SC - Cadoc asks about Verjuice
ChannonM at aol.com
ChannonM at aol.com
Thu Sep 30 13:10:32 PDT 1999
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.
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