SC - Sweet Spinach Tart

[Decker, Terry D.]

A container of pastry dough might be a closer definition of coffin.

The term seems to have been a general one covering everything from
freestanding dough boxes to dough wrapped fillings.  Since the recipes for
Elizabethan pastry dough I have are softer than the flour and water coffins
of the Early Middle Ages, I am assuming Markham's coffin is actually a
dough-lined trappe (a pie dish which resembles a deep casserole dish).  This
may not be valid, but the Tudor and Elizabethan periods mark the change to a
more modern cuisine and Markham was very much a part of the change.

For more information, I would recommend perusing Aoife's article on coffins
and pastry doughs in the Florilegium at:

http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/Period-Pies-art.html

Bear



> 
> Let me guess....coffin = crust?
> 
> Ari
>