SC - Re: smokey tea

[Mordonna22@aol.com]

Christina Nevin wrote:
> 
> Saluti everyone!
> 
> I have a query from a friend I hope someone can answer. My initial reaction
> was no, I think it's a Georgian invention, but if anyone could back me
> up/tell me I'm wrong, please jump in!
> 
> Query:
> "Ah! That reminds me! Is the thing that we moderns call "Yorkshire Pudding"
> - a thinnish batter poured into a hot roasting pan and cooked either in the
> oven or in front of a flame till it puffs up and browns - even remotely SCA
> period? I have a modern Italian recipe for squab with veges presented in a
> "Yorkshire" pudding (though the recipe doesn't call it that) that I'd like
> to do for a small SCA dinner if I can justify it."

Bird-in-the-hole, eh?

I haven't seen any indication that any kind of baked pudding, sweet or
savory, is found in a period source. One thing to bear in mind is that
ovens seem to figure less in medieval cookery than they do subsequently,
except for obvious things like bread, pies, and tarts. For cooking them
in front of a fire, well, as I say I've seen no evidence of it. Also,
one should consider that if this dish did exist in the Middle Ages, it
certanly wouldn't be classified by a name which refers to guts, which is
basically what "pudding" means.

There _are_ some English baked pudding recipes (in both name and form)
beginning, I'd guess, in the late 16th, early 17th centuries, but none
quite like Yorkshire pudding, AFAIK. There may be an issue regarding the
availability of hardish wheat flours in England at whatever time we're
talking about. You need at least some gluten to get that dramatic rise.
Of course, if there is an Italian precedent, that may not matter.

It probably is Georgian. Anybody have a copy of Hannah Glasse handy?

Obligatory good research note, which I now feel obliged to insert
whenever anybody asks a question like this: as a way of learning and
teaching about period food, is it not better to research period foods
and find one that you like, rather than trying to make a food which may
be modern fit a period description? 

Of course, gentle Lucretzia, I know this isn't your project and you
don't research in this way.

Adamantius, desperately seeking documentation for seafood cocktail sauce
in period...
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com