SC - French Bread - a supposedly period recipe (long)

[Elaine Koogler]

have you MADE this?  It sounds interesting enough to give it a try.  I can 
imagine several ways the final product would look (having no measures) and 
the type of cheese used would do a lot of flavor and texture changing as 
well as the bread used (leven/unleven/fresh/dry).  As for me, I imagine the 
"leaf of egg" is something akin to crepe.

Perhaps this weekend I may give this a couple of tries using different 
ingredients.  If I end up with anything good, I'll post to the list.
Olwen


>From: TG <gloning at Mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE>
>Reply-To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
>To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
>Subject: SC - dayboard (Ruzzige cake; Buch von guter Speise #52)
>Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 02:20:13 +0100
>
>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
>
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