SC - Pigs, or whatever, for Pennsic

[Alderton, Philippa]

And it came to pass on 4 May 99,, that Stefan li Rous wrote:

[concerning my translation of CIDRA Y PATATA -- Citron and Potato]:

> > > How sure are you that the potato that is meant is the white potato?
> > 
> > I am not certain at all, but I felt that period recipes for any kind of
> > potato were rare enough to be of interest.  
> 
> Uh oh. Please don't get me wrong. Yes, period recipes for either type of
> potato are of interest. It's just a consideration that occurred to me
> after hearing comments on this list about potatos previously.

I took no offense at the question, my lord.  (Print is both a wonderful and 
a terrible medium for carrying on a discussion.)  I just wanted to make 
clear that I had no certain knowledge about the type of potato used.  Of 
course, since finding the second recipe, some of my thoughts and 
assumptions have altered.
 
> As I don't like sweet potatos, I was not trying to influence things in
> that direction. Just interested in finding out the correct potato if
> possible.

A laudable goal.  I'm still hoping that some of the agricultural historians 
amongst us will have more to add..
 
> >One possible clue is that the
> > mixture is to be cooked until the stuff at the bottom of the boiler
> > turns white.  If you were starting with white potato and citron and
> > sugar, then I assume the mixture would become more opaque, and look
> > whiter.  
> 
> Yes, I missed this. I don't see how you could get the orange sweet potato
> to go white.

::sigh::  Unfortunately, as you may have read by now, the second recipe 
blew that theory out of the water.  The recipe for "Carne de limon, y 
batatas" (flesh of lemon, and sweet potatoes) contains the exact same 
instruction.  Now, a couple of things are possible.  One is that the 
*syrup* turns opaque and white, and that would be independant of the 
color of the other ingredients.  Another is that both recipes use white 
potatoes; there's a lot of room for scribal error between "patata" and 
"batata".  Another possibility is that the direction to let it turn white is a 
scribal error -- I have seen a recipe for rice which includes the sensible 
instruction to clean any dirt off it.  A sensible precaution, which is taken even today.  It was followed immediately by a recipe for noodles bearing the same instruction, which I attribute to scribal error.  Or perhaps period sweet potatoes were paler, as I understand carrots were paler?
> > I wish I'd noticed this before, but this source is not the one I'm
> > primarily working with, and it's over 400 pages, and as a diabetic, I
> > don't pay much attention to confectionary recipes.
> 
> Yes, as I also a diabetic, I understand this. Wish I could use Nutra-sweet
> to make Sekanjabn.

I hear you, oh my brother!  I see a lot of recipes that I'd like to redact, 
but so many of them are too sweet, too starchy, or too fattening for me 
to have more than a taste.  I am considering trying my hand at some 
biscotti -- those I can bring to work, and only have a nibble myself.

Brighid
Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)
mka Robin Carroll-Mann
harper at idt.net
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