[Sca-cooks] Redaction challenge; my testing

[Karen O]

<sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>;
 Sat, 22 Dec 2001
Anyway, here's the recipe, per Constance Hieatt and Robin Jones' Two
Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections Edited from British Library Manuscripts
Additional 32085 and Royal 12.C.xii", Speculum, v.61 October 1986, pp
859-882 :

"11. TARDPOLENE [custard tarts with fruit]. Here is another dish, which is
called tardpolene. Take and combine flour and sugar, and mix into pastry
with almond milk; make cases of this pastry two fingers in height; then take
pears, dates, almonds, figs, and raisins, and put in liquid and spices and
grind together; add egg yolk and a piece of good, soft cheese, not too old,
and plenty of whole eggs; then put them [the pastry cases filled with the
above mixture] to cook; brush the tops with egg yolk, then serve."

Hieatt and Jones seem to have decided that the name should be spelled
tardpolene, even though the original manuscript (late thirteenth-century
Anglo-Norman) seems to spell it tardpolane. I'm not sure why, unless
versions of the recipe appear elsewhere under that name, and there's not
aware of it.

Adamantius

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Having the time this long weekend, I started working on the Redaction
Challenge.  I'm still pondering whether this should be a PEAR tart with the
other fruits & almonds as enhancements, and enough cheese & eggs to bind.
Or is it a fruit mixture  {equal ratios} with cheese & eggs to bind? Or  A
CHEESE tart with the fruits to sweeten, and egg to bind.

  I worked on the filling today  -- will try out the crust another time.  I
made 9 different mixtures, and the Resident Mistress & myself are the
judges.

"take pears, dates, almonds, figs, and raisins, and put in liquid and spices
and grind together; add egg yolk and a piece of good, soft cheese, not too
old, and plenty of whole eggs;"

I worked backwards a bit, wanting to try different combinations of fruit
ratios & cheese/egg ratios. So I first mixed up the cheese portion. Good
soft cheese, not too old.  Not being a "cheese whiz" ? I figured something
beyond cottage/ curd cheese something fairly bland; such as cream cheese.  I
figured 4 eggs per pound of cheese, because for "cheesecake," the ratio is
3 - 4 eggs per pound of cream cheese, and the recipe definitely instructs to
use "plenty of whole eggs."   So, I creamed 1 lb of cream cheese with 4
eggs.  For most of the testing I used about 2 oz of the cheese & egg
mixture, with equal amounts of the fruit mixture per  dish.

For the fruit mixtures,  I used basically ½ fresh pear, peeled & cored, 2
dates, 1 Tablespoon of  almond pieces,  1 tsp raisins (currants) and 2 -3
figs.  All the spices are ground.  Variations will be noted in the notes
below.

1) Basic fruit mixture with pear juice, ½ tsp cinnamon and ¼  tsp gynger
2) Basic fruit mixture, additional tsp almonds,  1 oz Pear Liquor, 1 tsp
cinnamon, ½ tsp cloves
3) Basic fruit mixture,  ½ tsp cardamom, ½ tsp ginger, 1 Tab sugar 1 egg
yolk, only 1 oz cheese mixture
4) Basic fruit mixture, additional tsp almonds, 1 oz Pear Liquor, 1 tsp
cinnamon, ½ tsp cloves, and 1 tsp sugar.
5) Basic fruit mixture, but the pear is 1/3 fresh pear, and 3 halves dried
pear.   ½ tsp Cardamom, and 1 oz Mead
6) Fruit mixture same as #5,  ½ tsp each cardamom & ginger, 1 tsp sugar,
pear juice,  only 1 oz of the cheese mixture
7) Basic Fruit mixture,  1 tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp cardamom, ½ tsp ginger, 1 tsp
sugar,  1 oz mead and 4 oz cheese mixture
8) ½ pear, 2 Tabs almonds,   ½ tsp ginger, 1 tsp sugar, 1 oz mead {no dates
or figs} equal amounts fruit to cheese mixtures
9) same fruit /spice mix as #8, ½ oz almond liquor, and 4 oz cheese mixture

They baked for 40 minutes in a 325F oven.  Those with ½ cheese mixture are
browner than the rest.

Taste results tomorrow.

Caointiarn