[Sca-cooks] Re: rice pudding or sausage

[johnna holloway]

There's more here than what meets the eye...

To begin with, Devra typed "put it into the frams".
The Markham recipe as quoted by Sass says:
"put it into the farms...."
farms.... not frams....

Sass gives the recipe on pages 90-91 of
To the Queen's Taste which places it as
the first recipe in the desserts section.
She states "The "farms" mentioned by Markham
were shaped containers in which puddings could
be boiled and stored. The word farm is a
sixteenth-century dialect variant of our word
form."

The online OED gives
farme, sb. [prob. dial. var. of form. ]
 A `shape' for a pudding.

1623 Markham Countr. Content. ii. i. ii. 68
Then put thereto at least eight yelks of Egges,
 a little Pepper, Cloves, Mace [etc.]..and then
fill it vp in the Farmes according to the order
 of good housewiferie.

1623 Markham Countr. Content. 69 When all is mixt
 well together..fill it into the farmes.

Best, as mentioned by Bear, takes up "farmes" in
the best white pudding recipe given by Markham on page 71.
His footnote 59 gives it as as cleaned intestines and says
that the context clearly indicates this.

If Sass was going strictly by OED, her misreading of it as
a Form is more understandable.

The Rice Pudding recipe is given on page 72 of the Best edition.
After a bread pudding that is likewise put into "farmes" and boiled
and before one of liver that is made with a hog's liver.

There's no indication that Markham saw this as a
a "dessert" sort of recipe. I have to wonder if readers of the
recipe did not perhaps modify the recipe as the 17th century continued
into more of a rich baked pudding and away from a casing enclosed
boiled sausage.

Johnnae llyn Lewis   Johnna Holloway

Much previous discussion by Bear, Adamantius, and UberEvilDrakeyboy.
"Reach out with your feelings, Drakey. Use the Source!"