SC - new theory on pea broth

[david friedman]

>LYN M PARKINSON wrote:
>> Somewhere, I have recipes that call for 'pea broth'.  We've discussed
>> this on the list, I think.  Now, when you cook the dried peas, and you
>> take the lid off the pot, you have cooked peas at the bottom of the pot
>> and a brownish/clearish liquid at the top.  Normally, we mush everything
>> together and go from there.  The recipes don't call for pea soup, bruet,
>> or pottage.  They want *broth*.  This morning I cooked peas and then
>> drained them into a bowl.  The fairly clear liquid I have divided and
>> will freeze for use when I find those recipes.  Not in Chiquart,
>> apparently, 'find' couldn't produce 'pea broth'.

and Adamantius answered:
>Taillevent's exact phrase is "puree de poys", which he uses seven or
>eight times in Le Viandier, which is why this issue is so confusing. I
>believe Chiquart does use the same expression, but whether an English
>translation calls it "pea broth" I don't know. Most translators, AFAIK,
>skirt the issue as to what this substance _is_ and simply translate it
>as pea puree. From the context it's pretty clearly a liquid, and it is
>tempting to assume it is the water peas are boiled in, with or without
>the peas strained into it for additional thickening power.
...
>The question of what pea puree really is, is one of those insoluble
>medieval cookery questions, which is why, when most people on the cooks'
>list bring up cuskynoles as a sort of thread-ender, you'll find that
>Cariadoc asks what pea puree is, the peas or the juice.
>
Here is what Menagier de Paris says about making and using pea broth (Janet
Hinson's translation):

And first a SOUP of OLD PEAS. It is appropriate to shell them, and to find
out from the people the place the nature of the peas of the area (for
commonly peas do not cook well in well-water: and in other places they cook
well in spring-water and in river water, as in Paris, and in other places,
they do not cook at all in spring-water, as at Besiers) and this known, it
is appropriate to wash them in a pan with warm water, then put in a pot
with warm water on the fire, and boil them until they burst. Then separate
the liquid from the solid, and put the liquid aside, then fill the pea-pot
with warm water and put on the fire and separate a second time, if you wish
to have more liquid...[directions on how to make pea soup out of the solid
part snipped]

The liquid from the peas on a meat day is of no account. On a fish day and
in Lent, fry the onions as is told in the preceding chapter, and then put
the oil in which the onions were fried and the onions in along with
bread-crumbs, ginger, cloves and grain, ground:  and sprinkle with vinegar
and wine, and add a little saffron, then adorn the bowl with slices of
bread.

Item, with the liquid make a broth on fish days. Do not stir it and take it
soon from the fire, etc.

Item, mix the liquid with beet-leaves and it will be a very good soup, but
do not add any more water; and this is for Lent...

See here how onions are cooked: in water for a long time before the peas,
and until the water is all used up in cooking; then add some pea-liquid to
cook and to take away the flavor of the water.

Also oysters are first washed in hot water, then parboiled, then they must
be partially cooked in the pea-liquid so that their flavor will stay in the
liquid, and not allowed to froth, then remove the oysters and fry them if
you wish, and put some of them in the bowls, and with the rest make a dish.

Adamantius later writes:
>My only question is if anyone has an example of a recipe that does use the
>drained pea
>solids...offhand, I can't think of one, unless you count bread and
>animal fodder.

See the pea soup recipe above; the rest of it is in Le Menagier on
Cariadoc's web page.

Elizabeth of Dendermonde/Betty Cook


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