SC - Grits - regional taste differences
snowfire@mail.snet.net
snowfire at mail.snet.net
Sun Jan 31 10:09:27 PST 1999
- -Poster: Jean Holtom <SNowfire at mail.snet.net>
>the writer of Forme of Cury is very careful about putting commas and/or
>ands between ingredients, and this was the only place I had seen
>where he didn't, which implied to me that 'thriddendele' actually
>referred to the pine nuts, rather than being a separate ingredient.
M'lord, not being an expert, I still would like to offer some comments on
this issue (for what they're worth!).
Looking back at your original quote of the old recipe, it does indeed seem
that the word "thriddendele" is associated with the pine nuts instead of
being itself a third ingredient.
"Thrid" means a third in OE (hence the three ridings of Yorkshire) Could
then the "mysterious" word "thriddendele" mean chop the pine nuts up into
thirds? (I see no indication of quantity e.g. ounces in the recipe)
I'm wondering if the "dd" at the end of thrid is merely an added letter by
the author, if it is not the first letter of "dendele" A "dd" spelled like
that serves no purpose in English - in Welsh yes, it's a soft "th" sound but
in English OE uses a crossed "d" for this purpose.
I looked up "dendele", "endele", "dele," in an on-line Modern/OE dictionary.
I do not see anything like it. A thought struck me though. If the author
wrote an "l" but it was meant to be an "r" (or is an "r" that looks like an
"l"), then perhaps "dendele" is really "endere" which could conceivably mean
"rendere" or to render. Thus the word "thriddendele" becomes (pine nuts)
"rendered into thirds".
An outside chance, but I thought I'd mention it!
I'm also imagining that dropping the clarified mixture into a bowl of cold
water was to see if it would form a solid ball when cooled - as one does
with toffee. Presumably the cook boils down the honey mixture until this is
possible so that when it cools it will become hard enough for the finished
product?
Elysant de Holtham
mka Jean Holtom
p.s. I have Maggie Black's "A Heritage of British Cooking" 17th century -
Victorian (with some older recipes tucked in). I havn't really come across
any glaring errors. I all I think she does well at translating old recipes
to modern (i.e. it would be a shame to discount her as a reliable source just
based on this mistake). Maybe she was having a bad day when she did this
recipe!
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