SC - My Good News... <G>

[Siegfried Heydrich]

>(and more inportatly, should someone write a letter to Crichton explaining
>the problems of Fab Feasts and suggest Thous. Eggs as a replacement for the
>sequel? : )  )

Sounds good to me. ;-)

Actually, Dame Alys & I just finished writing a Compleat Anachronist on
Period Food Coloring Agents. It should be available in a few months.

Henisch mentions a violet and saffron pudding, violet petals, roses,
hawthorn, carnations, and primroses. Nothing about dandelions.


Cosman lists violets, roses, primroses, floscampies ("the red wild
flower"), and various tree blossoms.  Theres s mention of heliotrope
blossoms in the hypocras recipe.  Here it is!  page 63 of the old edition
"Yellow, gold, and orange were made from saffron, yellow turnsole,
dandelion, and egg yolk." She's talking about applying or painting on
colors to the finished dishes before service.

FWIW, I don't recall finding any sources calling for dandelion
specifically, but a number of them do call for unspecified field flowers to
achieve a certain color.  So dandelion *is* a possibility for external
coloring, although it remains a remote one for inclusion in the
(non-medicinal) dish -- since dandelion flowers are bitter & are used
medicinally.

HTH,


Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu
Author and Publisher of "Take a Thousand Eggs or More" and "A Sip Through Time"
http://www.thousandeggs.com
cindy at thousandeggs.com


 >Having just finished Michael Crichton book _Timeline_ (it's alright, not
>real medivialish tho'), I like to bring forth a question on one of the
>scenes. He has a cook bring out a subletly colored yellow with dandelion and
>saffron. This just doesn't seem correct for the 1300's. I mean, saffron does
>a fine enough job coloring as it is, why would they add dandelion? and Where
>do you think he got the notion that dandelion flowers were used as coloring?
>Looking through the bib, the three cookbooks he sites are:
>Maggie Black's The Medieval Cookbook
>Bridget Ann Henisch's Fast and Feast; Food in Medieval Society
>and
><oh gack>
>Madeleine Cosman's Fabulous Feasts: medieval Cookery and Ceremony
>
>So is the dandelion coloring one of Cosman's imagination problems or did
>they really use the flower for that?
>(and more inportatly, should someone write a letter to Crichton explaining
>the problems of Fab Feasts and suggest Thous. Eggs as a replacement for the
>sequel? : )  )
>
>Beatrix