> even in fairly prosperous households, not because they do not  want to use
> what is needed for this, rather because rye, flour, malt, pots  and
> barrels
> are not treated as they should, nor the fire correctly regulated;
> therefore
> I will begin the book with a short discourse on  baking and brewing; not
> fully (as that is the domain of the professional  bakers and brewers), but
> only as each householder needs for his  kitchen.
> 
> Firstly take care to preserve your rye well, so no midden will get into
> the
> flour during the summer, as the bread will then taste bad. Therefore  sift
> all husks carefully from the grain, as it may cause the rye to absorb
> moisture and be damaged.
> 
You use the term midden.  Can you tell me if the Danish word being used is
related to the Old English mycg or the Old English midding?  From the
context, I am assuming midding.

To clarify what I am asking for other readers, mycg is a midge, an insect,
while midding is refuse.  The context and the word midden suggest refuse,
but it may be that the author is speaking of two different things in the
same paragraph.  The next paragraph suggests that midden may be insects.


> Then you should have your flour ground at the beginning of  as much as you
> will use for a whole year in your household. If you have  it ground during
> the summer, it will come warm from the mill, and if you then want to keep
> it
> for some time, middens will appear or the  bread will be moldy, bad
> tasting,
> etc.
> 
> If you want nice white bread, then take the rye when it is dry, sprinkle
> it
> with water and place it in a barrel and tread it well with clean feet,
> then
> send it to the mill. But the millers do not care to mill such rye, as it
> wears the stones out too much.
> 
White bread from rye?  If you remove the germ, the flour should be lighter
in color than a whole grain meal, so the water processing probably removes
the husks, the germ and any loose insect eggs.  The wet grain would need to
dry some before milling, but it would be softer than grain which had not
been water processed.  The softer the grain, the finer the millstome
tolerances required, thus the miller's plaint.

As a small aside, a similar water process is used modernly with oats.  The
husks are difficult to remove.  The water softens them enough to break them
loose from the grain, after which the slurry is passed though a separator to
remove the grain from the slurry.

> When you want to bake, then wash your bowl carefully, and also your hands
> and nails, and have everything nice and clean, no hairs, threads  and such
> stuff. Then add some sourdough to the flour; as the bread one bakes with
> sourdough is always more healthy than the sweet, especially  for the
> common
> man in these lands.
> 
> When the dough is well risen, then knead it and work it quite well; the
> more working it gets, the better your bread will be. Some cast a handful
> of
> fine salt into the dough, especially during  summer and autumn, when the
> danger of spoilage is greatest, as the  bread will then not spoil so
> quickly. Some also add Danish cumin  (caraway), aniseeds, coriander seeds
> or
> other such stuff to the dough,  which makes the bread taste good, even
> dill
> seeds, fennel seeds, etc.
> 
The comment about salt is interesting.  It makes me wonder about commercial
baking practices of the period.

>From the rest of this paragraph, it is fairly clear that Danish rye (the one
with the caraway seeds) and dill bread are at least late period.  Unsalted
bread tastes flat, so the seeds were probably added originally to give the
unsalted bread flavor.  The "etc." might even give some provenance to a
Finnish cardamon bread I occasionally bake for feasts, but I prefer to see
more conclusive evidence. 


> During the Christmas month it is customary to bake several batches in  a
> row, as the oven will need less wood and the bread also keeps longer  than
> at other times.
> 
> As I said, this is a quick and rough translation and any comments are very
> welcome.
> 
> Nanna
> 
As a final comment, the way I read this, the rye referred to is the grain
and the flour is rye flour.  No other flours or grains are mentioned.  This
matches the historians opinion that rye was the common grain of the north.
Since this is a cook book for households, it suggests that other grains,
such as wheat, may have been expensive or difficult to obtain.  If there are
other recipes in the cookbook which use different flours, it may be that
other grains were just hard to find.  If no other flours appear in the
cookbook, then prohibitively expensive is a strong contender.

Thank you for putting this within my grasp.

Bear
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