SC - dayboard (Ruzzige cake; Buch von guter Speise #52)

[TG]

Hello Puck, Adamantius and everybody:

<< Ruzzige Cake (translation and redaction by Alia Atlas)
Der ein gut k=F6cherye machen wil. der hacke petersylien und salbey.
glich vil. und brate sie in butern und t=FCftele eyer weich. und menge
daz zu sammene. und ribe kese und brot dor in. und mache ein blat von
eyern. und giuz butern dor under. und sch=FCte diz dor uf. gib im flur
oben uf. und laz backen. diz sint ruzzige k=FCechin.

He who wants to make a good dish chops parsley and sage, exactly as
much. And fry them in butter and beats eggs soft. And mix that together.
And grate cheese and bread therein. And make a leaf from eggs. And pour
butter thereunder. And pour this thereon. Give it flowers on top. And
let bake. This is ruzzige cake. >>

The recipe is from the "Buch von guter Speise" (German, ca. 1350), #52.

Please, let me make only four comments (I am somewhat in a hurry):

1. _a leaf from eggs_; the German _blat_ has a technical meaning in the
old language: 'thin (piece of) dough'. Sure, German _Blatt_ in the
modern language means 'leaf'; but as far as I can tell from my
dictionaries, engl./am. _leaf_ alone is not used to refer to thin
(pieces of) dough (please, correct me if I am wrong); thus, it seems to
me, that one should translate the passage _ein blat von eyern_ with
something like 'a thin (piece of) dough made of eggs'.

2. _gib im flur oben uf_, 'Give it flowers on top'. The manuscript has
the form _fiu:er_ (_fiür_), which is an old form of todays _Feuer_
'fire'. Thus, there are no flowers around, but one must heat everything
from the top (with coals). Speaking of cooking equipment, there is good
evidence for heating something from the top, e.g. by putting hot coals
on top of a cooking vessel.

3. _ruzzige_: It is a good idea to leave the hard words untranslated and
uncommented. At present nobody really knows, what this passage really
means, it seems. If I am not mistaken, there are at least three
proposals:
- -- _ruzzig_ means 'russian' (Stopp; Martellotti/Durante); not very
convincing, given the fact, that we (I) know of no russian influences in
culinary matters in the 14th century so far.
- -- _ruzzig_ means 'sooty' (from the coals, put above); hm??
- -- _ruzzig_ could mean something like 'crisp' (indicated by the _reusch_
of the parallel recipe in the Mondseer Kochbuch, about a century later).
(Must think about this passage. Perhaps, there are other solutions.)

4. _und tüftele eyer weich_; 'and beats [!] eggs soft'. To beat soft?
According to the Deutsches Wörterbuch, the word _tüfteln_ is only
attested from the 18th century onwards and its main usage is in respect
to intellectual problems (_etwas austüfteln_). The italian translation
has 'sbatti' ('e sbatti le uova...' and beat the eaggs ...), too. But I
do not know, why. Aichholzer, commenting on the parallel recipe in the
Mondseer Kochbuch says that the passage belongs to "_tüften_ 'dünsten,
hier: kochen'" (p. 426). ...

I am sure, all these puzzles will be solved by someone preparing a
critical edition of the Buch von guter Speise in the hopefully near
future. So far, we have several editions, transcriptions, facsimiles,
and two translations of the Buch von guter Speise, but a lot of textual
problems are unsolved.

Textual problems are of great concern not only for the philologist, but
for the reenacting cook, too. If textual problems are unsolved, the
philologist does not understand the text and the cook does not really
know what to do.

I am sorry to say this, but this seems to be the state of the art. At
least in respect to some recipes of the Buch von guter Speise (10/2000).

Thomas