SC - Summertime Cerulean Blue Sauce

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Meliora & Drake wrote:
> 
> I attempted to make this sauce for a recent event.  However, it didn't
> turn blue - it stayed a blood-red colour. It also didn't set. I followed
> the redaction to the letter - did I unknowingly do something wrong or is
> this a joke recipe?  My lord Drake Morgan believes that as we bought
> commercial fruit, they may have been sprayed with ascorbic acid to stop
> the oxidisation and this would have affected the recipe.
> 
> Sky-blue sauce for summer.  Take some of the wild blackberries that grow
> in hedgerows and some thoroughly pounded alonds, with a little ginger.
> And moisten these things with verjuice and strain through a sieve.
> Martino, Meastro. Libro de arte coquinaria.
> 
> Notes and Redaction from "The Medieval Kitchen" y Odile Redon. Francoise
> Sabban and Sivano Serventi. ISBN 0-226-70684-2
> 
> Toward the end of summer, when blackberries are at their best, this
> cerulean blue sauce will add zest to your September meat dinners.  The
> pectin in the berries helps the sauce set to a lovely midnight-blue
> jelly that is a visual foil and a delicious accompaniment to white meats
> such as veal and chickem.

For what it's worth, the first thing that comes to my mind is that you
used either a different type of blackberry, or ones at a different stage
of ripeness. Many blackberries these days, not having been allowed to
fully ripen on the bush, are sold at a rather red shade, and I see you
have used commercial blackberries, and not the wild blackberries the
original recipe suggests. As to why the recipe seems to have worked for
Redon et al., and not for you, I have no idea, but I should point out
that as far as I know, cerulean blue is not nearly as dark as midnight
blue. I suspect oxidation isn't really part of the equation, but rather
simply mixing dark blue blackberry pulp (and blue blackberries do exist,
as I say) with white almonds, creates the effect.
   
Adamantius
Østgardr, East
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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