SC - help on documentation

[Bonne of Traquair]

david friedman wrote:
> 
> Do we know that it was round?

Assuming the recipe is any guide, yes. It says something like, make
fayre round coffins.
 
> >Think in terms of a round coffin whose diameter is twice that of a
> >quince: what you end up with is a pie whose bottom/inside surface area
> >is somewhat under halfway full. Unless it contains a _lot_ of honey or
> >sugar, that's a lot of empty space, unless perhaps it is baked very
> >slowly, essentially stewed in the pastry, until they collapse and cover
> >the bottom. Then, of course, you have a big empty space on top.
> 
> Maybe the bottom crust is shaped to the quinces, not to the coffin?
> So you essentially have two cooked quinces wrapped in pastry sitting
> in the coffin?

Could Your Grace be confusing a coffin with a trap, by any chance? Are
you thinking that the coffin is a container for the pastry? I'm not sure
how defensible that is, unless the recipe is just really vague. 
 
> I'm not sure if it is relevant, but what we now call a coffin isn't round.

Agreed. I believe it was mentioned recently on this list (Bear? Stefan?
Anybody remember this?) that there may be some precedent for loaf-shaped
pies, but I'm pretty sure, without having the recipe immediately in my
line of sight, that a round coffin is specified. 
 
> >I wonder if it is made with a flour-and-water paste, then stewed inside
> >the paste until soft, then spooned out like spiced wardens in syrup.
> >(Could a consideration be that quinces are a"heavy" fruit, requiring
> >much sweetening and long cooking, and would have a tendency to burn in
> >an ordinary cook-it-in-a-pot setting?) But what do you say to the
> >concept of gratuitous wasted flour? It's one thing to be liberal with
> >ingredients, but there's usually at least some reason for it.
> 
> Maybe the paste was one of the things that went out to the poor? 

Could be. The recipe doesn't say. 
> 
> I use a flour and water paste for Icelandic Chicken, and enjoy the
> resulting dough--sort of like pizza crust in texture. So maybe the
> paste was the container, but after it had been soaked with quince
> juice it was tasty?

Surely better than a stick in the eye, as somebody (maybe me?) once
said. Unless there is an assumed trap or pie plate involved, the paste
surely is the container, but that does not preclude its being eaten. As
I mentioned earlier, it is possible for a dough to be short and tender 
without actually needing to add anything to it. For example, given that
in Northern Europe they were generally using softer wheats than
elsewhere (good for pastry flour, not so good for bread), and add to
that the fact that flour (especially that used for pies) may have had a
fair amount of bran, etc., in it when used, we're not going to be
talking about a super-tough pastry under any circumstances.
 
> Clearly more experimentation is called from; I wonder if our quinces
> are ripe yet.

My limited experience suggests there is _never_ a reason not to
experiment with cooking quinces ;  ). By the way, other than the fact
that what I got was probably grown in New York State, I have no idea of
what the variety was. Mine were pretty big, maybe 5-6 inches in
equatorial diameter, close to seven inches along the stem axis. Does
that jibe with what you're growing?

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com