SC - Re: Marzipan Peach pits

[ChannonM@aol.com]

In a message dated 8/21/00 10:02:31 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
owner-sca-cooks at ansteorra.org writes:

> Had a Great time.  Ate many wonderful foods at the cooks list dinner.  
Please 
> 
>  post all your recipes.  I did not have time or energy to copy the ones 
>  posted.  Perhaps I was too busy eating.  
>  
>  Frederich

I made the Date Pie from Platina. 
Here's the recipe, although I posted it some time ago, I hope I'm not 
clogging up the airways with repeats.

Date Pie 
Book 8 # 43

(P)Soak well-pounded almonds with fish  juice and rose water. When they are 
soaked, pass through a sieve into a bowl. Grind in the same mortar a half 
pound of pitted dates, a few raisins, four or five figs, as well as three 
ounces of well-cooked rice. Then cut up with a small knife a little parsley, 
orach, and marjoram, torn by hand and fried in oil. It will not be out of the 
way if you cut up livers or fish fat with these. Besides, grind together, or 
separately, an ounce of Corinthian raisins, a half pound of sugar, a little 
cinnamon, a little more ginger, and a bit of saffron, and mix into the above, 
So that it may really thicken more, put in either a half ounce of starch or 
pike eggs, and spread out in a well-oiled earthenware pot with a lower crust 
with well-washed pine nuts stuck everywhere in it. If it will really please 
you, spread crepes instead of an upper crust. This mixture ought to be cooked 
in a slow fire. Also, it is necessary for it to be thin. When it is cooked, 
it should be covered with sugar and rose water. This really also nourishes a 
great deal, is slowly digested, helps the liver, damages the teeth, and 
increases phlegm.


Redaction

1.5 cups ground almonds
.5 cups rose water
1 cup fish juice (.125 tsp. insinglass in 1 cup water, stirred well)*

Combine above, let sit for 10-15 minutes. Pour into a mesh strainer and let 
drain for sometime, stir occasionally to assist the draining.

.5 lb (6.5 oz Apothecary) pitted dates
.125 cup sultana raisins
4-5 figs
3 ounces (.5 cup) well cooked rice

Combine in food processor till thick consistency. 

1 tsp. Flat leaf parsley
, 3-4 small baby spinach leaves (note 1), .5 tsp. fresh marjoram chopped well 
and fried in 1 tsp. olive oil**

1 ounce currants (.333 cups)***
.5 lb sugar (6.5 oz Apothecary) (7 TB turbinado, 6 TB packed demerera)****
1.5 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger*****
4-5 saffron threads crushed
3.5 tsp. unbleached wheat flour
Grind the above in food processor then add to the previous ingredients.

Line a large shallow baking pan with pastry or two pie plates (I used 
commercial pie dough, this was a spur of the moment thing)

Stick pine nuts (.333 cups) into the pastry bottom
Spread filling into the pastry.
Top with upper crust or crepes (I did 2 pies, one with pastry top the other 
with crepe)

Cook 325 degrees farenheit for 45 minutes.

Combine .25 cups demerera sugar and .25 cups turbinado with .125 cups rose 
water. Mix well until mostly dissolved. Pour over the top of the pie.  Slice 
into wedges or diamonds. 

Eat.


Notes
*The fish juice issue threw me for a while. I was debating whether this was a 
garum (i.e. Roman fish sauce) type thing or if it was just a fish broth. 
There were a few recipes later in the manuscript that used fish juice to make 
the dish thicker which lead me to believe that this was much more like using 
a gelatin than using the liquid as a source of flavour. Isinglass being a 
source of gelatin is a fish derivative and fit the bill. I am however, open 
to other interpretations. 

