SC - Dyschefull of Snowe vs Apple Snow - a redaction question

[harper at idt.net]

And it came to pass on 31 Oct 00, , that Lee-Gwen wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From:  David/Cariadoc
> 
> > Does your source say where the original is from? Does anyone know of
> > an Elizabethan source that happens to be dated 1572?
> 
> Sorry, no - I don't actually have the source for this recipe.  It was posted
> to the List and I copied the information into my computer Recipe Box without
> reading it in any depth.  It was posted in response to a query about
> Scottish cookery.
> 
> Gwynydd

The Apple Snow recipe is in the Florilegium, along with a bunch of 
others which are allegedly "Scottish".  They are all taken from "A 
Book of Historical Recipes" by Sara Paston-Williams The National 
Trust of Scotland, 1995 ISBN 0-7078-0240-7.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BY-REGION/fd-Scotland-
msg.text

The "Scottish Medieval" recipe for gingerbread is straight out of 
"Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks", and most of the other recipes 
quoted in that post seem to come from familiar English period 
cookbooks.

The recipe title "Apple Snow" is followed immediately by the 
"Dyschefull of Snowe" recipe, which is identical to the one from "A 
Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye".  (According to the bibliography in 
"To the Queen's Taste", APNBOC is dated c. 1560.)  And that is 
followed by the redaction with pureed apple and whipped cream.

Searching the web for "apple snow", I found many sites that gave a 
similar recipe.  It appears to be a traditional British dish -- Mrs. 
Beeton has a recipe for it.  I don't know how old it is.  The BBC 
website called it Elizabethan, but didn't give an original source.  
(They may have been using the Paston-Williams book, for all I 
know.)

Now this is all speculative on my part, but this is what I *think* 
happened:

Paston-Williams took an Elizabethan English recipe that might 
have been also cooked in Scotland, and in her redaction, gave it 
the name and the instructions for a traditional but-possibly-not-
period British dessert.

The other redactions given in the file stay closer to the originals, 
though she adds some cream to a dish of mussels which does not 
appear in the period recipe.

Does anyone have the Paston-Williams book in their collection, 
and can check to see what she says about her sources?


Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)
mka Robin Carroll-Mann
harper at idt.net