SC - Period fried foody

[Jenne Heise]

> The company cafeteria was serving fritters today. But I was worried
> about getting anything and I didn't like what they were putting in them,
> so I didn't stick around to watch. But I think they were cooking them
> in a large skillet with curved sides. Maybe similar to what someone
> was calling a paella pan here recently. Where is the line between
> frying and deep frying? I was thinking that if you could cook it in
> a skillet, ie less than say an inch or two of oil it was frying and
> if it was in say four inches or more it was deep frying.

It's generally referred to as 'deep frying' as far as I can tell, when
there is enough oil so that thing being fried isn't touching the bottom of
the pan. (Food is 'submerged in large amounts of fat' says the Columbia
Encyclopedia.)  Food that is deep fried is usually cooked relatively
quickly. The amount of oil necessary varies, depending on the size of the
food-- my mom used to deep-fry onion rings in about 3 inches of oil in a
wok.

I think that Dame Alison's class that I took at Pennsic involved 3-4
inches of fat in straight-sided heavy pans, but it can certainly be done
in panella pans or woks. I would think that with too little oil the
'fritter-object' would bounce to the bottom and stick, rather than
bouncing back up and frying all over. The result would be pancake-like,
rather than that kind of crispy we associate with deep frying.
   
> Yes, but only so many times. Does modern reusual/recyling depend on
> filtering or other methods unavailable in period? Even in modern
> times there is only so many times you can reuse/recycle it. Recycling
> doesn't make it inexpensive, just cheaper.

Well, I don't think reusal depends on modern methods... and filtering
through cheesecloth or such would be available to period cooks. 

> We are used to thinking of olive oil as being the extra virgin or
> virgin grades in the US. Olive oil is produced in a number of different
> grades. Usually all the US sees is the best grades since its not worth
> the expense of importing the lower grades. Perhaps in period the lower
> grades could have been used for frying, even deep frying while the
> better, rarer stuff wasn't. But just because they could have, doesn't
> mean that they did.

Well, we do know that they WERE used for frying. The question is, were
they used for deep frying?

- -- 
Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at tulgey.browser.net
disclaimer: i speak for no-one and no-one speaks for me.
"I do my job. I refuse to be responsible for other people's managerial 
hallucinations." -- Lady Jemina Starker