SC - Re: SC - Buñuelos (recipe)

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Par Leijonhufvud wrote:
> 
> porrige
> based on, IIRC, barley made with sheeps milk (though the one I ate was,
> alas, made with cows milk). It was "redacted" from a find in a womans
> grave on Gotland dated to the 900's.

"Oh, so it was murder!!!" [Waggles eyebrows, rolls eyes and taps ashes
off cigar]

> It's pretty much anybodys guess if
> it was regular fare or specially made for burials, which could make your
> feast somewhat macabre.  I'll look in my archives for the recipie,
> remind me when it's obvious that I have forgotten.

Good point. I believe there have been Danish finds of bog bodies whose
stomach contents appeared to be a multi-grain bread that was
deliberately burned? (Lending entirely new relevance, and too much of
it, to the story of King Alfred and the cakes... ;  )    )

Of course, the contents of somebody's stomach doesn't necessarily tell
too much about what was cooked, and what was eaten, with what. This is
an indicator more of overall diet than of cuisine.
 
> There are also quite a lot of bread/porrige finds[1], most of which was
> from various mixtures of grains and legumes. My personal guess is that
> this was partly due to the agricultural practices in that day, I think
> Anne Hagen mentions something similar for the anglo-saxon period/region.

I'm pretty sure C. Anne Wilson speaks of various accidental grain
mixtures, such as the rye that occasionally shows up, pretty much as a
weed, in wheat fields: IIRC this was a known phenomenon in period
England, and such a crop would be known, as I recall, as maslin, and
bread made therefrom was also apparently known by this name.
> 
> /UlfR
> 
> [1] My sources tell me that you can (in this case) find three different
> things -- porrige, unleavened and leavened bread -- and that in
> particular the first two categories can be hard to tell apart after 1000
> years in the ground. Not to mention the bread based on this mornings
> leftover porrige...

I can imagine. But I think what your source says makes sense. For
example, you might find identifiable fragments in a flake shape,
possibly slightly toasted or burnt, which would suggest it might have
been flatbread. Especially if lutefisk and Swedish meatballs have been
found in the stomach as well...even without these major benchmarks in
the science of dietary forensics, it still makes some sense.
 
Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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