SC - Lamb recipes

[Philippa Alderton]

Thomas skrev:

>There are two lamb recipes in the cookbook of Sabina Welser (ca. >1553).
>I guess they would be a real challenge ... see Valoise Armstrong's
>translation at:
>http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Sabrina_Welserin.html
># 153 To prepare an Easter lamb
># 154 A lamb of another sort
>(The German text is online, too.)

(Where?)

Oooooh, Thomas, I like them!!!!!

Questions (I'm posting the recipes below) :

1. Basting it with eggs. Would we be basting it for a few minutes, in order
to get a roasted/baked crust, or are we instructed to merely put the eggs on
it while hot, then letting the eggs dry as the lamb cools? Would either
method work as either a crust or a base for the (presumably) chilled butter?
(Figuring spring house, likely in early spring when it's cooler, and the
lambs are no more that 40 lbs, live. Valoise- was there any indication of
their sizes or ages,in the text, other than Easter, which arrives on the
first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox?).

2. Is anybody aware of the technique of straining the butter in another
context? I would assume we're talking a fairly coarse cloth here- was there
a standard in period? Would a modern fine mesh strainer work?

3. What is May butter? Is that a special name for a butter with more or less
fat than usual? Or would they have deliberately aged the butter for the
better part of a year from the last May? (My reasoning on this being that
Easter usually shows up well before May),

4. Are we talking all yolk or all white omelettes here?

5. I only count three colors, white, yellow, and red/brown. Did I miss
something?

6. I'm assuming you place these on the lamb in a patchwork?

7. What is Strauben batter, yellow or otherwise? And what kind of cinnamon
sticks are they using? The ones I'm familiar with would be rather large for
the application, unless you cut sliver off. Is this Cassia, or true
Cinnamon?

8. I'm having trouble visualising this. It's starting to look like the lamb
is wearing Joseph's coat of many colors, with serious warbles.......

9. Where does the cooked meat go?

10.  Valoise, Thomas: What is the word that you translated as ugly? Is that
perhaps a colloquialism for something more accurately descriptive?

Nice translation, Valoise- thanks. I think, despite my questions, I might
try this on a couple of rabbits, not only in preperation for spring lambing,
but because I really don't think I could eat an entire lamb of whatever size
in any reasonable amount of time. I'm sure Stubby and the cats would be
willing to help, but dog and cat food are expensive enough ;-)

153 To prepare an Easter lamb

Take the lamb and draw off the skin and leave him the ears and the feet and
the tail , cover with a wet cloth, so that the hair does not burn. Roast the
whole lamb in this manner in the oven on a board. And if you would like for
it to be standing, then stick a spit into each leg. When it is almost
roasted, then baste it with eggs (1, Phlip) and take it out. Let it cool,
take a cloth that is three spans long, fill it full of butter and bind it up
and press it through with a stick. (2, Phlip) It gets crinkled like real
wool, then take it and make wool out of it for the lamb. Stand it then on a
nice board. Make a fence out of butter around it, in the manner which
follows. [17]

[Note 17- See recipe 53

53 To make a fence out of butter

Take butter or May butter (3, Phlip) and sugar, knead it in, so that it
becomes sweet, and then take an icing bag and fence it around. The fence
posts that go with it, make from cinnamon sticks. Also there belongs inside
the fence, roasted fish or whatever you have that is good. ]


154 A lamb of another sort

Make it exactly as the preceding description, cover it, however, with a
multicolored covering. It is made like so: Take eggs, put the whites
separate from the yolks, beat the eggs, put some salt into it and sugar,
take a pan, put pure fat into it, let it become hot, pour the fat completely
out of the pan, put the egg white into it, let it run here and there around
the pan, hold it over the fire, not too long, however, only until it begins
to quiver. Afterward hold the pan on the fire, until it becomes dry, and
hold it not too near, so that it remains white, and make in this way as many
pancakes as you wish. Do not make them too thick, not thicker than a thin
cloth. (4, Phlip) Afterwards make the yellow ones exactly like this, put
saffron in the egg yolks. Brown is made precisely so, take cherry jam
strained through with the eggs and make pancakes out of it. So you have four
colors,  (5, Phlip) cover the lamb with them and cut the colors according to
the length, as wide as you would like. (6, Phlip)After that take cinnamon
sticks, make small nails out of them, push them with the thick end into
Strauben batter,  (7, Phlip) which should be yellow and fry them in fat,
then they have buttons. If you would like, you can gild or silver them. Then
take hard-cooked eggs and cut them open at the end, take the fried cinnamon
sticks, stick them through the tips of the eggs and fasten the colors in the
fashion on the lamb. (8, Phlip)And color half the eggs yellow and leave the
others white. Make a fence from good spices around the lamb, put the lamb on
the board. After that take smoked meat, that is very red, cook it and cut
off the outside. Chop it very small, then take eggs, cook them hard, cut
them apart, the white from the yellow, chop each by itself, and when the
lamb is ready, then put the white on one side of the board and the yellow on
the opposite side, in one place or the other lay the whole hard-cooked eggs
on it and also the pancakes, also if you have it or want it, honey. (9,
Phlip)This lamb is better for eating than that described earlier. When the
meat is prepared in this way, it does not become ugly (10, Phlip)and
everything is edible except the board.



Phlip

Nolo disputare, volo somniare et contendere, et iterum somniare.

phlip at morganco.net

Philippa Farrour
Caer Frig
Southeastern Ohio

"All things are poisons.  It is simply the dose that distinguishes between a
poison and a remedy." -Paracelsus

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