SC - Period fried food

[Mark S. Harris]

Jadwiga Zajaczkowa answered several of my questions:
> > I'm not aware of any period fried foods that indicate to cook them in
> > a deep bath of oil. Or any foods that would require the use of a deep
> > bath of oil rather than a shallow pool of oil in a pan. If you know
> > of any, or other evidence that deep frying was done commonly in period,
> > please let us know.
> 
> Ok, you are frying your fritters in a shallow pool of oil then? How do you
> make that work?

I've not tried cooking them yet. And unless it had some explicit directions
how I cooked them might not be how they were done in period, or even by
most folks today.

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.
  
> > I'm not disputing that. There were few other choices. And some of
> > these, such as olive oil, were limited to particular regions. What I
> > am questioning is that lard was cheap enough to be commonly used in
> > deep frying.
> 
> Oil used in deep frying can be (and still is) recycled and used
> repeatedly. 

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.

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.

> Pork was a rather popular meat among those who could afford it
> Anyone have any stat on how much lard you get off of one pig if it hasn't
> been raised in the modern fashion, on kitchen scraps?

That is part of the arguments between Ras and me about period pigs.
I was reading some stats that showed very little lard from a bunch
of period pigs. On the other hand, the same section also talked
about feeding the pigs grain to fatten them up for the market.

My original feeling was that the period pig was generally raised on
kitchen scraps and what it could find, such as acorns, in the forrest
and around the village and that they weren't fed grain since that
would be fed to people.

Then again, I think those pampered cattle in Japan get fed beer, today.
- -- 
THL Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****