SC - Ideal vs. practical

[Heitman]

Gerekr at aol.com wrote:
> 
> Chimene here.
> 
> When we were doing our research, I charted ingredients on 10 frumenty
> recipes from English sources from ca. 1381 thru 2-15th.  Half of them (5)
> included sugar.
> 
> >From the Misc, the Ancient cookery appended to FC, the recipe on p. 81
> >From the Misc, the Noble Boke, the recipe on p. 100
> >From my own EETS 2-15th, the recipes on pp. 17, 70 & 105 (that's 75% of
> the recipes in that source)
> 
> I was expecting the sweetened recipes, had never run across an
> unsweetened one particularly.  Are these early enough?  No particular
> connection to Christmas in these sources, however.

Bear in mind, of course, that because a recipe calls for the addition of
some sugar to a dish doesn't necessarily mean the final product is what
we'd call sweet. Many people add a bit of sugar to marinara sauce but
don't eat linguine for dessert. 
 
> And thanks to Bear for the info on bulgur and hard/soft wheat.  Did
> anyone else have more opinions or evidence on the question of whole wheat
> berries vs physically-smashed-in-some-form ones being what period
> upper-class diners would expect?

The fourteenth-and-fifteenth century recipes seem pretty
straightforward: you pound and winnow the wheat, which indicates pretty
clearly it is whole, you cook it until the grains or berries burst and
the dish is thick (which will really become dramatically so after the
grains have burst their starch out). What you'll end up with is a thick
puddingy porridge a bit like Chinese jook or congee (depending on
dialect), only thicker and with bits of wheat bran mixed in, so it will
have more "character" than a porridge made from polished rice.

If you use whole wheat berries, and they remain whole in the finished
dish, however, I'd think it means you used too little liquid to start
with and didn't cook it long enough.  

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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