SC - French Toast

[Brian Songy]

Hello everyone,

Well, I managed to come through on this write up and here it except the 
original recipes (I would think everyone could pull up their old posts on it, 
it is alot of space). Hope this is as interesting to you as it was in 
performing.

Sincerely,
Hauviette

My Recipe Recreation
In approaching this recipe I wanted to make a large enough quantity that I 
could use it as a “shelf item” and have the combined ingredients to keep on 
hand for future use. As such I  began with a fair quantity of Cinnamon 
Zeylanicum (the recipe specifies canel) and using a metric scale for 
accuracy, I weighed out the Cinnamon first to obtain the total weight that 
all of the other spices should be combined. The recipes asks
for “an equal amount of each, but the cinnamon should be as much as all the 
rest”. In this my dilemma was should my measurements be mass or volume. I 
chose mass and my reasoning is that most recipes are a prescription in their 
origin (see the definition of  “recipe”) and as such the ingredients would 
have been obtained in weighted amounts. The volume of say ground nutmeg Vs 
cloves is substantially different and as such only weight would give me equal 
amounts of each. My justification for using grams in my experiment was that 
the scale I have is electronic and can convert to either metric or imperial, 
however when using ounces the scale can be out by as much a .2 of  an ounce, 
but would only be out by 1gm at the most. I have converted the quantities for 
those who do not have access to a metric measurement, but would suggest that 
when buying the ingredients that you simply buy in said quantities instead of 
trying to determine the quantities in dry measure. This will ensure fresh 
spices are used which may be instrumental in the preservative aspect of this 
recipe although there is argument that the spices used in the middle ages 
would have had a diminished strength due to the time spent in travel and the 
adulteration by middle men. Finally, I have rounded off the measurement to 
imperial since 1 ounce is equal to 28.35 grams and my  quantities of the 
spices were only 31g (greater than an ounce by 2.65 grams). 

Base ingredients: combine the following dry ingredients and use 1 cup to 3.5 
cups vinegar per recipe
Cloves      31g or 1 ounce      Ginger      31g or 1 ounce
Nutmeg      31g or 1 ounce      Pepper      31g or 1 ounce
Cardamom    31g or 1 ounce      Cinnamon    186g or 5 ounces
Pepper      31g or 1 ounce
Bread crumbs    372g or 1.37 lb. (22 ounces)


Red Wine Vinegar 3.5 cups

1.5 LB of venison steak (preferred a roast, but steak was all that was 
available)
2 TB lard
1 tsp. salt

Method;
Grind the spices and combine with the bread crumbs. Using a pestle, grind the 
dry ingredients together to ensure the crumbs are well inundated with the 
spices. Add the vinegar and further mash the contents of the bowl. 

Pour the spice/bread crumb/vinegar combination into a sauce pan and place 
over low heat. Stirring regularly, bring to a full boil for 1.5 to 2 minutes. 
Remove from heat and let cool thoroughly.

Meanwhile, remove any fat from the venison and spread lard over the surface. 
Place in an oven proof dish, into the oven at 350 degrees for 35 minutes. 
Remove from the oven and let cool.

Using a shallow covered dish, pour half of the cooled spice mixture into it. 
Place the meat on top of this and then pour the remaining sauce over the 
meat, making sure that it is well covered. Put the dish in a cool, dry place 
(this dish is meant to be a preserved meat )and keep for up to  three  weeks 
(although there are a few people who have kept it for months and attest that 
it is perfectly safe I have yet to determine that).

A Discussion;

The Codex K and Codex Q state that the amount of bread crumbs “fried bread” 
should be “twice as much as all the rest” as opposed to the Icelandic 
Manuscript requiring  “as much fried bread as all the others”. I chose to 
follow the earlier manuscripts and totaled the weight of all spices and 
doubled it for the amount of bread crumbs. 

The issue of “strong vinegar”  was discussed on the SCA Cooks list and I was 
advised to purchase a 7% vinegar that would be particularly strong and seemed 
to fit the recipes requirement (it calls for “strong vinegar”). However, I 
had been part of other discussions regarding making your own vinegar’s as 
opposed to using commercially produced varieties and an unscientific 
conclusion was reached that since vinegar’s would have been used fairly soon 
after inception and having been made using a suspected weaker “mother of 
vinegar” then the acidity level would have been lower than what we have 
available as the average vinegar today. As such, and considering I was unable 
to locate any vinegar’s with an acidity level higher that 5%, I used a common 
red wine vinegar with a 5% acidity level. Red Wine vinegar was chosen as the 
best accompaniment to game. The quantity of  dry ingredients to vinegar was 1 
cup dry to 3.5 cups vinegar. Anything less than 3 cups of liquid produced a 
gel like mass that was almost impossible to bring to a boil. The added .5 cup 
was to ensure coverage of the meat in the dish and to account for the 
thickening of the product during cooking. 

I combined the dry ingredients in a medium sized metal bowl and ground the 
ingredients together as much as was possible using a pestle . Taking 1 cup of 
the dry ingredients and pouring in  3.5 cups of vinegar I mashed the contents 
further. This sauce was then slowly brought to boil on low heat stirring 
regularly to prevent scorching . The recipe directs you to  “take what you 
want of this sauce and boil it in a pan on hot embers without flame” hence, 
the temperature was kept at 3 on the dial of an electric stove.

I was lucky to have venison available to me although not in a roast but 
steaks. The lady who translated the recipes, states that the word “stekae” 
actually means roast, not steak and is probably the root for the English word 
for steak. Since the roast is then further cut into “thick slices”, I felt it 
sufficient to follow the spirit of the recipe using pre-sliced roasts. Not 
using a roast may have an effect on the texture of the meat in the end, since 
the centre and edges of the meat would cook simultaneously as opposed to 
varying times. In order to compensate to some degree I folded the steaks into 
a larger “piece” of meat and roasted them as such. Upon initial tasting, we 
found the venison to be on the dry side, as the sauce had yet to penetrate 
the meat. The next trial will be 5 days post the construction of the dish.


A modern analysis of the spices used in this dish

According to The Complete New Herbal, by Richard Mabey, Penguin Books;

Cinnamon bark oil is antibacterial, inhibiting E.coli, Staphylococcus aureus 
and thrush (Candida albicans)

Cloves are strongly antiseptic due to the high percent of phenols.

Black Pepper stimulates the taste buds and helps promote gastric secretions, 
in addition, I believe there is some research out there that says it is also 
a preservative of foods.

The Complete Medicinal Herbal, Penelope Ody tells us that;

Nutmeg is carminative (relieves flatulence, digestive colic and gastric 
discomfort), is a  digestive stimulant and antispasmodic, prevents vomiting, 
appetite stimulant, anti inflammatory  and is used as digestive remedy 
especially for food poisoning. Used in large doses (7.5g or more in a single 
dose) is dangerous producing convulsions and palpitations.

Cardamom is antispasmodic, carminative and a digestive stimulant.

Ginger is a circulatory stimulant, relaxes peripheral blood vessel, promotes 
sweating, expectorant, prevents vomiting, antispasmodic, carminative, 
antiseptic.
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