[Sca-cooks] Mint Jelly?

[johnna holloway]

I have to wonder if this tradition is changing.
I checked some of my magazines and found that
BBC FOOD for April 2001 was advocating mint
and lemon roast lamb. The recipe called for
marinating the leg of lamb in a mixture made of
2 lemons, 3 cloves of garlic, 4 TABLESPOONS chopped
mint and 4 TABLESPOONS Olive oil. Roast until done to
taste. and no mention of mint jelly or sauce.
The other April 2001 issue which was FOOD ILLUSTRATED
was all Greek Easter dishes. The hot new food personality
 of the moment, Nigella Lawson in her book
made a point of saying she dislikes English-style
roast lamb and offers a recipe for combining combining chopped
mint leaves with a jar of red currant jelly and adding the zest
and some of the juice of one orange. Not exactly what Mrs.
Beeton had in mind. SAVEUR did an article in April 2000 that
traced mint sauce to her and said the apple jelly with mint
added came later. Mint jelly is said to be more wine friendly
while the sauce is more acidic.

 So maybe it's come to a choice
of what is served with the meal. And it could be a matter of
where does one get fresh mint at Easter? Here we
can open a jar of jelly... there they can get fresh mint already.
(Lower Michigan was in between snows in April this year.)
 Another  easy source to look at would be that Prospect Books
volume on the Traditional Foods of the UK... but I haven't placed
my order yet for that one.

Johnna Holloway

Elise Fleming wrote:
>
> Greetings.  This is specifically addressed to folk with European
> eating experience.  Do the English/British or others use the same
> type of mint jelly with lamb that Americans do?  We are (most of us)
> used to a clear, apple-based, mint-flavored, solid jelly.  When I
> was in York for Easter, the mint stuff was a mint sauce, made of
> real mint leaves, and it was a sauce - runny like sauces are, not
> stiff like the jelly we are used to.  Is our mint jelly commonly
> used abroad or does the mint stuff come from the sauce tradition?
>
> Alys Katharine
>
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