SC - MEXICAN CHOCOLATE BREAD

[Decker, Terry D.]

Jadwiga wrote:
>A friend of mine is looking for recipe for 'Vodka Cream Sauce' which he
>had once (medallions of chicken in vodka cream sauce was the dish, I
>think).

I just did a search on Google using "Vodka Cream Sauce" and came up with
LOTS of recipes.  Some have tomatoes, some don't.  Does your friend know
which cuisine the dish he had was?  

>Obligatory period food content: we are also looking for a period sour
>cherry soup recipe that I swear I've seen (sour cherry soup is a
>traditional Hungarian dish).

I did the same thing in Google again and came up with a zillion recipes.
There is also two mentions of it in the Florilegium.

>From <http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-FRUITS/fruits-msg.text>,
submitted by Adamantius.

"Syrosye

"To make a syrosye.  Tak cheryes & do out *e stones & grynde hem wel &
draw hem *orw a streynoure & do it in a pot.  & do *erto whit gres or
swete botere & myed wastel bred, & cast *erto good wyn & sugre, & salte
it & stere it wel togedere, & dresse it in disches;  & set *eryn clowe
gilofre, & strew sugre aboue."
      Curye On  Inglysch, Book III, Utilis Coquinario,  Ed. Constance B.
Hieatt & Sharon Butler, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1985

        In other words... To make some cherries. Take cherries, pit them, pureÈ
them, and put them in a pot. Add lard or sweet butter and some white
bread crumbs, and add some good wine and sugar. Salt it and stir well,
serve it in dishes, and garnish with cloves and sugar.
        Iím assuming some actual cooking takes place here, if only to melt the
lard or butter.  Bread crumbs are a matter of taste. I opted for a
rather thin soup, but the actual dish was probably a bit thicker. Some
people use enormous quantities of bread crumbs to get a pudding-like
"standing pottage", but the recipe doesn't call for that, and it's
nasty, to boot. I suspect the cloves are intended to be left whole,
rather than ground, since powder of cloves is a known, standard, 14th
century ingredient which could have easily been specified if intended.
We used powdered cloves, to avoid expensive dental accidents in dim
feast halls.  As for sugar, it was probably sprinkled lavishly on top
partly for the look, which probably  means there was a bit less in total
 than if it had been simply mixed in.

        For eight servings:

        2 quarts pitted morello cherries in juice (If jars are less than a
          quart, add bottled or canned cherry juice to compensate)
        1/2 - 3/4  cup unseasoned white bread crumbs, preferably fresh
        1/4 - 1/2 cup sugar (granulated light brown is ideal, but white is
O.K.)
        1/2 cup red wine
        3 Tbs butter
        1/2 - 1 tsp powdered cloves
        Salt

        Puree the cherries in a food mill or processor. Put everything but the
butter, the cloves and the salt into a pot and bring to a boil, whipping
to break up any breadcrumb lumps. Add cloves to taste. Cut cold butter
into small pieces and drop them into the simmering liquid, one at a a
time, whipping constantly until each is melted and incorporated, before
adding the next (otherwise youíll have a layer of grease floating on
top). Salt to taste and serve."


And from <http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/rialto/feast-menus-msg.text>,
submitted by Aoife:

"The following is a recipe I did not use but would have loved to (it tasted
great, my kids asked for seconds, but it looked a lot like (I'm sorry to
offend) vomit when done. But the taste........you'll swoon!):

Cherry Soup with Buckwheat (Sup iz Vishen' so Smolenskimi Krupami)
From: Elena Molokhovet paraphrased (sorry! It's written longhand in my notes!)
Boullion from:
2 1/2 lbs beef (my addition: butter to brown)
1 carrot
1 parsley root
1/2 celery root
1/2 leek
      (my note:  Brown meat in butter---small cubes. Cover with about 3 qts
water, add vegetables, and simmer until a rich stock is achieved. Remove
vegetables and meat.)
Stone 1 pound ripe cherries (my note: I used--the only thing available at
the time--2 lots of Oregon brand canned tart cherries, drained. It was a
great choice), add cinnamon, 1 pound veal, salt, 1/2 glass of sugar, 2
cardomom pods, and 1/2 spoon butter. Cover with boullion and stew.
(Note: in Russian, Stew is a generic term for cook. I believe the meat is to
be removed, but you could also shred it and add it back, I suppose).
        Pound cherry stones, pour on a little boullion and cook. Strain into
cherries. Add 1/2 pound grated sweet-sour bread (my bread was sour dough),
cook until thickened. Just before serving, rub through a seive. Dilute with
boullion, add sugar and salt to taste, mix with buckwheat kasha.
(my note: It was way too thick. I added about 50 percent more stock than the
recipe seemed to call for to get a thick pottage that thickened even more
upon standing!)"

- --Yana