SC - Duello by Cheese Cake; High Noon in Trimaris, Spoons at the Ready

[david friedman]

At 5:30 PM -0500 1/9/01, Daniel Phelps wrote:
>Good Gentles of the List:
>
>Come an event in April there is to be a cheese cake baking duel down here in
>southern Trimaris.  Originally it was intended to be the baking of "mundane"
>cheese cakes but I stuck a spoon in the bowl and now a least one of the
>cheese cakes to be made by each of the two protagonists needs be "period".
>I've access in my personal library to six recipes in non redacted and
>redacted forms which arguably fit the bill.  The earliest on the list is
>Roman, Savillum (Cato).  The list then proceeds to French and Italian with
>Sambocade, Torta Bianca and Sienese Tart and culminates in English recipes
>from Elinor Fettiplace and Joan Cromwell which take us to the 16th century?
>and on to 1664  (yes slightly out of period) respectively.

How about Tart de Bry (English 14th c.)? We have a worked-out version 
in the Miscellany, along with one for Platina's White Torta (torta 
bianca) and the Digby recipe someone already posted.

>For purposes of the competition we have used the classic "Cheesecake"
>entries in Joy of Cooking as an archetype.   Cheesecake, per "The Joy of
>Cooking", is thus egg-based with CHEESE, plus sugar or honey and some sort
>of flavoring and occasionally flour and milk or cream.  Regards the CHEESE;
>baker's cheese, cottage cheese, cream cheese, ricotta are all apparently
>used in typical modern recipes.

For a non-sweet cheese pie, there is also an English 15th c. recipe 
"For Tarts owte of Lente": very rich, very good. And if you really 
want to stretch the definition, you could try Platina's recipe for 
Torta of Herbs in the Month of May, including the optional sugar: 
cheese, eggs whites, sugar, butter (and herbs). Or to stretch it even 
farther, the Andalusian Cheese and Flour Cake, which has alternate 
layers of dough and cheese, baked and then drizzled with honey, with 
sugar and pepper sprinkled over.

All recipes mentioned are in the Miscllany.

Elizabeth/Betty Cook