SC - Help!!!!

[Stefan li Rous]

Karen O wrote:
> 
> Caointiarn  (still looking for documentation on those jam tart thingys that
> may have been called "maids of honor".

What I'm semi-familiar with are Richmond Maids of Honour, a sort of
little cheesecake tart, but the stuff I'm finding on the Web seems to
suggest they're most commonly almond-based. It also seems that while
Richmond Maids of Honour are extremely famous, there are variations also
known as MoH in many other British towns, and these different versions
seem just as legitimate. Maybe the jam version is one of these.

>From http://www.richmond.gov.uk/leisure/libraries/moh.html    :

>>From the Richmond Upon Thames Local Studies Collections 

                                                                 
                                                                        
        Richmond 
                                                                        
            Maids of
                                                                        
             Honour 

Legend has it that the recipe for Maids of Honour tarts was locked away
in an
iron chest until rediscovered by King Henry Vlll who presented it to his wife's
attendant Anne Boleyn. With her own hands she made the delicacy which so
pleased the King that he named the cakes Maids of Honour as a compliment to
the cook. 

The favourite tarts in Tudor times were, however, fruit and it was not
until the seventeenth century that almond tarts began
to appear in the cookery books and attain great popularity. These tarts
either took the form of cheese cakes or were filled
with ground almonds scented with rose water or later with orange flower
water. 

R. May's second edition of The Accomplisht Cook, 1665 , contains one of
the earliest published recipes. 

The commercial production of Maids of Honour started in 1750 in Hill
Street, Richmond when Thomas Burdekin took a
small shop next to the White Hart. Within twenty years he was able to
expand into the next door premises. Burdekin
went on to become a vestryman in 1785 and, in 1790, he sold out to
William Hester. Hester was succeeded by John Lea
and, in his turn, by John Thomas Billett. The Billett family became
synonymous with Maids of Honour tarts and the
famous shop front, now sadly removed, proclaimed that it was The
original shop of the Maids of Honour. Grandfather,
father and son in turn welcomed the visitors to the town who made the
mandatory pilgrimage to their doors. On one
famous day at the turn of the century, no less than 8,000 tarts were
baked and sold. In 1908, big business seems to have
taken over when the Richmond (Original) Maids of Honour Ltd., under the
chairmanship of Mr. Colebrook, came into
being, and in 1921 it was again taken over by a multiple bakery. The end
came in 1952 when the shop closed. 

A member of the Newens family had fortunately served his apprenticeship
under the Billetts and was able to carry on the
tradition, having opened a rival establishment in Kew in 1886, which has
survived until the present day.>>

Also, from http://soar.Berkeley.EDU/recipes/medieval/recipe2.rec    :

> From "The Good Fare and Cheer of Old England" by Joan
>   Parry Dutton 1960, Published by Reynal & Company, Inc.
>   
>   It is said that Maids of Honour cakes date from a day
>   in 1525 when Henry VIII saw Maids of Honour for one of
>   his six Queens eating a platter of cakes with such
>   joyous relish that he tried one himself, and found it
>   very good.  Another tradition says they were named for
>   Queen Elizabeth's Maids of Honour when she lived at
>   Richmond Palace. From "The Cooking of the British
>   Isles, by Adrian Bailey, Time-Life Books, 1969
>   
>   Several towns in Britain make small, delectable tarts
>   known as Maids of Honour, but none are so rich in
>   flavor and therefore so famous as Richmond Maids of
>   Honour, which come from Richmond, a suburb of London,
>   and are said to have been invented for the court of
>   Henry VIII in the 16th Century.
 
I remember encountering these in the form of a rather evil short-cut
taken by Esther Aresty in "The Delectable Past"; in the section on
medieval recipes, she speaks of darioles, and then instead of giving a
proper dariole recipe she says something like, "see the Maids of Honor
recipe on page 64." As a result there was an entire generation of people
who believed darioles were this unusually complex dish that seems much
later than a medieval recipe. As I recall the
dariole-recipe-that-was-really-a-maid-of-honour-recipe that I "grew up
with" in the SCA involved a sort of mousse made from sweetened whipped
cream cheese, folded together with a stirred custard, whipped egg
whites, and whipped cream, all bound together slightly with a little
softened gelatin. The resultant goo could then be poured into small
pre-baked tart shells. Peculiar stuff, but actually quite a lovely nosh.
I remember them being the star attraction of many a dessert board.  

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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