[Sca-cooks] Things flambeed.

[johnna holloway]

Greetings from Johnnae llyn Lewis

Regarding flame effects:

According to C. Anne Wilson in Food and Drink
in Britain:
"It was about this time that spirits began to be
imported into England, at first by the Genoese and
later by the Dutch. For a while they were regarded
as something of a novelty, and their chief use, other
than as medicine, was in order to produce flaming
food as a party-trick for guests. A recipe of the
early fifteenth century tells how to pour aqua ardens
on to slices of rich mawmeny, 'then light it with a
wax candle, and serve it forth burning'. [p.381-382]

Johnna Holloway



 Stefan wrote:
> > Period stuff: Do we have any evidence of alcoholic beverages being
> > used in period to creat flame effects for sotelties? While the
> > liquor would have been expensive, those sotelties were often done
> > for the well off and part of fancy festivities, so I can see where
> > it could have been done despite the cost.
>
>Ruth Frey wrote: I've actually been pondering that myself -- they
> certainly had distilled alcohol in Period (at least in the
> later times), but the only "flaming" agent I've seen in sotelty
> instructions from Period is camphor.  Lotsa things cooked in
> wine and beer/ale, too, but no mention of using liquors in
> cooking or sauces.It may just be that I haven't been looking at the
> right sources, but my own personal thought is that things
> flambeed wouldn't be in Period style.-- Ruth