**The translation says “a little”, I interpreted this to mean a generous pinch

***Postings to the SCA cooks list produced this valuable information
a special thank you to all who posted information but especially 
Akim Yarolsavich who poste the following; 

1. Sunkist type currants .....are raisins of Corinth grapes grown
     on the island of Zante.
2.  Raisins ....are sun dried grapes.....always.
3   "Raysons of the sun" .....are a  popular 17th and 18th century
      term for raisins of Corinth grapes from Corinth or Zante to help
      distinguish them from currants (Ribes).  The term probably
      was used in the 16th century as well but not so extensively.
4.  Currants ....are always Ribes berries, used fresh, in jelly,
      jams and wines.  Only a reference to DRIED fruit does the
      term (in English)  mean Zante grape raisins.  In DRIED fruit,
      it NEVER means Ribes berries.
5.   There may be specific recipes which get this confused and
      switched in meaning but this does not mean the instance
      was reflective of a universal usage at that time.  It means
      more likely that someone was confused over the origin or
      identity or both of the small dried fruit he was using.

I may be proven wrong on my views with further documentation,
but what I have at hand leads me to my currant (pun intended)
position on this berry important issue.- Yakim


***I wanted a deeper flavour to the icing than just what white sugar could 
give so I combined these sugars for a closer attempt at a period sugar that 
would have been more common (pure white sugar was often noted when needed). I 
chose to work with the Apothecaries scale for weight  which makes a pound 
equal to 12 ounces Vs the modern 16. This choice was based on conversations 
on this list specifically regarding the Menagier ratios, but I have taken to 
being liberal with that interpretation from the Menagier to other period 
works.

Further posting to the cook’s list, Akim Yaroslavich replies;
The Apothecaries scale is the same as the Troy scale, except that the Troy
has no scruples or drams.  12 ounces Troy or Apothecaries = 13.165 ounces 
Avoirdupois or
conversely there are 14.58 Troy or Apothecaries ounces in an Avoirdupois 
pound.  I usually convert directly to grams in either system and calculate in 
metric.  Most people don't have a clue about the weight difference, 
especially when they are quoting weights like sterling silver for sale.  They 
don't know  you can't measure Troy weights off a postal scale and end up 
overvaluing their silver by about 10% or so.   Beware of using unfamiliar 
measures in your
redactions unless you have studied all the ramifications of the standard.


****In retrospect, I will use 2 tsp. ginger as the recipe calls for “a little 
cinnamon, a little MORE ginger”


Note 1
Using Orach Vs Spinach
This is not a complete analysis of the issue, only a commentary on what 
Platina himself, says on the matter,

In Platina’s 7th Chapter he discusses orach in the following way;
“”I would think that orach is what the cdountry people call spinach from the 
spines which it produces on seed” . This is a derogatory statement in that he 
implies “country people” to be uneducated and don’t know the difference. 
However, he goes on to say “Some would want orach not to be what they call 
spinach, although it has similarity and almost the same force, for orach 
softens the bowels and is good for people with jaundice, that is, those with 
“golden disease”, so called from gold on account of spattered gall, as Varro 
says. It cools a warm liver and represses inflamed bile”

On the other hand, Platina gives spinach a definite place among herbs and 
describes spinach and chard thusly;

“ Spinach is the lightest kind found among garden vegetables. I would believe 
it is divided into two kinds, since there is black and white. Black grows 
almost with a head like onions, cabbage, and lettuce, and there is almost no 
garden vegetable greater in breadth. Some think the nature of spinach inert 
and with out force, even if it usually disturbs the bowel even to the bile. 
Taken in food, it soothes excessive menstruation in women, but chard, which 
is white, maintains a mean. It is most usefully given to those with liver and 
spleen illnesses, with sweet spices which temper its saltiness. It likewise 
relieves the heat of summer, revives those who are disinterested in food 
because of squeamishness, and fills nursing women with a lot of milk. Eaten 
with it’s own juice, it moves the bowels, but eaten alone, with the juice 
thrown away, it constricts them.”

I believe that Platina is describing white spinach (chard) at the end, 
however it may be argued he is referring to either. Either way, it seems to 
me that spinach is a reasonable and justifiable substitution for orach.