SC - New to the list with questions

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Jo Marie Friedel wrote:
> 
> Are there any 14th C French recipes for shellfish (in particular,
> mussels and shrip/prawns)?  I see lots for fish and eels but have yet to
> run across any for shellfish.

Le Viandier de Taillevent has recipes for oysters and crayfish, if I
remember correctly. The oysters are made into a pottage, as I recall,
and the crayfish simply boiled and eaten with vinegar or verjuice (I
forget which) and possibly salt. I know there are 14th-century English
recipes for mussels in brewet, which call for the mussels and some
minced onion to be cooked in ale with saffron. Chiquart's Du Fait de
Cuisine, early 15th century French, has a recipe for stuffed crayfish
that I've always wanted to try: it involves lightly boiling the
crayfish, picking the meat out of the shells, and chopping it up with
vinegar and, I think, parsley, and the mixture is stuffed back into the
shells, and fried face-down (open-side down, that is) in oil until
brown. I'm working from memory here, bear with me. 
 
> Does anyone have a recipe for a medieval onion soup? ( I have lots for
> modern versions but no medieval ones).

My favorite is porrey chapeleyn, 14th-century English. It calls for lots
of onions (presumably chopped or sliced, but the recipe doesn't say)
sauteed slowly (my inclination is that they should brown not much, or
not at all), and the onion "puree" is thinned down with some almond milk
and cooked until it's a rich oniony "cream" soup. This is garnished with
deep-fried pasta crunchies, made from flour and eggs (yolks?), rolled
out and cut in the shape of onion rings.
 

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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