SC - Cadoc asks about Verjuice

[ChannonM at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/30/99 3:29:33 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
macdairi at hotmail.com writes:

<< Verjuice, this is sour-apple cider, correct, or is this one of the period 
 >mysteries? >>

Verjus  
The literal translation from French is “green” juice (green as in unripe)but 
I'm not a early French translator, maybe someone can verify or debunk that 
one. Verjuice was a sour liquid produced by releasing the juice of unripe 
fruit.(Le Viander de Taillevant)  The juice was made from unripe grapes (as 
evidenced from the mention of verjus en grain- verjus grapes in recipes in 
“Le Viander” and “Ancient Cookery”), crabapples(as mentioned in a collumn 
note in a 1575 edition of an English manuscript “Warner”) , sorrel and 
possibly any unripe fruit in season according to James Prescott, the 
translator of  “Le Viander”.The use of verjuice abounds in medieval 
manuscripts, it seems that one cannot open a 13th to 16th century cookery 
book without finding its mention in the first page. All the same, it is 
difficult to find an actual recipe AFAIK. It appears that the cooks of the 
middle ages simply assumed that all households would prepare its own and did 
not need a recipe for something so basic or that the item would be purchased 
from a vendor as a staple.
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================