SC - foreign cook was What would you do?

Sat Jan 6 12:12:27 PST 2001

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Hello again!
A few days ago I promised to post my notes on 16th C breakfasts.  Here they are in point form:
1. North Household book (1512).  2 boys of the Percy family (I don't have the whole record, just this much - apparently the 2 nursery children received the same, omitting the household bread), the elder 11 years old, received daily for their breakfast:  1/2  loaf household bread (according to Elizabeth David a loaf was about a lb.); 1 manchet (soft white roll of about 6-8 oz - ED); 1 dish butter (1 1/2 lb - ED); 2 qts beer;  2 kinds salt fish, or 1 chicken, or 3 mutton bones.
2. According to Elizabeth Burton (not Taylor;  sorry about that mistake in my earlier message!), William Harrison (1577) says in his Description of England that upper-class Elizabethans did not bother with breakfast, since they dined at the latest at midday.  I don't have the original quote.
3. Thomas Tusser (in the Good Huswives Day) tells the wife to have a breakfast of pottage and meat ready just after dawn.
4. Thomas Peacham (the Truth of our Times, publ. 1638, posthumously, I think - he was tutor to a nobleman's children in the Eliz period)writes of a spoiled child who was given a caudle or a manchet with almond butter as his breakfast.
5. I have seen undocumented sources which claim that manual labourers ate cheese instead of meat, tho' contemporary sources seem to indicate that cheese is preferred last thing at night as it prevents further nourishment.
So, my suggestion for a 16th C breakfast easily produced in the CMA would be:
ordinary (maybe half-brown) bread; soft white bread (ideally large rolls); butter, porridge (on the grounds that you _could_ call it a pottage); cold chicken or other cold meat, or on a fast day kippers or other salt/smoked fish. 
If I were in Adamastor I'd get some of the snoek from that nice little man in Obs who smokes them over old wine-barrel staves.  Every day's a fast day when you can get that stuff!
As far as I can work out, there are at least 10 recipes for caudle (chaudeau, candeel, wijnsuypen) in easily accessible period works - and not all of them need alcohol! - so won't give that recipe, but you may enjoy this one for almond butter:
Een notabel boecxken van cokeryen, Thomas van der Noot, Brussels, ca. 1514
92. Om te makenne een prosint van amandelen ende dit om vyer schotelen.  Neempt amandelen ende stoot die in eenen mortyer, ontrynt vyer ponden.  Alse ghestooten sijn, doetse duere eenen stramijn met wat wermen watere.  Mair siet toe, dat dye amandelen dic ghenoech bliven.  Doet tot desen amadelen een vyerendeel suyckers.  Dan siedet al tesamen dye doergedaen amandelen met den suyckere in een panne.  Alst ghesoden is, soe doetse af ende legtse op eenen stramijn oft op nieuwe lijnwaet.  Daer laetse alsoe vercouwen ofte verslain.  Dan legtse in die schotelen in amaieren van boteren, ghelijck men die boter slaet.  Hyerna neempt dye alderschoonste amandelen die mogelijck sijn om crighen.  Die suldi in twe stucken sniden, rechs in de helft.  Dan snijt noch die helft in drye ghelijcke stucken lancx ende deen helft suldy gheluwen in sofferaen.  Dan steltse al rustich met langhen tancken op die stucken van amandelenbotere.  Ende als ghise dyenen wilt, so ghietere melck in dye schotele.  Maer huet wel dat den stucken van den amandelen niet ghenake.
92.  To make a present (a subtlety, perhaps?) of almonds, and this for four dishes.  Take almonds and grind them in a mortar, about four pounds.  When they are ground, pass them through a sieve with warm water.  But see that the alsmonds remain thick enough.  Add to these almonds a fourth part (i.e. a pound) of sugar.  Then boil the sieved almonds all together with the sugar in a pan.  When it is boiled, take it off (the fire) and lay it on a sieve or on a new piece of linen.  Thus let it cool there.  Then lay it in dishes in the manner of butter, just as one beats butter into shape.  After this take the best almonds which it is possible to obtain.  You shall cut them in two pieces, exactly in half.  Then cut that half in three equal pieces lengthways and colour half of them yellow in saffron.  Then put them decoratively in an upright border on the pieces of almond butter.  And when you wish to serve it, so pour milk in the dish.  But be careful that it does not reach the almond pieces.
Wow!  No wonder Peachem thought the child was spoiled!
Cairistiona <hr>Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at <a href="http://www.hotmail.com">http://www.hotmail.com</a>. </html>