SC - Menus and Veggies (was: German cookbook...)
Philip & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
Wed Sep 13 16:46:02 PDT 2000
Gwen Catrin von Berlin wrote:
>I am working on translating and webbing (in English) "Ein New Kochbuch" 1581,
>by Marxen Rumpolt. The corrected Salad section has been added to the web,
>but I am taking a small break in the baked goods chapter, to get a
>transcription and translation of the selection of "sample feasts" he has in
>the first 40+ pages of the book.
>
>I will be the Koch for the Barony of Caerthe 's Arts & Sciences Competition
>feast in early November, and would like to keep it period, documentable, and
>DELICIOUS!
>(Ya'll come now, Ya hear !!!)
>so I wanted a better base of how he claims a feast was constructed. I am
>rather appalled how LITTLE veggie matter is listed in the actual menus.
This seems to be typical. As I remember, the English menus (royal
feasts, installation of a bishop, etc.) quoted by Austin in _Two
Fifteenth Century Cookery Books_ have no or almost no vegetables
listed. I have just been looking through Le Menagier's menus, and he
typically has a couple of vegetables listed out of about 20 or 30
dishes for a meat-day dinner, and maybe three or four for a similar
fish-day dinner. It might be that vegetables were thought of as
lower-class, what you bought when you couldn't afford better, and
therefore weren't much eaten at feasts or elaborate dinners. Or it
could be that they were eaten but not mentioned any more than the
bread was. I remember that Chiquart, after going through in detail
the meats, spices, eggs, dried fruit, etc., needed for his
prospective feast, says rather dismissively:
"And so that the workers are not idle, and so that they do not lack
for anything, there should be delivered funds in great abundance to
the said kitchen masters to get salt, pot-vegetables and other
necessary things which might be needed, which do not occur to me at
present."
Elizabeth/Betty Cook
More information about the Sca-cooks
mailing list