SC - Malaches (FoC 159)

[Philip & Susan Troy]

UlfR wrote:
> 
> Ahh, now I see. I was thinking "lard, I could get away with butter
> instead". Looking at Stefans site with the original MS and some
> commentary I see (http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/foc/FoC025_smallgif.html):
> "[Butter] The usual substitutes for it are oil-olive and lard; the
> latter is frequently called grees, or grece, or white-grece...". I see a
> slight discrepancy in the two interpretations of what lard is to be
> taken as. Is it the original body tissue from which we would extract the
> lard today, or is it what we would refer to as lard today?

There's the thing. Modern lard is the rendered tissue, the fat itself,
while in Middle English, it seems to be the fatty tissue from which it
is derived. In other languages which don't refer to rendered pork kidney
fat modernly as lard, the distinction is a little more clear, and in
period recipes it is clearer still.
 
> > > Those better at middle english than me can probably answer the question
> > > of if it would have been better to make a pie crust.
> >
> > Well, rather than ask why you changed the recipe (egads!),
> 
> So you would take "trappe" to be a pie crust? Since the original
> specifies the wyte gres in the trappe, I suppose I can agree with you
> there. But then you can't have it in the malache as well, can you?

Whoops! Caffeine shortage... No, upon reflection, putting the mixture in
a trap with white grease would be, I think, to bake it in a greased pan,
like a casserole. I had missed the fact that there was a reference to a
trap with no reference to a crust.
 
> > I can say
> > that the dish is probably better cooked in a pie crust, or perhaps baked
> > in a bain-marie, literally a "blood pudding"... the texture is smoother
> > and presumably moister.
> 
> The modern versions are cooked in a bain-marie, but there was no mention
> of it in the original. Is there any mention of bain-marie in the 14th C
> corpus?

No, not that I'm aware of. Of course, you do have some control over heat
by putting the malaches in the oven at a particular point in the cooling
curve, assuming some kind of massive brick or earthen bread oven, which
provides a very even, sustained  heat source.
 
> Based on this, what would your suggestion be for Malaches 1.1? In a
> crust made with lard, and with diced fat back (or equivalent) and lard
> (melted?) in the mixture? I'll pick up another bucket of blood some
> afternoon this week and try it. The question is if it is a reasonable
> interpretation of the original.

Again, my error. I'd suggest baking it with a diced hard fat, such as
unrendered leaf lard, pork belly fat, etc., in a pan _greased_ with
rendered lard. You might avoid some of the sticking and burning by using
a suitably seasoned pan, but maybe longer cooking at a lower temperature
would be the best way to go. 
 
> > Plus, you get to inflict it on people who aren't
> > expecting it ;  ). "What's this? More weird food? No? Only pie? Thank
> > goodness! About time!"
> 
> The problem is that to my most likley victi^Waudience -- native Swedes
> -- blood pudding is something they grew up with (it is mostly kid fare;
> cheap, bland and filling). This is a new type, and most of them has only
> had it storebought, sliced and fried, but it is still nothing to make
> their head explode and attain a stable earth orbit. Pity.
> 
> > Oh, definitely, just as fronchemoyle seems to be an ancestor of the
> > white pudding. And then, of course, there are "white malaches" without
> > blood...
> 
> Where is fronchemoyle to be found?

It can be found in both 14th and 15th century English sources...
basically a sort of haggis made with diced fat, breadcrumbs, eggs and
spices, boiled in the second stomach bag of a sheep, which in Old French
is a franchemule (the "mule" is a cognate for the word "maw",
apparently). Here's a 14th-century version, from Ms. Douce 257 (D),
courtesy of Curye On Inglysche, Book II, Diuersa Servicia:

"For to make a fronchemoyle. Nym eyryn wy(th) al (th)e wyte & myse bred
& schepys talwe as gret as dysys. Gryng peper and safroun and kast
(th)erto, & do hit in (th)e schepis wombe. Se(th) it wel & dresse it
for(th)e of brode leches (th)ynne."

I could be wrong, but I vaguely recall something about slicing and
frying this for service. Can't find a reference to it, though. The
fifteenth-century versions are more or less identical, but I still have
to check Liber Cure Cocorum, which apparently has a recipe.
 
> There is still the facinating note that the Scottish gaelic words for
> black and white pudding is awfully similair to "malaches" (I can neither
> spell or pronounce it, and with a modifier for the white one). I'll
> definitely try the white malaches as well. Could be a fun contrast to
> serve both together some day.
> 
> > I'd say the modern recipe I'm familiar with hasn't changed
> > hugely, at least not the UK-type or French types I've seen. The most
> > obvious changes seem to me to be that you'd be using fresh soft bread
> > crumbs instead of flour, and that this recipe doesn't seem to call for
> > any spices.
> 
> Yes, at least we can't have a big fight over what amount of what spice
> to use. Thinking of the flour, would you say that my mix of white wheat
> flour and rye was a decent guess as to flour and mele?

It seems to call for just flour; probably any reasonably fine, sieved
whole-grain flour (at least from some Northern-European grain) would be
just fine for flavor, thickening/stabilizing, and accuracy. 

> I would say that -- based on vague memory and "the library is at home"
> -- all of the recipies calling for previously cooked meat, or roast and
> then boiled, is adaptable to leftovers.

Well, then you may need to draw a distinction between using leftovers in
a second meal, or simply in a second cooking process in the first meal.
Since you've elected to fry leftovers (rather than serve the original
dish as fried slices, which I can't guarantee is a stated option within
the recipe corpus), I was wondering about recipes that either specify
leftover use, as in the Menagier recipe, or have suggestions as to what
would be done with them.

> You also have the mentions of cold meat for breakfast. I would guess
> that in many cases last nights leftovers got eaten cold as breakfast.
> 
> > On the other hand, if this is a feast dish, it may be one of those
> > things that got given to the poor as alms. Mmmmmm! Malaches!
> 
> Quite possible. OTOH, malaches, and various sausages using blood, is an
> answer to the old question "there's buckets of blood in a pig, you
> aren't going to let it go to *waste*, are you?". Thus it might be
> something that got served whenever a pig was butchered.

Yes, that's true. Ditto black puddings and various other dishes. It
seems, though, that between its use as a sauce thickener/colorant, and
in dishes like this, as well as various industrial uses (pigments,
etc.), that a significant amount of it became river pollutants, etc. I
have an old article from Speculum someplace, on regulations for butchers
in medieval London; I'll check and see if it has anything to say about
blood disposal.
 
Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com