SC - Welser's gravy

[Valoise Armstrong]

>From Ras regarding the Welser roux:
> Agreed but does this allow us to use such a technique for pre-1450s cuisine?

No, I don't think two mentions of this technique in the 16th C. is
even enough to call it common in that century. We certainly can't say
that it was used earlier given the lack of evidence.

> It is my understanding through personal research that cookery took a drastic
> change after that date with regard to both techniques and seasoning. With
> each successive rebellious generation destroying the royally and nobility
> plus the added influence of New World foods, more and more elements of
> 'common' or 'peasant' cookery crept into what is now considered classical
> cuisine. Such a course resulted in the almost complete eradication of
> medieval cookery other than rare instances such as the retention of forcemeat.

I think the Welser cookbooks, both Sabina's and Philippine's are
arguably examples of the blurring of the line between the nobility and
the cream of the rising merchant class. After all, Philippine even
married into the Hapsburg royal family (Archduke of Tyrol). But the
complete eradication of medieval cookery didn't happen overnight. The
new rich class was  likely to have wanted to imitate the lifestyle of
the nobility to prove that they had 'made it'.

In some ways the 16th century seems to be at the crux between the old
medieval style and the newer tastes, techniques and foods that are
definitely evident in later.

Valoise