[Sca-cooks] green ginger upon sirop

[Stefan li Rous]

Lady Katherine Rowberd said:
> Here's a recipe I've been wanting to try for a bit.  It's from Plat's
> "Delightes for Ladies" (1609):
>
> 48. To make green ginger upon sirup.
>
> Take Ginger one pound: pare it clean: steep it in red wine and vinegar
> equally mixed: let it stand for XII daies in a close vessell, and every
> day once or twice stir it up and down: then take of wine one gallon, and
> of vinegar a pottle: seethe all together to the consumption of a moity or
> half: then take a pottle of clean clarified honey, or more, and put
> thereunto, and let them boyle well together: then take halfe an ounce
> of saffron finely beaten, and put it thereto, with some sugar if you
> please.

Interesting.

> I'm pondering a few things related to it, though, before I start.
>
> First off, the recipe seems to be giving us two things: a sour ginger
> pickle thing, and a sweet/sour syrup.  Presumably they're meant to be
> brought together at the end, but how?
>
> Secondly, I'm presuming that the ginger available at this time would
> have been dried.  Since whole dried ginger's hard to come by, how could
> this recipe be adapted for whole fresh ginger?

But how much more would the "dried" ginger be than what we get, which
you are considering "fresh"? There is some moisture in what I've bought,
but I don't think I could squeeze out much.

Would this really be "dried" ginger? Or since water transport from those
regions was known by then, would this have actually been closer to our
fresh ginger than what you are thinking of as dry? The title does
say "green" ginger. I don't see any other indication of why this word
might be used except that it might still be a bit green or fresh.

> So here's what I'm thinking.  My guess is that they would have started
> with whole, dry ginger, and that the 12 days' soaking in wine and
> vinegar is mostly to soften it up.  Of course it would also impregnate
> the ginger with the sour flavour.
>
> So, perhaps I could settle for just soaking fresh ginger overnight in
> a similar mixture, which should achieve some of the impregnation of
> the sour flavour.  Then I'd strain what's there and bottle it using
> the syrup of wine/vinegar/honey/etc, perhaps made a little more tart
> than necessary since the ginger won't have picked up as much vinegar
> as it might otherwise have done.

But would the moisture in the fresh ginger, what little there is, help
or hinder the infusion of the vinegar/wine mixture into the ginger? You
might actually get more sour flavor by letting the dried ginger sit in
the vinegar/wine for 12 days than you would with the moist ginger in
12 days, much less only overnight. Is there a particular reason, safety
or otherwise, that you wouldn't want to soak the fresh ginger in the
wine/vinegar for say six or 12 days?

> Half an ounce of saffron!?!? Yow. I think I might skimp on that a tad.

Yes, I've often wondered just how fresh their saffron was, when I see
quantities like that.

> And as for adding sugar, I'm not clear on why one might want to do that,
> unless it's just that dishes of that period all seem to contain sugar
> more as a matter of conspicuous consumption than as a necessary
> sweetener.  I'm guessing that the honey probably makes it adequately
> sweet, but the sugar could be added if you had a really sweet tooth,
> which I don't; also, see earlier notes on perhaps wanting extra
> tartness.

But honey and sugar don't taste alike. Having both results in a different
taste than just either one by itself.

Is the saffron/sugar mix actually mixed into the stuff? Or is it just
sprinkled on the top?

> Anyway, I think this ginger could be a really nice sweet/sour preserve.
> Yum.  Just my favourite sort of thing.

Yes, just the "dainty" for a party of nobles. The fork was still not
very common in England at this time, as far as I remember. Just how
would you eat this dainty without them? Sounds a bit messy to pick
up with your fingers. I guess you could still use a spoon. I think
simply poking it with the point of your knife and moving it to your
mouth that way, would have been unacceptable. Besides, I'm not sure
a knife point would stick into this pickled ginger.

I have a few questions of my own:
1) How much is a "pottle"?

2) "seethe all together to the consumption of a moity or half"? Is
this a measure of time? Or a texture that is being described? Either
way, what is a "moity"?

Stefan

--
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 ****