[Sca-cooks] Re: Brining

[johnna holloway]

Of course, it's beef. Start with a corned
beef and then add more spices and sugar.
The recipe is in Theodora Fitzgibbon's
 Irish Traditional Food. It's a Christmas
or holiday recipe. And of course the Irish
had cows and a long tradition of herding
prior to the English.... but that's another tale...
There's a reference to this spiced Irish Beef
in the 14th century... among other references...
See also Sexton and Cowan's Ireland's Traditional
Foods as well Brid Mahon's Land of Milk and Honey.

I don't find brining to be a cooking technique today as
much as a flavour enhancement... It produces a juicier
more tender bird or roast... Actually the work on Stillroom
Cookery addresses actually putting up large quanities of
meat in a brine w/o refrigeration. As to leaving smoked or
salted food out today, most object to scraping mold off and
then going ahead and cooking the joint in question. How many
afterall want to eat an aged country ham that has been hung for
a year? It is as they say an acquired taste.
Another work on this subject would be Hung, Strung, & Potted
by Booth. It addresses the American history of food preservation.
Johnna Holloway  Johnnae llyn Lewis

Stefan li Rous wrote:>
> What is "Irish beef"? And how does it differ from corned beef?>
> Hmmm. Considering the proverbial poorness of the Irish, is Irish
> beef, really beef? :-)
>
> > for a general history without recipes:
> > Shephard, Sue. Pickled, Potted and Canned. 2001> >
> > for recipes with food chemistry:
> > Corriher, Shirley O. Cookwise. 1997.
> > Cook's Illus. has also run at least one article annually
> > and sometimes more on brining methods with recipes.> >
> > for practical recipes:
> > Firth, Grace. Stillroom Cookery. 1977.
>
> Thanks for the referances. However, the original question about
> brining seemed to be more about a cooking technique rather than a
> preservation technique since it was done the day or day before
> the meat (turkey?) was cooked. Now I realized that there may
> be some overlap between the two purposes but it might affect
> the exact processes used.
>
> I'm finding that many (most?) smoked and salted foods these
> days are only prepared that way for taste and aren't processed
> enough to be left out of the refrigerator or the use of other
> methods to prevent spoilage. :-(
>
> --
> THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
>    Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas          stefan at texas.net
> **** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
> _______________________________________________
> Sca-cooks mailing list
> Sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
> http://www.ansteorra.org/mailman/listinfo/sca-cooks