SC - Under 40 crowd?

[Bronwynmgn@aol.com]

Stefan li Rous wrote:
> 
> Interesting. Not what I expected at all. I expected such recipe books to
> be similar to the early medieval cookbooks, where the specifics were left
> unstated since the audience would presumably know these basics or have
> their own way of doing things. It was the books for the beginning cook
> that I expected would have the most detail.

One thing to consider is that most cookbooks specifically designed for
professional cooks are really for cookery students: in addition to
recipes there are loverly charts on the thickening power of various
starches, etc. Actual "graduate" chefs often keep them around as a handy
reference, but generally work, if from books at all, from books written
by other chefs for the mass market. So, for example, they might have
Madeleine Kamman's "The Making of a Cook", a sort of revisionist
Classical French (and some Italian, as I recall) Cookery Bible. The
recipes are, however, written for non-professionals, for reasonable
quantities (generally four servings or so). They will sometimes suggest
garnishing with a specific herb, chopped, or any of several other
possibilities, but generally don't, within my experience, get too
involved with garniture. But, professional chefs sometimes will conceive
a very specific plate design, including garnish, which they'll expect
their cooks to follow. Except maybe for David Bouley, with his little
paisley squirts of herb puree/oil, which was pretty much free-form. But
then he also expected his clientele to spend three hours over lunch... .
;  )
    
> 
> > As I recall, the
> > aquapatys recipe just says to boil the garlic in this stuff with powders
> > of these spices, and serve it forth hot. To me, this suggests it was the
> > intent of the cooks to serve it more or less ungarnished in its
> > saffron-y yellow sauce. (Again, I'm going from memory here; I _think_ it
> > contains saffron.)
> 
> Oh! I had only what had been posted on this list. I didn't even consider
> keeping the thin sauce as there was a fair amount of it. I could have
> simply kept a small amount rather than just scooping out the garlic
> cloves and just keeping what which clung to the cloves. It did seem
> such a waste to put so much saffron and spices into the boiling water
> and then throw most of it out. For the six cloves in the recipe, I now
> think the cup of water might have been excessive. I actually a little
> over doubled the amount of ingredients but used approx. one and a half
> cups of water. And yes, it contains a fair amount of saffron. The redaction
> called for 1/4 teaspoon.

Um, Stefan? Did you use six cloves of garlic, or the cloves from six
heads/bulbs? If the former, I can see how you might have thought it too
much sauce... . From a scientific standpoint, here's the way it probably
works: you have, in fact, about equal parts garlic and liquid, combined.
You boil it somewhat hard (as opposed to simply simmering), which both
cooks the garlic quickly, boils away some of the water, and makes a
temporary emulsion of the oil and water, thickening it slightly, as does
the partially disintegrated garlic. (Same principle used for thickening
bouilliabaise.) If it were me, I'd cook the garlic rather soft, maybe
just a bit longer than you did. But that's just me and my vague hunch
about how the dish would have been most appreciated in period, and
really has no basis in known fact. Anyway, what you'd end up with is
probably about a pint of soft garlic cloves, with about 3/4 cup of
slightly syrupy sauce, tasting of cooked garlic, your spices, and
whatever oil you used, so I hope it was a good one ;  ). I think this is
basically a pottage, intended to be eaten with a spoon, either from a
trencher or out of a bowl, with its sauce. I wonder if perhaps you were
thrown by the use of water in the sauce, which could be seen as
something like eating pasta in the water it was boiled in. Not
unprecedented, BTW... but I can see how one might reason otherwise.
 
As for the firmness/wholeness question, I should point out that the
recipe and redaction as published in Sass's "To the King's Taste" does
refer to dressing the dish forth hool (presuming "whole"), but the
recipe in the Forme of Cury, or at least the transcription in "Curye On
Inglysch", says to dress it forth hoot (hot).

Funny how we always think in terms of scribal error being a foible of
pre-print media, huh?
 
Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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