[Sca-cooks] Cameline Confusion....

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

[ Converted text/enriched to text/plain ]
On 14 Apr 2002, at 22:33, Philippa Alderton wrote:

> OK, folks, what do we have here? What makes a Cameline
> sauce? The only common ingredient is bread. I've seen
> the sauce used as both a sauce for putting on top of
> meats, as well as the liquid in a pie-type thing, and
> different recipes will specify hot or cold. Just what
> IS Cameline sauce?
>
> Phlip

My understanding is that the common ingredient is cinnamon. One explanation
for the name of the sauce is that it derives from "canel" (cinnamon).


To add to your collection, there are 3 cameline recipes in Nola:

Cameline Sauce

Take two or three white pomegranates and seed them on a very clean linen
cloth; and when they are seeded, press them a great deal, in such a way that
all the juice comes out; and then take a little bread, toasted and soaked in
the said juice, and then take a good quantity of ground cinnamon, and cast it
in with the bread, and grind it well in a mortar; and after grinding it, blend
it with good broth from the pomegranates or with vinegar, which should not be
very strong; and then set it on the fire to cook, stirring it constantly until
it is thick; and before it boils, put a piece of fine sugar in the pot.


White Cameline Sauce

You must take well-peeled blanched almonds and grind them in a mortar; and
blend them with good hen's broth, which is well- salted, and then strain it
through a woolen cloth; and set aside this almond milk, and then take the
livers from the hens, and grind them well in a mortar; and then blend them
with the almond milk and set it on the fire to cook; and cast sugar and the
juice of sour pomegranates into the pot, and white vinegar, and cloves, and
nutmeg, and cinnamon, and ginger, and long pepper, and white sugar; and all
this should be well-ground and cast into the pot so that it can boil; and stir
it constantly with a stick; and when it is thick, it will be cooked; but taste
for salt, and for flavor, and for spice, and for sweetness, and sourness; and
before it is cooked, cast in good hen's broth, which is quite fatty, into the
pot, and it must be from the juice that falls from the roasting hens into a
casserole.

Bastard Cameline Sauce
You will take a few toasted almonds. And grind them well with a toasted bread
with the livers of some fowl which they will be eating. And all this should be
well-ground, and strained with juice of sour pomegranate, and broth, and with
much cinnamon, and with a little of the other spices except saffron; and when
all this is strained, let it go to the fire. And this sauce must be
sweet-sour. And when it is cooked, cast in enough fat, and sugar and cinnamon
on top.

(Before you ask, I'm not sure how the last one got its name. In medieval
recipes "bastard" usually seems to mean a fake version, a inexpensive
substitute for the real thing. Since the only common element in cameline
sauces is cinnamon, I'm not sure what makes this version less legitimate than
the rest.)





Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
rcmann4 at earthlink.net