[Sca-cooks] Regarding cream puff sources

[johnna007h at netscape.net]

In reply to some of the questions/comments from Anne-Marie Rousseau:

Anne-Marie wrote:

hey all from Anne-Marie
Johanna says re: cream puff like objects...

Actually, my name is Johnna...John with na attached... Johnna  (and no, my father's name was not John; it was Lewis which led to the actual registered SCA form being Johnnae llyn Lewis.)


In my original posting I mentioned this PPC article.

[See PPC#8 for an examination of the history of the 19th century croquembouche, which is of course another far grander use of the dough.]

Anne-Marie inquired "The PPCs at my house don't go that far back. can you give the complete citation (ie is it commercially available/?)


With regard to PPC#8: the article is: Salmon, Alice Wooledge. "Enduring Fantasies", Petits Propos Culinaires ,8, June, 1981, pages 49-59.

Alan Davidson in The Oxford Companion to Food discusses the article in his entry on "croquembouche".

Back issues of PPC are available stateside from:http://store.yahoo.com/acanthus-books/index.html.

Possibly it could be requested as a photocopy through interlibrary loan. 31 libraries indicate holdings.





>There is a recipe in Le Patissier Francois, which is often credited to La
Varenne. It's found in chapter xix and is entitled "La maniere de faire des
petits choux." [It appears on page 405 of the combined edition entitled Le
Cuisinier Francois that Flandrin and the Hymans released in 1983.] I don't
know whether or not the recipe appears in the "Englished" version of Le
Patissier that was published in England as Marnette's The Perfect Cook in
1656. If it does, that could well be the earliest English recipe.
>

Anne-Marie's comment "*gulp*...do you have a copy of this???? I"ve been looking for years with no luck!"

I do own the La Varenne. The citation is:

Le Cuisinier Francois. Edited by Jean-Louis Flandrin, with Philip and Mary Hyman. Montalba, Paris: Bibliotheque Bleue, 1983. 543 pages. Contains: Le Cuisinier Francois; Le Patissier Francois; Le Confiturier Francois; Le Cuisinier Friand; also assorted notes, introduction, bibliography, and glossary. ISBN: 2-85870-029-X. [In French, of course]

I ordered it from the UK, shortly after it was reviewed in PPC# 14. Prospect Books sold them for 9 pounds sterling, which was a bargain then and now.

Only 10 US libraries report owning the reprint which makes it scarce.

As for the Marnette The Perfect Cook of 1655, I do not have a copy of this, although I do own a photocopy of The French Cook of 1653. I have seen it and didn't feel it was essential to copy it at the time. [I actually saw the book sometime in the 1980's, although I'm not sure exactly where at the moment.] Anyway the second edition of 1695 is available on microfilm. UMI included it as part of the Thomason Tracts, reel 211:E 1695[1]. The Wing number is M706A for the second edition; M706 for the first edition.  


Anne-Marie ended her comments with

"its interesting that the modern "Choux paste" is apparently because the
little units look like small cabbages :)"

Actually, from what I found it's slightly more interesting than that. There is a footnote in Ladyfingers & Nun's Tummies that indicates that the French "choux" comes from the Latin "caulis" meaning "stem." The author, Martha Barnette, then asserts that "This makes the French "choux"  a linguistic relative of various "stemmed" and "cabbagelike" foods, including cauliflower, kolrabi, and kale." Cabbage apparently comes from Old North French caboche for "head", which makes probable that it came from the Latin caput or "head."

So does it male this a "small cabbage" or a "small cauliflower".

I am very glad to see by the way that a group is working on a transcription and translation  of the Casteau Ouverture de Cuisine reprint of 1983.

Hope this was helpful.

Johnna Holloway






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