SC - Beer in food

[Mark.S Harris]

I knew I had some message(s) that I had saved on beer in food that hadn't yet
got put in the Florilegium. This morning while looking for something else I
found this message I have pasted below.

Hope this is of interest.

Stefan li Rous
stefan at texas.net
- -----------------------------------------------
> From: jtn at cse.uconn.EDU (J. Terry Nutter)
> Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
> Subject: Cooking with beer
> Date: 8 Nov 1994 23:47:46 -0500
> 
> Hi, all, Angharad ver' Rhuawn here,
> 
> Angelica Paganelli writes:
> > Medieval recipes involving beer?  I haven't made any great study of medieval
> > cookery (I have the usual secondary sources--Pleyn Delit, Fabulous Feasts,
> > etc.), but I've never seen any.  Could be a social class thing.
> > PERHAPS people who cooked with beer didn't write down their recipes.
> > Perhaps people didn't cook with beer 'cause they didn't like the taste.
> > Perhaps people didn't cook with beer because it was considered a waste of
> > beer.
> > Perhaps the recipes out there, and I haven't seen them.  Whatever happened to
> > the person who was redacting a German cookbook?  Any recipes containing
> > beer in there?
>  
> I don't know about the _Buch von Guter Speise_, but there are English 
> recipes that call for ale (although not beer, to the best of my knowledge).
> It is not nearly so common as wine, but it is certainly not unknown.
> 
> Glancing over my records on what recipes contain what, I found the 
> following:
> 
> From the last quarter of the 14th Century, I located seventeen recipes that
> call for ale, two of which are for braggot (hot spiced ale), but the other 
> fifteen of which are "ordinary" recipes.  That's about 3-4% of the recipes 
> I have data on from that time.  These are all from Hieatt and Butler's 
> _Curye on Inglysch_.  For the curious, the recipes (I have more or less 
> regularized spellings; if you'd like spellings as they occur in the title 
> of the recipe, and page number and recipe number citations, write me 
> separately) calling for ale are, from Diuersa Servicia, Capons in Concy, 
> Hens in Brouet, Hares in Cive, Hares in Talbots, Numbles, Brinews, Geese in 
> Hochepot (as an alternative to wine), Soles in Brouet, Oysters in Brouet, 
> and two recipes for Eels in Brouet; from Utilis Coquinario, Rapes and 
> Mawmenny (the only mawmenny recipe of which I am aware that calls for ale); 
> from Forme of Curye, Flaumpoints, Fritters of Parsnips, Skirrits and Apples,
> and one of the Braggot recipes; and from Goud Kokery, the other Braggot
> recipe.
> 
> From the fifteenth century, in Hieatt's _An Ordinance of Pottage_, ale 
> appears slightly more frequently (ten recipes, for about 5% of the 
> collection), most often as an explicit alternative to wine.  It appears as 
> such an alternative in Chikeney, Cawdell, Charlet, Boiled Pevorade for 
> Roasted Veal, Tarts of Flesh, Posset, and Cawdell of Almonds.  Soppes 
> includes ale without options; Boiled Perch calls optionally for ale, but not
> wine.
> 
> I don't have very good data on Austin's collection (I barely got started 
> entering it before other matters drew me away from the project; I hope to
> get back soon), but based on the first roughly thirty recipes, I found four
> (Bursews, Fillets in Galantyne, Ballock Broth, and Soppes Chamberlain) that
> call for ale.  In the case of the fillets recipe, it is provided as an 
> option to broth.  In all other cases, it is simply listed as an ingredient.
> 
> Wine was far more common than ale as an ingredient; but ale was certainly
> known.  As for beer, my impression (although I am not expert on the history
> of brewing) is that I may be looking too early for grain-based beverages 
> brewed with hops.
> 
> -- Angharad/Terry
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