SC - Grits - regional taste differences

[snowfire@mail.snet.net]

- -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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